It’s hard to believe that in another month the studio will mark its sixth year! Since it’s opening, we have expanded our class offerings and the Albany Dance & Fitness family of students and instructors has grown. I still love my little studio and now is the time to give it a little tender loving care.

Dancers know how important the studio floor is and are familiar with the variety of surfaces that are available. Some  surfaces are better for certain types of dance and fitness classes. We have a raised floor with a foam layer under the wood surface. This  gives the floor a little spring that absorbs the shock when we  jump. I’ve been really pleased with the floor and while it’s over ten years old, It’s still in really good shape.

The one thing about the floor that I don’t like is the finish. The surface is more slippery than I would like for ballet slippers and pointe shoes. I do use Stagestep Slip NoMor to help improve the traction, but it wears off quickly and does take some time to apply weekly. (Also, my husband hates the yellowed color of the old finish. He complains about it every time he takes photos or videos for me.)

Over the past few months, I’ve done research on dance floors and surface treatments. My goal was to find a way to make our floor less slippery, yet versatile for all the types of dance and fitness classes we offer.

I took a look at Marley flooring,  which is a vinyl covering that you put over the floor. Many studios use Marley, but I’d hate to cover our beautiful hardwood floor. There’s just something about a nice wood floor. It creates a very warm and inviting atmosphere and I want students to feel relaxed and at home at my studio.

So, to keep that feel, we’ve decided to have the floor refinished at the end of June. This means that the studio has to be closed for a week, so there will be no classes June 29, 2017 through July 5, 2017.

I made a field trip to another studio that had their floor refinished and I’m confident that our floor will look beautiful and be less slippery when the work is done. The plan is for the studio to re-open on Thursday, July 6, 2017. In the meantime, I hope to continue to see you on the dance floor.