When Janne Oubre started coming to Dance House Fitness a year ago, she was 31 pounds heavier.
“I decided I needed to better my life, mentally and physically,” says Oubre.
Her workout playlist now includes multiple trips to the dance floor.
“It’s about empowerment, doing the best you can, there’s no judgment,” Oubre explains.
As for the actual playlist, owner and instructor Jenny Sanchez says it’s easy to pick a favorite.
“Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy,” she says emphatically. “I absolutely love it. It’s on repeat.”
Sanchez opened DHF two years ago, adding a second studio in the Heights earlier this year. It’s closed on Sundays, but offers classes at both locations the rest of the week. Instructors keep you moving, grooving and sweating in workouts intended to give you a dancer’s body.
Sanchez’s energy and encouragement are what bring students like Oubre and Carla Dawson.
“She absolutely gets every age and stage that’s coming,” says Dawson, who admits joining a dance fitness class as a 50-year-old woman was “outside my box.”
She says learning the new steps can be a challenge, but the hardest one was making the decision to come in the first time.
“My biggest fear was what if I don’t get it,” Dawson says. “Then I realized no one’s looking at you. Everyone’s worried about their own thing and it’s so much fun.”
For more information about Dance House Fitness, click here.