About STEPFIT
Most fitness feels like work, and most dance classes do not build anything. STEPFIT does both at once — the platform makes it real conditioning, the music and the choreography make it not feel like it.
Who started it
Monica Mejia and Carolina Zapata started STEPFIT in Tampa. Monica is Venezuelan, Carolina is Colombian, and the idea came out of their own frustration as much as their background: the gym had no joy in it, and the dance classes they loved were not building anything. The music in this room is the music they grew up on. It is not a theme laid over a workout — it is where the class came from.
Photograph to come
Monica Mejia
Venezuela
Photograph to come
Carolina Zapata
Colombia
The frames above are holding initials, not photographs. We would rather show an empty frame than a stand-in that pretends to be Monica or Carolina — the real pictures go in as soon as they are shot.
Why a platform
Take the platform away and this is a dance class. Stepping up and down for most of an hour is what turns it into conditioning — it lifts your heart rate and holds it there, engages your core, and works your glutes and legs continuously. The choreography is what stops you noticing. That combination is the whole idea, and it is why the two bars in our logo are a step platform seen from the side.
Casa 21
STEPFIT runs at Casa 21 Restaurant Bar & Grill on W Waters Ave, a Latin dance club that hosts salsa, bachata and merengue nights. We have the room before the club opens. That is a deliberate choice rather than a compromise: the lights, the floor and the sound system are already built for dancing, which is not true of any studio we could have rented.
To be plain about it: Casa 21 is a nightclub that hosts us, not a STEPFIT studio. There is no lobby, no locker room and no permanent STEPFIT floor. There is free parking, a main entrance, and a room that already knows what it is for. The bar is not open during class.
Where we are
The first class ran with fifteen people in the room. Classes go up as they are confirmed, each one a single date rather than a standing weekly slot, and the instructor roster rotates. That is what a new studio actually looks like, and we would rather show it than dress it up.
