IT’S ME HEATHER LEA PRESENTS our dance-ex format collection:
EXCLUSIVELY ONLINE FOR INDIVIDUALS & SMALL GROUPS of 3
Functional Body Training
™
As we age, we must turn movements we do as part of daily living into active exercises. When we add resistance, we are functionally retraining our mind-connection to control these movements. Aging brings changes and surprises. Let’s embrace those things by staying strong, feisty, and confident!
Country Cardio®
Country Cardio® is a really fun full body dance-exercise workout to country music that incorporates Signature Steps, the use of hats, and Heather Lea's Flex Ropes™ to further stimulate, strengthen, and tone the body’s core, arms, and legs by adding resistance.
Ballet for Real People™
Ballet is a beautiful expression that begins from the inside and radiates outward through the entire body. And like any complex physical discipline, it’s important to also learn how to work safely and effectively by applying principles of alignment and movement fundamentals:
When to Work // When to Rest // How to Balance // How to Move and Jump
Ballet Body Sculpt™
Want a Ballet Body?
Concentrating on ballet’s unique positions and movements, Ballet Body Sculpt™ uses Heather Lea's Flex Ropes™ to strengthen and refine the body’s alignment via resistance work.
LET'S DANCE & GET THAT BALLET BODY!
Stand Bend & Shake™
The premise of Stand Bend and Shake™is simple, but you’ll be surprised how challenging this workout can actually be! Add Heather Lea's Flex Ropes™ to increase resistance and cardiorespiratory training for the ultimate challenge. Concentration is on breathing, form, and sustaining both from start to finish. Stand Bend & Shake™ is a cardio format for those who want to sweat, but feel overwhelmed by choreography.
Sit & Shake™
Sit and Shake™ is the modified format of Stand Bend and Shake™ using Heather Lea's Flex Ropes™. It encourages participants to engage in cardiorespiratory and resistance training while remaining seated.
Ropes & Balls™
Ropes & Balls™ are the tools! Using Heather Lea's Flex Ropes™ and core stability exercise balls, this workout focuses on exercises to improve balance, strength, and flexibility. Fluid movement and breath work involve the entire body to extend through full range-of-motion.
Synergy
for
Seniors™
&
Active Adults
Synergy Means: Working Together
Everyone needs variety and support, so working privately is especially ideal for a senior or active adult client to establish principles of corrective training. Small groups are a great way to share the experience.
We want to feel in control! We want to feel safe!
We want to feel great! We want to enjoy ourselves!
Moving thoughts From Your Gravity coach
I feel very strongly about two things: form and resistance. Without them, we’d just fall down into a sad saggy mess. Yet, we have an amazing orienting structural gift here on this planet and it’s free: GRAVITY! And I’m here to help you become Gravity Warriors to reform your body using resistance tools on top of that lovely free resistance tool, gravity. Why? Because survival in outer space without resistance is all an Astronaut can think about ... and survival here on this planet with resistance is all we should think about. We must be ready!
RESISTANCE: The impeding, slowing, or stopping effect exerted by one material thing on another.
My experience
A LITTLE dance HISTORY HIGHLIGHTS
I’m considered a Master Teacher, having traveled the world to teach: Theatre an der Wien, Tanz Gesang Studio in Vienna, Disney World Master Classes, Pineapple in London, Studio Dancin’ in Osaka, Stephens College in Missouri, Steps, Broadway Dance Center, Peridance in NYC, Ruth Page Center for the Arts in Chicago. Studying with Finis Jhung, and later, his Teacher Training in New York, Fine Art-Ballet at the University of South Florida, and Film at the University of Central Florida have all contributed to my education and teaching expertise.
As a dancer for over 6 decades, I'm still working and teaching professionally! I’m a Veteran Performer of Broadway, West End, Film & TV. I studied ballet, earning an AISTD in the Cecchetti Method and am thrilled to have danced classically with The Florida Ballet Company. When I moved to New York, ballet continued, but I took a turn to musical theatre and landed my first Broadway show: the Revival of West Side Story. Copperfield followed, then the lead in Bob Fosse's Dancin' on London's West End, and later, the London cast of Cats as part of an American/British Actors Equity artist exchange program. Did you know that I'm one of the Original Dancers in the film Dirty Dancing? Did you know that I taught Dirty Dancing classes across America after the movie was released? Truth.
GRAVITY SPEAK
FORM and FUNCTIONAL execution
In terms of longevity, I believe it’s essential to concentrate on the fundamentals of how to move safely by consistently applying proper form during activities. As the body changes over time, functional movement requires forethought - thinking more about form and what needs to be supported to achieve functional execution - and working using resistance helps connect these applications of form and resistance with intention.
Resistance is a very interesting word and concept to me, because it can represent both tightness and withdrawal, feelings that seem to encroach as we age, but when used functionally, resistance training is an empowering method that leads one toward flexibility and a broader self-confident perspective.
As we age, it’s important to develop a new dialogue with ourselves - our own channel of functional communication that makes us feel safe and confident as we continue to move our bodies on a daily basis. By concentrating on form and adding resistance, we feel just how to control these activities and movements. The inner feeling we experience as we do the work is a strong mind-body connection. The work is often challenging enough that it becomes a training tool, thereby defining your own personal channel of Gravity Speak, grounding you, giving you control, thereby adding greater safety to your activities.
GRAVITY WORK
DANCE EXERCISE MEETS FITNESS
I am NASM/AFAA Group-Exercise certified and a NASM certified Senior Fitness Specialist. Since I've been dancing and teaching dance for decades, the most natural progression for me was to find a way to bring dance and exercise together for my clients as a means of functionally training the body with resistance: by infusing it with the flexibility and fluidity of dance movement.
My Fitness Work Goal is to help you improve your muscle strength and endurance while safely adding resistance intensity to stationary training and cardiorespiratory training in a predominately low-to-zero-impact dance-exercise experience. To simplify, in terms of our Gravity Work, this means that activities and movement we do naturally without forethought, we now do as structured exercises using resistance tools and methods.
We accomplish our goals via my unique and dynamic collection of dance-exercise formats all under the Functional Body Training™umbrella.
ARE YOU interested in a VIRTUAL PRIVATE OR SMALL GROUP SESSION?
WANT MORE INFO ABOUT OUR NEW LOCAL CLASS?
CONTACT Me
Let’s discuss YOUR TRAINING PLAN
client-speak
Hi! My name is Jenn Bowman and I’m an actor and I work with children. I wanted to share my experience today working with Heather Lea Gerdes, and specifically, her Functional Body Training format. What Ms. Gerdes is able to do is truly exceptional. I’m a tiny little lady with hip and knee issues and I’m not always able to jump into a workout or training because of these things. Heather has created a program that she tailored just for me!! Having recently done a workout with her that I was convinced would have me in pain and exhausted the next day … and that didn’t happen! I felt great! I look forward to our next session! ~August 2020
Learn the Ropes. Dance. Have a Ball!
Heather Lea Gerdes is a Master Dance Instructor
AISTD, Cecchetti Method, ISTD
NASM/AFAA Certified GFI
NASM Senior Fitness Specialist
Insured & CPR/AED Current