We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katerina Lubek a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Katerina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory of how you established your own practice.
While I was professionally dancing in NYC, performing and training in the best dance studios I also started teaching. Although I find it very different from dancing, I always enjoyed it and I always thought of how can I make my class better.
Adults who came to take ballet lessons are all there for different reasons. Some just want to dance while others would like to dig deeper and learn the technique. There are some who also would like to improve their posture and flexibility and some who used to take ballet and want to come back to the atmosphere of a dance studio.
While training myself I found that there were more classes that offered more dancing rather then training, working on how to learn ballet, understanding body placement. And that’s how it started for me.
While I was teaching in a studio, I went to take teaching courses from American Ballet Theater and Bolshoi academy to learn how children are taught ballet. Right after I completed my certification, I’ve offered a new adult class for my management that combined pre-ballet exercises on the matt followed by ballet exercises. This class became very popular among adults because it was unique.
In 2020 the pandemic hit our lives and I lost my job at the studio. While we were locked up in the houses I started working on the idea of my own company that will specialize in ballet training for adults and classes that are helpful for ballet such as stretching or floor exercises. I created my website, came up with the company name, created logo, business cards, etc. Shortly after I also recorded my own online course for Absolute Adult beginners, a beginners’ guide for ballet “From zero to Pro”.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I started dancing at 6 years old and tried many different styles. I also tried different physical trainings including pilates, yoga, gym, boxing, and different fitness programs. I believe physical exercises is what I always have been drawn to. After years of trying different physical exercises my appreciation for ballet only grown and I realized that people can really benefit from it. My main goal for all my classes is to share with people all the benefits of ballet training such as improved body placement, strong muscles in the areas that are usually missed during other type of physical exercises and improved flexibility. When talking about ballet physical conditioning I’m not only mean the strength and flexibility of the muscles but the body placement which is posture. We all can benefit from it, not only dancer. Even if you are a body builder, an office employee or soccer player learning how to hold your back straight, understanding how to control your scapulas will help you tremendously with neck and lower back’s pains. My group ballet lessons, stretch classes and private fitness sessions based on ballet principles will all help to balance your body placement. Luckily, in our days it doesn’t matter if you don’t live in the same city as all classes and private training are also accecable online. I have a few clients with whom we successfully have private sessions over zoom even though they are located in Europe and I am in the US. I am also very exited as I see the stretching and flexibly classes becoming more and more popular among the people, but still it is something new. If yoga and pilates classes have been around for a while and everyone knows what to expect, stretching classes hold a bit of a mystery to them. Also, there are two types of stretching classes. Some are more like PT sessions, but in my group stretch classes we start with an intense work out for 10-15 mins to warm up the body and strengthen certain group of muscles so they give more freedom to the muscles that we stretch after. I also believe in “extra-push”. It is really helpful if the instructor comes and gently push you a little bit deeper into the stretch. This really helps to progress, especially for the lower back problems. Stretch classes are perfect addition to any physical training because it helps with recovery, it is a work out on its own and also it helps to balance the muscles’ development.
From my experience, I know that some people are curious about ballet but don’t know where or how to start. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I also created a beginners ballet’s guide, my online course “From zero to Pro” that is available for purchase on different platforms.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
As a business owner I think I have to learn a little bit of everything. Although now my company specializes in ballet training and physical exercises based on ballet principals, I had to learn so many things myself such as creating logo, website, flyers, marketing and so on but one of the most important field to know is marketing. We all know that marketing is important but I realized the scale of its importance and its overwhelming.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
As the classes have a certain purpose which is body placement the classes are stand out and that what builds the reputation around it. Creating a good quality and unique product is the key element in the brand reputation.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.oneandfit.com
- Instagram: balletandstretchmiami
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/100069827944440/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katerina-lubek-42500261
- Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/one-and-fit-miami
- Other: ClassPass: https://classpass.com/studios/margaret-pace-park-miami?search-id=4243606752172840 Google: https://g.co/kgs/sd4DJp Online course Ballet “From Zero to Pro” https://www.oneandfit.com/online-ballet-courses
Image Credits
Juan Pablo Zapata @jpzimage Josh Elstein @josh_elstein