I walk into Club One Fitness anxious about putting my lack of coordination on display. And when Hip Hop Hustle instructor Jordan Rose walks into the room, I know I’m in for a serious butt kicking. The 22-year-old trainer is a fitness guru at Club One. He’s certified to lifeguard, and he’s certified to teach Turbo Kick and Hip Hop Hustle classes in the pool, too. When Top 40 hits start pulsing through the speakers in the studio, my intimidation kicks in, and I drop back a few steps and try to follow along with the upbeat movements.

Relax, unwind, and find your center with the WHIRL Yoga Guide. Studios around town are filling us in on the newest trends, locations, and classes, where we can achieve the best balance of fitness, spirituality, and fun.

Full-Month Fitness

After a diabetes diagnosis and two victorious battles with cancer, Olga George, KDKA assignment desk editor, vowed to get healthy. “Life is like boxing to me. I’m a heavyweight, so I’ll take some knocks, and keep on going.

The chipper attitude and warm smiles on the faces of everyone in the studio at Schoolhouse Yoga’s South Side location, stretching in preparation of the afternoon Kundalini yoga course, is warming on this cold winter’s day.

It’s a quiet afternoon inside Andora Restaurant in Green Tree, right before the dinner rush. The tables are set, servers in place, and the lights dimmed. But in the back dining room, decorated with soft cream and brown paint on the walls and lush fabric on the chairs, owners Julie and Michael McMullen, along with daughter Chloe, pose for family pictures — something they weren’t sure they would be able to do less than five years ago.

An hour after my cardio boxing class at Amerifit has ended, my left arm still feels like gelatin. A brutal series of two-minute punching combinations, interspersed with one minute “rests” of wall sits, half-squats, and abdominal work, made for the hardest workout I’ve had in an embarrassingly long time, and I loved it.

Taylor Swift starts her Speak Now tour!

I’ve been told that I should try to learn something new every day. Over the last month, I’ve been learning new things about myself by doing yoga, and while it wasn’t something new every single day, the things I have learned will last for the rest of my life.

I haven’t slept in years. Well, I’ve gone to sleep — or at least tried — but I haven’t gotten a good night sleep since I was in middle school. Thanks to school, sports, work, and my never-ending struggle with perfectionism, my brain has refused to shut off for almost nine years.

For the last few weeks I’ve been going to Yoga Flow’s new Shadyside location (located on Walnut Street above J. Crew) and I have in love with the rhthymic movements that make up the Vinyasa Flow Yoga sequence.