Class: Semi-Private Training

Location: Weho

Work-out: pilates

Difficulty: 3.5

Next day soreness: 4

Duration: 60 min

Sweat Level:  Moderately Sweaty

Parking: metered street parking, small tandem lot behind studio (fits 4 cars)

Amenities: Towels provided, water fountain with cups, shower

Requirements for class: socks or barefoot

I won a semi-private training session at Ballet Bodies through their Instagram contest a couple of months ago and I came here with a friend. My trainer was Kate Highstrete who teaches the ballet stretch class and is also a dancer with the Los Angeles Ballet. She was great at listening to your needs and individualizing. Even though there were two of us, she was still able to personalize some of the moves for us depending on our strengths. And for a fan girl moment, I also think it’s cool that Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Miranda Kerr and Rosie Huntington-Whitely are all part of Ballet Bodies’ normal private-training clientele.

The class consisted of work on two reformer pilates machines (not the M3, but I believe these were the standard kind). Normally, you can go in and tell your trainer if you’d like to have a specific area of focus, but we did full body. We started with leg work that focused on inner thighs, then moved to abs, arms, glutes, calves and finished with a stretch. BTW, my thighs are BURNING today!

It’s nice that Ballet Bodies offers the option of doing semi-private with a friend so you can both push through the pain together. When I told Kate that I felt like I was bulking up from taking too many megaformer classes, she offered the insight that maybe I was doing the group class exercises with too heavy weights (since group classes are not modified to the individual and I am on the smaller side). Light bulb! I’m going to have to remember to adjust going forward. Overall this was a great experience, and I’ve loved all the trainers I’ve had at Ballet Bodies. If anyone is seeing Don Quixote by the Los Angeles Ballet, be on the lookout for Kate! And in case you guys were wondering, the move in the picture above was not part of the normal private training lesson :).