AntiGravity Workout Flies in Boston

AntiGravity® has taken off in Boston. SwetStudio™, an alternative fitness studio, which opened earlier this month in Boston’s South End, is the first studio in the region to offer licensed AntiGravity® fitness classes. Founded by the world renowned gymnast and aerial choreographer, Christopher Harrison, AntiGravity ® has already swept the West Coast, New York, and Europe, and is featured in exclusive venues such as Madonna’s Hard Candy Fitness and Richard Branson’s Virgin Active. After hanging silk first emerged as a performance art, Harrison redesigned it to create the “silk hammock,” which facilitates a unique workout with inventive body movement.

“It is phenomenally cool,” says Silviya Mihaylova, owner and operator of Swet Studio™, located at 480 Tremont Street, Boston. “The first time I experienced being suspended in the AntiGravity ® Hammock, not only did my body feel like it was realigned and in balance, but it was a full-body workout.”

Now open, SwetStudio™, as featured in BostonMagazine and the Improper Bostonian, is the vision of owner and operator, Silviya Mihalova, a thirty year old fitness guru. Mihaylova, who emigrated from Eastern Europe at the age of 19, describes the studio as being an alternative to the average dance and fitness studio: “A few years ago, I wanted someplace where my friends and I could go to take classes, and when Ilooked around the Boston landscape, I could not find anything like what we have developed in the South End.” She has created a studio designed to offer cutting edge classes, and features a relaxing lounge space to “just chill.”

AntiGravity® classes at Swet Studio™ are offered by certified instructors versed in the principles, technique, and philosophy of the exciting aerial program. Says Mihalova, “Each class is designed to be an event.”

Adrianne Haslet-Davis stopped by the studio for its opening week festivities and joined Swet Studio™, as one of its newest members. A survivor of the Boston Marathon bombings, who lost a leg below the knee, Ms. Haslet-Davis is a courageous dancer and motivational speaker, who has overcome her injuries, and spoken before Congress as well as national broadcast media, and provided inspiration for those attempting to overcome adversity.

“It was truly amazing,” described Haslet-Davis of her first Antigravity class. “I feel like my whole body was stretched out. As a professional athlete, I have experienced many forms of stretching, but nothing like that. It really was unbelievable. It was the first time I tried the class, and I’m definitely hooked!”

Swet Studio™ purposely does not have a single dumbbell, and was specifically designed to be anything but average. With beautiful sprung bamboo flooring, exposed brick walls, loft-like industrial lounge space, and a club lighting system, Swet Studio™ is not your average studio.

Some of the alternative classes range from Same Sex Ballroom Dancing, to Indo-Rowing®, which captures the elements of competitive on-water rowing, where groups of people utilize water filled rowing machines, to aerial AntigGravity ® workouts, where members are tethered to the ceiling in body movement exercises synced to music.