Bizzie Gold, founder of BUTI, realized that this was the best part of exercise, the fun part. She’s created a new kind of fusion workout combining all the best parts of fitness into one.
Gold was a yoga instructor for eight years, as well as a competitive skiier. Gold’s training for skiing involved a lot of plyometrics and she began to integrate her favorite parts into a yoga routine.One injury and one daughter later, Gold was ready for her strength back and her baby weight down.
One thing she noticed was missing from her workout–and tons of others across our country–was hip-swiveling, butt-bumping grooving. Gold started researching different hip-centered forms of dance and began incorporating moves from Miami Booty Dance, Brazilian “Baile Funk,” hip-hop, crunk and African Tribal. And thus, there was BUTI.
Gold establishing quite a following in Hawaii, where she was living before relocating to L.A. A lot of women taking her classes were competitive triathletes and surfers who used BUTI as a method of crosstraining. Gold says that the program was created for very high levels of fitness and the classes can be extremely intense (calorie burn is about five hundred to eight hundred, according to Gold) but it can be tailored down to suit beginners.
Every class is approximately ninety minutes long, with a minimum of seventy-five minutes. The vinyasa is as much of a focus as plyometrics and BUTI-shaking. There is an emphasis on core strengthening (there’s the skiier coming out) and long, lean muscles are taken care of with the yoga poses, all the while building muscle tone.
This we’ve-got-everything workout flows seamlessly from stretching to interval training and back again, perhaps because of the variety of music on Gold’s playlists (she posts them on her website, too) from David Guetta’s “Love is Gone” to “Velocidade 6,” by Mulher Melancia, to Deadmau5’s “Sofi Needs a Ladder.”
The last fifteen minutes of the class are spent in a cool-down, holding yoga poses for longer periods of time. There is some core work and stretching, followed by five minutes of Corpse Pose. Corpse Pose is always a great time to focus on everything your body has accomplished in the last hour. Gold says that this reflection and boost in self-esteem is no small part of the BUTI world. The movements themselves are so sexy and freeing, and that combined with the almost inevitable improvement of your body’s physique makes it seem like that would be one giddy Corpse Pose.
So what does all this mean for us, Denver? Well, very fortunately, Gold was here February 20-22 training some very fit individuals in an intensive class to allow studios (eight or nine, including Breathe and Shakta, at press time) to provide BUTI classes to those of us whose hips don’t lie. Gold says that of the BUTI-shakers she met here, there are now eleven hired instructors in our midst. So, what say you, Denver? Are you ready to shake your bon-bon?