Been very late on this since I visited the studio last year in October before the Chicago Marathon. In fact I visited 2 studios during my trip to the US.
In Times Square, the studio is about 10 minutes walk from here.
It was 1997 when I first visited NYC. Already 20 years later back to the place, I realise that it did not really change that much only that I could see more Asians there. As usual, this city felt very strange and out of the blue for me , especially Manhattan, because everywhere inside Manhattan are buildings. Now looking at them, it seemed very old now. A lot of the buildings like Empire State building etc, were build a long time ago, so they felt a bit out of place at this era. At the same time, I had been visiting places in Asia more and most of the countries have started to develop especially China. China has really changed very much. With most of its main cities filled with large, tall sky scrapers.
My grey hound bus to NYC
Brief Introduction
Recep area
Body and Pole is located 115 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001, United States. I will say its more like in between downtown and midtown. The entrance to the studio is at level one itself, like the Taiwan Dazzling pole. The entrance itself is really quite spectacular maybe because in Singapore most of the pole studios does not spend the effort to dress up their reception. Body and Pole has a full time receptionist handling all the students when they come to class. All your classes can be booked and paid online. For first timers, you need to log on and register with their database at the reception. There are quite a few studios in the school. Besides pole they also have aerial arts like hoop and silk.
They have a huge team of instructors with long experience in the area of dance arts and gymnastics. They also have an academy for those seriously going to pursue a career or doing pole at the professional level.
Studio Structure
Sofa Seating area
The studio is really well equipped. They have proper shower places and a toilet area for changing. On the second floor, there is a sofa area where the students can sit around to wait for their class or do some warm up first. When I went, the weather was still not so cold yet, but I could see the heater and heating systems around, and also air conditioning too.
Second floor area
My studio
changing area
Hoop or Lyra Class the first time
Doing a simple lay back
I have never done any other aerial stuff other than pole and aerial yoga. It tends to get a bit scary if you are doing it for the first time, when you are not used to suspending in the air. Most people will panic, I did for my first pole class too, especially going on upside down and away from the ground . It does help that I was already doing pole so not so scared about mounting on to the hoop.
This time round I took one Hoop intro class. The teacher was Rachel, she has a lot of experience with Hoop. Could see from her arms and tighs , strong muscles. There were only 2 other students in the class, we did the basics like mounting and dismount. A couple of tricks like laid back, the archer , many of the concepts of hoop is similar to pole.
Being a small class I was able to get corrected and given tips by Rachel directly. All the students get their try on the hoop and also we spot each other too. There were also crash mats to prevent injuries. We also did many conditioning moves before attempting the tricks to prevent injuries.
Overall
I would say I am very impressed with body and pole because the studio is very well organised and signing up the class was easy without having to go through any hassles. The instructors were also well trained and they were very clear on what they were teaching. At the same time they were able to correct your moves and give you tips to improve. I paid 25 USD for first time class, which I thought was quite okay judging that it is in US. If you happen to be in NYC and would like to do some pole ,this studio is highly recommended.