Today is the best day of the week: Dropping in Around the World! I decided that since we can’t travel these days, I am going to pop into one class a week somewhere that I would love to travel to! This week I chose to look for classes in Charleston, SC! I found this cute barre studio called Barre South that was offering a free first virtual class! I was in!
What are virtual classes like?
I had the same question when I first logged on and definitely wasn’t sure what to expect. The studio sends an email with the zoom link about a half hour before the class starts. Just be sure to log on a few minuted before the class! I was surprised to see actual people in the studio since most of our gyms in NYC area virtual or very small classes only. I was also surprised that nobody on the virtual class had their camera on. When I workout with my regular group, we all have our cameras on. It was kind of nice though since I had Ben playing video games in the background, boys.
I hadn’t done a true barre class in probably a year, and I LOVE barre! I grew up doing dance and gymnastics and barre is probably my favorite workout because of how closely it resembles conditioning. If you have ever done barre at a chain before (like Pure Barre one Barre3), you know that they all have their own style. My personal favorite is Bar Method, so naturally I compare every Barre class I take to theirs.
Barre South started with the same type of barre warmup that every studio follows. Their warmup core series though was no joke- I was exhausted within the first 5 minutes. And then, just ten minutes into the class, it froze! I thought it was me and jumped off and hopped back on zoom. The studio was gone from the zoom! I had a moment of do I just give up and call it a day or find another workout? Finally the studio popped back on the screen and I was back to working out. Unfortunately the studio was totally muted! It’s HARD to do a barre workout without the audio because barre is all about counting. I was a little lost along with the over virtual attendees, but did my best to follow along.
After about 20 minutes they figured out that they were muted and we could all hear again. I was confused by the legs section (probably because I couldn’t hear anything). The Glutes section kicked my glutes! I forgot how much I really haven’t worked all of those muscles. Barre glutes are so different than just doing squats. I made it to this part of the class and was so ready for it to be over! We moved on to a quick ab portion and finished like all barre classes do with “hip dancing”.
So do I try it?
Overall Rating: I did like this class! It was honestly tough not being able to hear for a good portion of the class, but I liked their layout and most of their exercises. If I were able to go in person, I think it would be great but still a good easy to follow along at home workout. I especially love these lives virtual classes because they hold you accountable to actually show up. The studio owner was also extremely sweet and reached out to each of us in the virtual class to let us know that she was going to credit us all with a free class to use again! I always appreciate great customer service 🙂
Try it out here: https://www.barresouth.com/free-trial
Let me know if you like it as much as I do!
xoxo
Krysta
