what can i expect in class?

In our classes, you’ll move in new and diverse ways to develop strength, endurance, balance, flexibility, stability, and joint health. Moving in a variety of ways is more sustainable long-term, helps to prevent overuse injuries, and keeps your mind engaged and motivated to learn new skills and grow.

You’ll likely experience games, partner exercises, and moments of improvisation in class to help you push past skill gaps and milestones.

Expect to challenge yourself in new ways appropriate for your level of experience and have fun, too.

You might work on some of the following:

• Strength and Conditioning: Developing strength, endurance, agility, balance, stability, and joint health

• Acrobatics and Handstands: Learning the basics of cartwheels, handstands and soft acrobatics

• Hanging: Increasing your strength and building spine & joint health

• Locomotion: Moving in crawling and squatting patterns on the ground to increase mobility, flexibility, and fluidity

• Movement Puzzles and Games: Improving your body awareness and capacity for learning new movements. Based on research, the more we play, the easier it is to learn new concepts without self-judgment or limitation

• Working with Partners: In most of our classes, we work in pairs and you’ll often train with another person to help improve the quality and effectiveness of your workout, motivate each other, and learn from each other. Beginner classes will ease into this, since it is different than most gyms. If you’re looking for a place where you get to know people through training together, then look no further! Teachers will supervise pairings and provide ongoing support and supervision.

What is “Movement”?

Movement is a multidisciplinary, diverse approach to training drawing from many practices (martial arts, dance, gymnastics, and more) that goes beyond traditional fitness approaches. 

Many workouts are focused on physical results like weight loss, muscle gain, etc. We’re not saying those things are wrong (and our students do have those results), but movement is more about building skills that allow you to move well in your body for life. The goal is to build a stronger, more capable, and more resilient physical body and mind. 

Here’s an oversimplified comparison:

• Fitness is usually defined by sets & reps, intervals, and a focus on isolated movements. These are usually simple exercises chosen to work one or two areas of the body. It’s linear, and sometimes even stiff.

• Movement is focused on building skills, problem-solving, exploring your mental and physical abilities, and gaining more awareness of your body. 

Through movement, we aim to give you the tools to answer questions in your daily life like:

• What are my options to move around this obstacle?

• What’s the best way to get up off the ground? 

• How can I climb over this, or lift this object?

• How can I move with more control?

• In what new, creative ways can I turn or spin?

This approach is more than just a workout. It helps you build problem-solving skills and body awareness that you can practice over a lifetime to move with more freedom, curiosity, and self-confidence.

What makes Ape Co different from other gyms or studios?

We believe in movement education for adults. Our students don’t just learn what exercises and techniques will help you reach your goals, but also why and how. With patience and dedication, you will understand what works for your body, and how to reach your goals—with tools you can use for a lifetime.

We aren’t a big box gym. We’re a small business where “community” means much more than a corporate buzzword. At Ape Co, you’re not just an anonymous number. We care about our students’ growth, and we love cheering you on when you learn a new movement or achieve a personal record. Our community of students and teachers are at the heart of our school and what makes our gym special.

We have decades of training and expertise that get results. Our teachers have trained around the globe from some of the most innovative practitioners in movement, martial arts, dance, handbalancing, and more. Because our training is potent and dives deep, we deliver results. Give us 2-3 sessions a week to show you what this practice can do for you. 

We make training fun—with purpose. When we lose play, our movement patterns change drastically. We become stiff and robotic. We begin to have pains in our bodies from lack of diverse movement. Across our classes, you’ll play games and work with partners to learn new skills and build strength in ways that feel like play, but ultimately push the boundaries of what you think your body is capable of.