The room is steamy and dark. Magenta and blue spotlights contour sweaty, gyrating bodies as grimy hip-hop booms through bass-y speakers. This isn't a seedy sausage fest at a club on South Beach.
"Imagine LIV on Sunday without the drinks and without the men and enough room where you can dance your ass off. That's what the Vixen Workout is," says Janet Jones, a Miami native, former Heat dancer, and founder of the fitness sensation that is taking over the Magic City.
Vixen Workout ain't no Prancercise romp. You can take these moves to the floor. Slip on a pair of your favorite pumps and twerk.
We're not talking about those cumbersome, spread-eagle-against-a-wall booty pulsations. Women unleash their inner video vixen (move over, Superhead) during this swift, 60-minute cardio session done completely in heels to the latest hip-hop bangers. Moves like the "Dade County" and "The Milkshake" should leave much to your imagination.
"You're doing squats and abs and arms and doing it to your favorite songs that you love to dance to in the club, so you don't realize what you're doing," Jones says.
The Vixen Workout was born out of Jones' desire to feel alive again.
After trading an unbounded dance career for a slot in the cushy corporate world, the longtime dancer felt invisible amid multiple roles. She had to be fantastic in the workplace while simultaneously fulfilling domestic duties as a new mom and wife at home.
Jones was laid off and returned to her first passion: dance. She opened a new studio, Street Jamz, but it wasn't until one ratchet night at the club that her true calling surfaced.
"One weekend, I went out with my friends," Jones recalls. "They're all VP of companies or lawyers, and we're moms. So we went to a nightclub, and they put on some Rick Ross and they put on some Future, and all of [my friends] were itching to dance."
Like video vixens.
Jones thought, if these 9-to-5 strait-laced mothers are thirsty to twerk, all women must be. She wants to provide females of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds with the confidence to let loose, so when "they go home, they don't need their husbands to compliment them, they don't need to be praised at work, because they feel like they just praised themselves for an hour. Through twerking."
It wasn't an easy road for Jones to build her Vixen Army. Two people attended the instructor's first class -- her cousin and her best friend. But after a month, eight girls showed up. Eight grew to 16, which grew to 24, and now, in the class's eighth month, there are close to 100 vixens at every session.
Clappin' that derriere like Buffie the Body boasts some serious health benefits too. Students can burn 500 to 1,000 calories per class; Jones says one of her regulars shed 60 pounds. A woman on anxiety medication for ten years now gets her natural release from p-poppin till she percolates (a class staple).
"You don't get to be ratchet anywhere else without being judged," says Cristina Comendeiro, a weekly attendee.
Jones (AKA the General) will continue to grow her Society of Twerk on Saturday when she hosts "90 Minutes of Twerk Fitness Madness" at LIV. But before then, we caught up with her to get the lowdown on the seven steps to total twerk fitness. Check the cut for the list.
