About Bamboo Barre
and Founder Kashani Thomas
Kashani's love for fitness and business comes from her lifelong goal to help others fall in love with fitness by sharing her passion for working smarter and safer. Prior to dedicating all of her time to developing the Bamboo Barre design, technique and choreography she was known as one of Ottawa's few Javelin coaches and first barre instructor at iNSiDE Out STUDiO Barre. Her group classes grew a loyal following and had every participant feeling touched, taken care of and most of all, challenged.
Before becoming a barre instructor she spent years playing competitive basketball, coaching track and field and helping friends and family lead a healthy lifestyle. When she is not teaching or taking a barre class, Kashani spends the rest of her time sweating on her bike or dancing and listening to music.
Beyond barre and athletics Kashani is also a model and singer and she spends a lot of her creative energy customizing and creating greeting cards for By: Kashani.
Our Story
Bamboo Barre was created by Kashani June 2012 when an athlete she was coaching inquired about the barre fitness classes she was teaching at iNSiDE OUT STUDiO Barre. Without her wall mounted ballet barre available at the track, Kashani planted her javelin in the ground and began demonstrating popular barre poses. After successfully adapting the javelin into a temporary ballet barre she realized that if she found a similar upright support structure she could continue her barre instruction outside of the studio.
With the possibility of being able to offer mobile barre fitness classes on the horizon, Kashani left practice and went on the hunt for a new way to offer traditional barre classes. After walking isles after isles at the dollar store and passing mop poles, broom handles and other sticks, a bundle of bamboo poles was waiting to be discovered in the gardening section. Without hesitation she bought all the bamboo poles and went to two other locations to buy more. With a table saw, rubber stoppers, resistance bands and a dash of creativity Bamboo Barre was born in her basement and grew up on the beach, The RA
Centre, Dovercourt Community Centre and many other locations around Ottawa.