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My Body

Jennifer Brugh on Dancing in Sneakers and Water Bottle Service

Jennifer Brugh is a dance instructor and the founder of Nightclub Cardio.

Nightclub Cardio came out of a personal need. I wanted a fun way to work out. I always dreamed of going to a night club and wearing sneakers and workout clothes and just letting go, dancing and sweating without worrying about heels and makeup. So finally I just called a friend I knew who had a club and asked if I could bring in DJ and do a class. Now we’re a sold out weekly event in two states.

We get about 125 to 150 people per class. People love it because it’s dark and there are no mirrors. It doesn’t make you self-conscious like the gym. We attract all types of people. I’d say the ages are between 12 and 62, and it’s men and women of all sizes. Families are starting to come now too.

We have bottle service with speciality waters in the champagne buckets. So it’s a true nightclub experience but instead of wearing stilettos you wear sneakers, and it's at 6:30 at night instead of midnight. We’re on our tenth month now. We started in Houston and expanded to L.A. about a month ago. Our next markets are Miami, New York and Atlanta.

A lot of exercise classes out there right now, they’re very hard to follow because they’re very heavy with choreography. You spend more time trying to figure out what you’re doing than you do getting a workout. We’re very simple. When we play 80s, we do Flashdance Maniac, so we do the dance from the movie with the fast feet. And then we breakout and free dance to Nelly or whatever, then we go back to some exercise. Then we do Soul Train Line. Then we do Cardio Conga Lines all around the club. It’s all easy to follow.

I love any sort of sport. I love to dance, that’s my #1 passion. I’ve done ballet. Ballet was my passion, and it’s wonderful, but Nightclub Cardio is different. To be able to get out and fully express yourself through dance, there’s nothing else like it.