I’ve never had a bad Bar Method Studio workout experience.

As it turns out, there is a choreographic genius to the orchestration of the Bar Method Studio workout, and you recognize it from the drop of the first downbeat.

And the effect is intentionally designed.

The birth of this brilliance? In the mind of Bar Method creator Burr Leonard.

Choreographic genius

Each and every opportunity for me to work out in a Bar Method studio has been anticipated and enjoyed not for just the workout that I get, but for additional reasons.

Reasons for which you can describe the effect, yet not always nail the reason.

In brief, Bar Method Studio workouts leave you feeling:

1. thoroughly worked out, head to toe
2. strong
3. stretched
4. centered
5. focused
6. like you effectively used every minute
7. complete, as a well-balanced meal.

A conversation with Burr Leonard

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at length (right after attending a class taught by her) with Burr about the Bar Method system.  I asked her about, among other things,  the design behind the scenes.  The choreography of the workout and the delivery of instruction that result in such a positive and powerful experience for those in class.

As a matter of fact, though our conversation addressed many questions, that was where I started.

Which, as you’ll see from the interview notes, pleased Burr enormously – as that is her favorite topic of discussion and ongoing development within the Bar Method programs itself.

It is fascinating to see the intention behind the design of these workouts.  A deeper appreciation of the process – and effect – is the inevitable result.

This interview excerpt (part 1 of a series)  is from that part of our conversation.

Lani Muelrath:  I’ve never had a bad Bar Method experience.  Your system – and I think that’s your signature – besides the way you put the workout together – is the way your workouts are choreographed.  You feel like you get to put all the attention on the exercise and YOU (the instructor) creates the space –  the delivery of the mats, for example – how did you come up with all of that?

Burr Leonard:  Hmmm.  Well, you’re asking me about my favorite subject.

There are really two elements to the Bar Method that I think are unique among barre-based workouts.  And one is that we’ve designed the workout – we’ve worked it logically to be as safe and hard as possible.   And as we worked on getting it safer and harder, we realized that those two aspects – components – actually go together.  The safer it is, the less it hits the joints and the more it hits the muscle.

I mean, a very simple example would be reverse push-ups.   When I inherited reverse pushups from the Lotte Berk Method, they were performed with the shoulders forward of the hands, and the legs straight.  And our physical therapist told us that separating the arms from the shoulders and putting the weight on the arms is not good for the shoulders.   And then we discovered when we brought the arms next to the back in alignment, our body weight fell right over the muscle and made it much harder.  So in that exercise and many others, we’ve tweaked the exercises to be better and harders.

And then second, we worked on getting all the “holes” out of the class.  The little places where people yawn, and adjust their ponytail and take a glass of water, look at the clock, and think about lunch.   Our goal is to involve people’s minds 100% in the workout, from moment one to moment…you know, the last minute.  And they kind of wake up, and say “Wow! That went by fast!”

And so we work –  part of the [instructor]  training is called “flow”.  And there are really two components to “flow”.  One is transitioning the exercises,  so that the last beat of one exercise is the first beat of the next exercise.  So there’s no looking around the room waiting for the next thing to happen.   You may notice that one key moment is the transition into thigh.  So  as soon as the stretch at the bar before thigh ends, we train our teachers, as that second leg is coming down off the bar, you push the button, and the thigh music begins…

Lani Muelrath: So you’re fully engaged….

Burr Leonard: …the music is going bang, bang, bang, so you’re (breath in) ” wow!  We call it interlinking.  Interlinking the sets.

And the second way we do that is in between the sets we have a counting rule.  We have 13 or 14 counting rules, counting technique.  So it keeps the students involved.  The counting rule is to interlink the subsets.  And the subsets are the ten slow, the ten medium, and the ten fast.

So, the ten slow would be 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8.., next ten faster, the last 20 really fast.  So we don’t say “9. 10. and…”  Now when your thighs are burning, shaking, and dieing, we don’t want to hear “9. 10. AND …uh oh!  That little…when you’re in that zone of challenge, the least little second is going to feel like forever.  So we never, we never LEAVE them for one second.  We’re always  with them every second.

And this is moving into the teaching technique that we’ve developed over the last, almost 20 years.  And, um, there are other elements.  Orientation – we have 14 “orientation rules” we call them.   And we teach the teachers to always face the students.   I mean more that face the students, eye contact.  Always looking around the room.  So even when we’re demonstrating an exercise that calls for facing into the bar, we’re not facing into the bar. We’re facing them.

Watch for part 2, coming soon!