The GFX of the week – Raise the Bar!

The latest buzz is to get a buzzed – after busting your ass off.

Are you a little bit sad that you almost always (or at least quite often) miss out on social activities and events because you’ve chosen to commit to your training?!

Would you like to replace your after workout snack such as smoothies, wolf berries and acai berries (and what ever it is that all the it-healthy-bloggers claim that they are having) to a glass of wine or a cocktail and some easy going mingle once in a while?

Well – in that case – you are definitely not alone of feeling that way.
A up an coming trend in New York City is to establish concepts as “Bootcamp and Beer” or “Workout and Wine” on the regular fitness schedule.

Rogue Female Fitness is only one of the studios that’s going all in for this happy hour-workout-concept and with the class Raise the Bar they address to women in their 20s and 30s who are fed up to forgo happy hours, afterworks and any kind of social events to go training every night.

– Fit women shouldn’t have to miss out on happy-hour socializing, says the founders of the studio.
It starts with a class of high intense training, cardio & toning,  followed by an after work-out mingle. Sweat, socialize and network with a bunch of like-minded

– We look at it as fitness for the real woman who really enjoys her life on both ends of the spectrum and isn’t willing to sacrifice either fitness or fun, says one of three founders of the studio about the concept in an interview online.

And – they seems to do pretty well, since they launched the concept about a year ago, they’ve expanded.


Train hard – play hard? 😉

BIKINI-birthday!!

Unnecessary knowing; today the bikini turns 66!!
Happy Birthday! 

Are you wearing your bikini with pride this summer?
Did you prepare somehow for the bikini season – and if so, how?
Or – are you prepared all year around cause you never know when to jump in to this two piece outfit?
Share your best tips and thoughts with me.

 

The GFX of the week – Flo-Yo

One of the hottest trends right now in the US is Flo-Yo = Floating Yoga = Yoga on a paddleboard.
It may sound weird – but it looks awesome.

From the “simple challenge” to be able to stand on the board while going from one point to another, the regular stand up paddle boarding (SUP) have developed into doing full yoga sequences on the actual board.

The classes are led by an instructor and all together, you paddle out to find a calm spot. Well up on the spot – the actual yoga session can be anything between 30-90 minutes. Obviously the classes are a bit smaller than if you go to a gym or studio.

From a class at Key West Stand Up Paddle Board Yoga in Florida, which is one of the places that offer classes in this hot fast growing trend. (pic borrowed from TODAY Health)
This is huge trend on the east coast, and it starts to take off on the west coast as well.

A celebrity who is said to like Flo-Yo is Jennifer Aniston (who seems to be in to trends in general I’d say – it’s quite often she is mentioned when it’s something related to new fitness & training trends)

Equinox magazine wrote an article online about paddleboard yoga recently – and here you can see the video they published along with it, with Equinox Yogi Dice Iida-Klein from LA, going all in out in the Hamptons.

KRAFT, a power convention!

Are you up for one more cool event tips? Can you take it?

We’re living in a busy world and it’s a lot of fun stuff going on out there. And, there will be more to come (which is just awesome, I think)
Today, friday, at noon the registration opens for a brand new event this fall.
Kraft Event, in Karlstad (a smaller city about three h train ride from Stockholm).

October 27th & 28th is the weekend when this event will happen, for the first time ever.
I will be there and present three master classes; Urban Jazz, BODYJAM® which I’ll be teaming with my home girl Dorotka, and then finally BODYBALANCE®.
All my classes will be held the first day, saturday, and I hope to see a lot of you dance – and training – freaks out there.

It’ll be 44 different presenters, and some really awesome presenters I’d say.

I believe there’s an early bird special as well – sign up before july 31st and you’ll have a discount.

Kraft means POWER in swedish.
I’m looking forward to a pure power weekend.

One BEATZ ahead…

More events are coming up = more dates to mark in your daily planner!
The next BEATZ dance event will happen august 25th.
We’re about to [hopefully] enjoy two extraordinary and absolutely amazing hot summer months before that – and summer will continue after as well.
But saturday august 25th is the date when we figured it would be a great time to get back in biz, BACK 2 BEATZ!

Mark that day with a phat D – as in DANCING!!

Red Bull Flying Bach!

I have yet another hot tips for you guys.
That is, if you’re in to cool dance performances, obviously.

Red Bull organizes this dance event – Red Bull Flying Bach – that comes to Stockholm in October, 12th & 14th to be specific. (20th & 21st in Göteborg)
The breaking crew Flying Steps interprets J.S Bach’s classical music and delivers (so I’ve been told) a kick ass performance, at konserthuset.

Red Bull will start their big promotion for this event in mid august – but you can book your tickets now already, if you wanna make sure to get a great seat.
I’ll be there sunday the 14th – maybe I’ll see you?

Summer in the city…

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, I haven’t really spent a summer in Sweden for several years. Instead I’ve been hanging out in NYC the past years, if not the entire summer (and longer) at least for the main part of it.
For several reasons we’ve decided to stay in Stockholm most of this summer.
If swedish summer does happens – which doesn’t seems to be the case right now though – Stockholm is pretty unbeatable with the light [almost] 24/7, the water, my beloved Kings Island. Etc.
However, a summer in the city (New York City that is) is pretty priceless too.
I LOVE being in the city during summer. It’s so many cool summer events going on, a lot of people, the energy is still there even though the pace is a bit different.
Everything doesn’t shut down just cause it’s summer – which I think Sweden can learn from.

It’s magical feel to stroll around a hot Manhattan and feel the summer vibe of the best city in the world.

So, for those of you who will hang out in NYC this summer – here are a few summer-event-tips if you don’t know how to activate yourselves.
New Yorkers loves all kind of bargains, fo shizzle – and when they can get stuff for free.
So all of these tips are totally free…

Peridance offers free classes in Union Sq Park. Thursday evenings all summer you can sweat outside with fellow dancers.

Summer Streets is a recurrent event. Three saturdays during summer more than 11 km (7 miles) of the NYC-streets are shut down for people to walk, run, bike, play and just hang out at.
Crunch use to collaborate with this event and put up an outdoor stage, sound system etc. and take the opportunity to promote some of their hot classes. One of my summers in the city I presented my Tribal House class at several occasions at Summer Streets.

Both NBC’s Today Show and ABC’s Good Morning America offers free live concerts every week all summer – with some pretty great artists. So if you’re a morning person – check it out.

And if you’re a bit of a musical nerd, but to cheap to buy a ticket for the real deal – you can go to Bryant Park, thursdays 12.30pm. Then it’s an hour medley of performances from different Broadway Musicals.

Finally, the Bryant Park film festival. Old classic movies every monday night in Bryan Park on the big lawn. Bring your own blanket, food, beverage and mosquito repellent. I’ve been here a few times over the past years, and if it’s good summer night it’s a really cosy hangout.
 

If you want more NYC tips from me, lemme know!
And if  you’ve got some cool summer-of-2012-in-Sthlm you wanna share with me – lemme know!
Doesn’t have to bee for free, LOL!

The GFX of the week – POUND.rockout.workout.

The first GFX is a new trend, from the US (of course) and it’s called Pound – Rockout. Workout.™, or just simply POUND.

Two female drummers from Los Angeles, CA are behind this concept.
Their fitness background is mainly based on a lot of pilates training. Now they created like a  cardio sculpt class, inspired by exercises from pilates – where you use lightly weighted drumsticks, Ripstix™, (drumsticks that will get you ripped) which they invented for this workout.
You work yourself through different muscle groups to uptempo music – which can be anything from rock to rap to dubstep and pop, etc.

You can do POUND in three formats, POUND – which is a 45 min workout and then POUND30 and POUND15.
The sequences are pre-choreographed, but I don’t know how detailed though.

Crunch gym have had exclusivity on this class, but I think the ambition is to spread it all over the US.

I got a glimpse of this class during my last NYC-trip.
My personal opinion:
The actual workout may not be the most efficient or ‘functional’ but you’ll get sweaty for sure.
The participants looked really happy and in to it while they were drumming and squatting at the same time.

If you wanna work on your rhythmical skills, but in a super easy way – this is awesome. I can imagine – if it’s a really big crowd where everybody are pounding with their sticks –  it’s a bit of a trance feel, where you get to feel like a real rockstar drummer that’s in the zone.

I actually saw this dude in the back, that maybe not were the fittest dude in the room – or even looked like he normally would visit a class (or even the gym) but he was into the drumming part for sure, and in the short breaks between the tracks he dribbled and showed off with the drum sticks. He’s definitely found his thing.

If you wanna try the class – visit a Crunch gym the next time you’re in the US.

If you wanna read more about POUND – visit the website.
If you wanna see what it looks like – take a look at this video.
http://youtu.be/2pCILV8tsqw

Kristin – my awesome friend teaches this class at Crunch gym in NYC.
She’s a rockstar and she can make any class a success. How ever, she’s mainly a dancer and not really in to “news” just cause it’s new, or sculpt/weight training – but she does like this workout, and she talks about it really committed and passionated.
Which definitely shows and rub off during class.

New Series on the Blog!

Yo people!
Time for a new series on the blog, don’t you think.
This time one called the group fitness exercise of the week = the GFX of the week.
It can be a hot new trend, or a class that already exists and rocks, or maybe a class that undeserved ended up a little in the shade.
How about that?
The first post will appear here on MONDAY! Stay tuned.

With this song I just want to wish you a happy midsummer if you celebrate the holiday that is – and if not let’s just celebrate summer and an awesome upcoming weekend.
http://youtu.be/rAR9o3Rexp8

And if that track makes you like; hey what is this – and what’s that Step Up Revolution thing?!
Is it another Step Up movie with a bit poor contents but yet a must see since it’s a dance movie…?
Yeah, it is!

Jazz up the weekend!

Thursday = Jazzday, and I’ll teach my classes. Come and jazz yourself up before midsummer.

We will continue on the new routine from last week.