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Barre

Stretch, strengthen, lengthen, and tone – no dance experience required.

MINT barre combines elements of ballet technique, Pilates, and yoga to give you a low-impact, high-intensity workout to both strengthen and stretch your body in a fun, safe environment. Appropriate and accessible for individuals of all fitness levels, ages, and body types, MINT instructors will work with students to tailor the workout to your individual needs. It’s challenging, it’s effective, and best of all, it’s one of the many studio classes that come free with your membership at MINT.

At MINT, you don’t sacrifice your favorite cardio or strength workouts for access to Barre classes, and vice versa. Our Barre program will challenge you in new ways, creating long, lean bodies while delivering a great workout.

Unlimited barre classes are included with MINT class-access memberships or our class packages program.

See Barre Schedule

 

Meet our Instructors

Bretton Keating
Bretton Keating

Bretton grew up with a love of movement, particularly through dance. She began practicing yoga in middle school, and took her first yoga teacher training course in 2012, at which point she assisted classes for one year prior to teaching Vinyasa-style yoga in 2013. In 2014, Bretton began teaching yoga full time and returned to her dance roots, completing her barre teacher training at Spark Yoga. In her yoga and barre classes, Bretton uses creative sequencing and an intuitive approach to encourage students to listen to their bodies, grow stronger, and enhance their potential to move with greater freedom and ease. She practices Mysore-style Ashtanga, and dances ballet, modern, and jazz as often as possible.

In addition to 200-hour E-RYT, Bretton is certified to teach Kids Yoga and Kids Zumba. She is also a Reiki healer (Usui method, Levels I/II). When not on her mat, Bretton loves to paint, cook, and hike with her dog, an Indian rescue.

Connie Deshpande
Connie DeshpandeBarre, Pilates

Connie has been active and leading a healthy lifestyle at least since the days she tried to keep up with her physically fit Mother and friends as they power walked through the lush trails of her home in the Midwest. While never making a career out of fitness, Connie was inspired firsthand by those who did like Corey Everson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cameo Kneuer, all whom she met while working at both Warner Center Health Club and Joe Weiders’ Health and Fitness—publisher of Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Shape and Men’s Fitness living in southern California—a long, long time ago!

No matter what Connie has done professionally, she has always made time for her love of fitness and for helping others dig deep to reach their fitness goals. While in college she taught weight lifting and high impact aerobics. While working full time and attending graduate school here in Washington, DC she picked up ACE, AFFA and personal training certs. Even when she worked 24/7 in 1996 on the US presidential election, she escaped religiously for an hour each day to get her fitness fix. Connie attributes keeping her calm demeanor during the chaos of a presidential campaign to keeping sacred that hour to sweat and decompress. In 2010 Connie discovered Les Mills International and became a Body Pump and Body Flow Instructor and fell in love with the concept of muscle contraction (lifting) followed by muscle elongation (Body Flow).

Shortly after, Connie was trained in the original Lotte Berk Method (Barre). Today Connie teaches various fitness formats including Barre, Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, Body Pump, Body Flow, Kickboxing, Plyometrics, Boot Camp, Cardio Strength, Tabata, F.I.T.T., Extreme Abs, Shred Step and more! In between professional deadlines and the active lifestyle of her 10 year old, Connie trains clients 1-1 on a referral only basis at her small studio where she’s helped high school boys and girls as well as senior citizens and everywhere in between reach their goals to live a healthy lifestyle.

Hillary Zeiss
Hillary ZeissPilates, Barre

Hillary Zeiss is a full-time barre, pilates and yoga teacher within the DC area. She never uses the same sequence twice, often borrowing from other conditioning systems such as Alexander Technique, Franklin Method, and Feldenkrais. To her, mind-body conditioning is not just a workout, it is an insurance policy to keep the body whole and safe, a way to make all movement efficient and meaningful.

Jeannie Baumann
Jeannie BaumannDance, Doonya

Dubbed “The Queen of Cardio,” Jeannie is a master trainer for Doonya: The Bollywood Workout, which she has been teaching since 2010. As part of the Doonya team, Jeannie can be seen on The Today Show, Dr. Oz, WUSA9, The Washington Post. She also has performed at the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Fiesta Asia, Arts on Foot, at the Indian Embassy as part of Passport DC. Jeannie is an AFAA-certified group exercise instructor.

Jennifer Hopkins
Jennifer Hopkins

Jennifer has been teaching fitness in the DMV area for nearly 10 years. With an extensive background in dance and movement, her specialty is spotting where clients initiate muscle movement and guide them towards more efficient and effective exercise. She is Group Exercise certified through AFAA and comprehensively certified in Pilates from Power Pilates’ flagship studio in NYC. With this knowledge, she creates various forms of total-body workouts. Whether Pilates, weight lifting, barre or cardio, her class will always focus on the 360 body; not just reinforcing what’s already strong, but building muscular structure through each part of the body for better results. In her class you’ll always find good music, some smiles, some winces, encouragement, and (hopefully!) a will to come back for more!

Laura Trejo
Laura TrejoBarre, Yoga

Laura is a 500-hour Yoga Alliance registered teacher trained in vinyasa yoga with prenatal and toddler training certificates. In addition, she studied at the Kripalu Center with Nischala Joy Devi for a Yoga of the Heart certificate to learn to adapt yoga practices to the special needs of people living with heart disease, cancer and other health challenges.

In addition, Laura is a NASM-certified personal trainer with a Corrective Exercise certificate, a black belt in tae kwon do, barre/mat and reformer training certificates, and a Center for Integrative Medicine trained reiki practitioner.

In her barre and yoga class, Laura addresses muscle imbalances so that her students can gain strength where their muscles are weak and flexibility where their muscles are tight. As an added bonus, it is Laura’s intention that her yoga students will experience the best night sleep of their life as she cultivates calm minds and hearts in her students through relaxing music, essential oils and breathing exercise.

Mariam Sufi
Mariam Sufi