I had lunch today with two of my besties, my girls are Ms. Pilates and Ms. Yoga. For us, these practices are only partially about exercise and a whole lot more about having a weekly practice to deal with the stress and to find a way to locate our centers and quiet our minds. Don’t ask me why, but it seems like all my (few) friends are in crazy high stress industries too… maybe we are all just looking for someone who we can think of as crazier than ourself in an attempt to feel a little less crazy!? Hmmmm.  My pals, Ms. Pilates and Ms. Yoga are not fans of ballet by any stretch of the imagination.

“When you said dance lessons, I thought you were going to take something awesome like belly dancing or pole dancing. My pole dancing classes were really fun.”  ~Ms. Pilates

“I didn’t like that movie. It didn’t make sense.”  ~Ms. Yoga, referring to Black Swan

“How the hell are you supposed to know what’s going on, there are no words!”   ~Ms. Pilates

“Wait… the Nutcracker, isn’t that the one that they do at Radio City Music Hall?”  ~Ms. Yoga

At this point my head is literally in my hands and I am considering the need for new friends. Now if you want to know the truth, I am a WAY better sport than Ms. Pilates and Ms. Yoga because at least I tried pilates and yoga with them! But this is how it went…

Yoga:  Really awesome zen studio with incense and chimes and a water feature… there is cucumber water and green apples and little woven cubbies to put your shoes and stuff. I dig. The teacher is some ageless woman who can somehow manage to walk despite obviously not having any bones anywhere in her body, the way she can twist around in pretzel like positions that would impress the Cirque de Sole people. Remember that I’m here to find center and to quiet my mind… less than 15 minutes in and here’s a peek in there –

~Happy mountain sun dog baby what??? This is not natural, actually this is kind of obscene. Am I supposed to be sort of upside down… whoa, whoa, whoa, dude put some tighty underpants on! don’t look to the right don’t look to the right. did he just fart?! ah, I looked! should my hand be going to sleep? I can’t feel my little finger… or my thumb. This incense smells like catholic church. Did I lock my car? Did I lock the front door? Did I leave the coffeemaker on? Oh, it turns itself off. I could really go for some coffee. And a bagel. Dog what? The dogs really need a bath, ah I hate the parking at the groomer. I hate the parking at this yoga studio…~

Yeah, that’s about 30 seconds worth of thought in yoga class. Here is pilates…

Holy crap! Have you seen some of the “equipment”!?! A pilates studio looks more like a medieval torture chamber than a gym! It’s a semi-private class with only three other students. It’s sort of like floor barre only on bizarre equipment and with a teacher all up on you and when she says “put your feet in the stirrups” I practically head for the door. These are not words  a normal woman wants to hear with any regularity unless you are on a horse in a stable. Period. But what really concerns me is that one of the other students is a pregnant woman. I have nothing against pregnancies and babies per se, I just don’t need babies to suddenly occur on my watch. I once had a very pregnant intern who thought that it would be helpful to let me know what to do if she went into labor at work and I promptly informed her that what I would be doing would be placing a call to 911 and then to building maintenance for any subsequent clean up that might be required. Ms. Scarlet, I don’t know nothin’ about birthing no babies! I spent pilates class with one eye on her and one eye on the door. Needless to say, by the time pilates class was over I was a stressed out ball of knots.

Ballet: The studio is nice, though lacking in the fancies of the yoga and pilates studios. It’s a heck of a drive across town in LA traffic turning my 1hr class into a 3hr time commitment, three times a week turns into nine hours and an extra tank of gas. And parking… well, its LA where really great safe free parking is an urban legend.

My brain in ballet class: 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Keep the arm in front. Stay centered. Drive down through the ball of the foot. Square, square, square. Turn out, turn out.

In ballet class my feet almost always painfully cramp up, I’m tired on the verge of sore and completely sweated thru but when I leave ballet class, I feel energized and happy. I have definitely left a bunch of worries at the door and more often than not I don’t bother picking them back up again on my way out. Yoga and pilates may work for other people, as for me, there is nothing like a ballet class to get back to my center, focus my mind, and charge up my energy! And to my friends, Ms. Pilates and Ms. Yoga, I say…those light up hooker shoes were hideous, that movie had nothing to do with ballet, you don’t need words when you have the beauty of movement, no, that’s the Christmas Extravaganza at Radio City, and ballet rocks!

So… despite the tragedy of center in my last class, I decided that I needed a barre at home. Why limit the hilarity of my attempts to dance to public displays of crazy when I could practice my completely laughable moves at home too!!! So Carboy & I hit the hardware store and came home with an armful of galvanized pipe and gas line.

What you see below is one 6-foot section of threaded galvanized pipe, two 3-foot sections of threaded gas line, four 6-inch threaded galvanized nipples, six elbows, and two Ts. Just make sure the diameters all match. We literally put the barre together in the aisle of the hardware store to ensure that all the sections fit. The lengths of the pipe also reflect a size that fits me and my space available for dancing in my dining room.

*Note: We discussed using PVC but decided that a small diameter would be too flexible and a large and more stiff diameter would be uncomfortable because I have small hands. We only used a mix of galvanized pipe and gas line because that was what was available in the sizes we needed at the Home Depot. The result is kinda cool looking because my barre is now silver and black in color.

This is actually super simple and once you have all the correct parts takes less than 20 minutes and all you need is a wrench to tighten up the attachments.

Okay, here goes… take four of the elbows and the four nipples and screw an elbow onto one end of each nipple. Like so…

Awesome. Take the 2 tees and screw a nipple into each side, like so…

Voila! These are the feet of the barre. Now to add the legs, take the 3ft (or whatever size works for your height) and screw them into the top of the T.

Easy peasy, almost done! Screw on the remaining elbows onto the 6ft length (or length of your choice) for the top or the actually barre part of the barre…

All that’s left is to screw the “barre” into the elbows on the legs and tighten up everything!

It’s a good idea to clean the whole thing because it’s bound to be dusty and/or a little greasy from the hardware store. But there you have it, your very own portable barre.

I have hardwood floors but if you don’t have a flooring that is conducive to dancing, may I suggest a trip to the remmant section of a flooring store, a nice little square of dancing floor can be had for super cheap!

Happy dancing!