The Origins of the Bar Method

As principal of Our Lady of the Lake Catholic School in Lake Oswego, Oregon, Corrine Buich oversees all aspects of curriculum development as well as staff and student management for a K-8 institution with strong Roman Catholic ties. In her free time, Corrine Buich stays fit by practicing the Bar Method, which works nearly every part of the body through calorie burning and muscle shaping interval training.

The roots of the Bar Method date back to the mid-1900s. Its founder, Lotte Berk, was a celebrated ballerina who settled in London after fleeing Nazi Germany. In the wake of a back injury, she developed a comprehensive and intensive strengthening and stretching program that mixed therapeutic exercises with elements of the ballet bar routines that she had practiced for years.

Finding this routine extremely beneficial in her recovery, Lotte Berk decided that it could help others overcome injuries as well. She opened her own studio in the West End of London in 1959. Several decades later, Berk’s student Lydia Bach purchased the rights to the Bar Method and opened an influential studio in Manhattan. From this studio, the Bar Method rapidly spread throughout the United States and around the world.