In the ’90s, when I worked downtown, I used to squeeze in midday workouts, lifting weights and taking step classes alongside the loan officers, land use planners, and legal secretaries who made up the lunchtime group fitness crowd. For a brief golden age, our favorite instructor, hands-down, was Ken Gilbert, who taught a high-impact aerobics class that left us all elated — and exhausted.
When I reconnected with him decades later, I was delighted to learn that Gilbert is still a fitness leader with a following of students just as devoted as the old lunch bunch. These days, he teaches Nia dance and Pilates classes (barre, standing, and seated) and also offers private Pilates sessions in his own studio space, all at the Dance Hub.
To see where Gilbert’s fitness journey had taken him, I decided to check out a Nia class. Nia was created, Gilbert told me, “as a rebellion against the repetition of high-impact aerobics,” which reigned over the fitness world in the ’80s.