Ballet and karate? It’s a kickin’ sweat
EVEN at West Hollywood’s Studio Soma -- a fitness studio that hosts classes such as “Prenatal Pilates” and “Pole Funk,” a tutorial in hip-hop pole dancing -- the new exercise program known as “Balete” is a bit of a head-spinner. So it was a good thing I arrived ready for a new challenge.
The brainchild of professional dancer-choreographer Whitney Shannon and “extreme” martial arts world champion Mindy Kelly, Balete is, just as it sounds, a hybrid of ballet and karate. Combining the graceful steps of the first with the kicks and punches of the second, all on top of upbeat music, this “total body workout” is a tricky endeavor. Not since the 1985 film “Gymkata” attempted to blend gymnastics and ninjutsu -- and ended up simply making audiences cringe -- has anyone attempted such a bold mix of athletic yin and yang. Never one to begrudge Reese’s for putting peanut butter in my chocolate, however, I jumped into the class, which Shannon and Kelly have been offering for about a month.
Arranged to the beat of indie dance-rock acts such as Daft Punk, the first half of the hour comprised a series of yoga-like stretches and exercises -- Rockettes-style kicks here, power punches called “plies” there, a “cobra” stretch at the end. It was actually quite a workout. But with the gregarious Shannon leading by example, the timed movements were, at least, quite easy to follow.
Then it was time to begin the fight sequence, which I discovered to my relief would involve only simulated contact. Broken down measure by measure by Shannon and Kelly, and employing the same moves with which they’d warmed up the class, it was a cinch. My classmates and I memorized the “A” routine pretty quickly by counting off the steps in time to the music: punch right, punch left; dip, dip; pivot, turn; lean, duck; kick right, kick right; kick left and then whip out the ol’ jazz hands and howl like Michael Jackson, whose “Beat It” was providing the rhythm.
After learning the “B” routine -- a mirror image of the aforementioned sequence -- I paired up with the only other male in the six-person class, Michael DeCastro, a 28-year-old martial arts enthusiast. And trying not to giggle, we got jiggy with it. The results, frankly, were pretty silly. Suffice it to say that we had nothing on the infamous reenactment of Jacko’s “Thriller” in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines (check out YouTube for some of the funniest prison high jinks since “Stir Crazy”).
Nevertheless, I had so much fun faux-fighting and, indeed, throughout the unpretentious workout, that I almost forgot I was sweating, a fact that bodes well for Balete’s future.
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-- Liam.Gowing@latimes.com
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BALETE
WHERE: Soma Studios, 630 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood
WHEN: 10 a.m. Tuesday and noon Saturday
PRICE: $20
INFO: www.thelab-rx.com