When Gayle Boxer-Duncanson decided to re-name her dancerize and pilates practice at St. Cuthbert’s Church on Bayview Ave. she turned to what some might think was an unusual source for advice. Her clients. It’s the kind of involvement with the people who seek her help that has sustained Gayle Force Fitness as essential part of life in South Bayview for some 32 years. Gayle Force is the name chosen on the suggestion of a client and then a popular vote. The client won a whole year’s worth of free classes. Today Gayle animates and excites her classes personally as she has always done with more than 100 clients joining her each week in the spacious and brightly lit Lamb Hall extension to St. Cuthberts. It was Gayle who brought both dancersize and pilates to Toronto from New York, where she began her career as a fitness instructor. It was in New York in the early 80s that she became a registered pilates instructor. Gayle’s biography tells us that she graduated from the National Ballet School and began her own dance school. In the language of previous chroniclers of her career “she proceeded to — not just blaze a trail through Toronto’s fitness community — but to actually light the match.” Gayle was among the first to teach fitness in the City. Gayle’s preoccupation with the body and muscles remain the key to her practice in a time of the ever-growing predominance of “exercise” and “jogging”. She is concerned about the amount if running and working out people do without stretching to protect the muscles. An important part of the Gayle Force practice is the family feeling created among clients. Gayle encourages it and even sponsors group outings to the ballet and other related activities. Gayle Force indeed.
