ST. LOUIS - The women inside the Webster Groves, Mo., studio looked as though they were channeling Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Baryshnikov and any of a dozen Hollywood starlets who have long, lean torsos (think Gwyneth Paltrow).
They stood, feet apart, abdomens sucked in, punching the air with their right fists. Their left hands were raised to their left ear in a protective manner as instructor Kristin Dabney egged them on.
"Cell phones, ladies. Keep your left hand up near your ear," she yelled over thumping music. "Punch, punch, punch, punch."
The air inside The Scoop - A Pilates Studio was taking a brutal beating.
Piloxing is the latest group cardio exercise craze. It's an interdisciplinary program that combines the sculpting and flexibility of Pilates with the power, speed and agility of boxing. It also adds a healthy dose of dance moves including hip-hop, salsa and especially ballet, requiring immense core strength, balance and coordination.
In Pilates, all movement should begin in what practitioners call the powerhouse - the hips, abs, lower and upper back, buttocks and inner thighs - and flow outward to the limbs. That explains why many of Piloxing's moves have controlled, ballet-like movements that work the lower body.
When Joseph Pilates created his fitness program in the early 20th century, he initially called it Contrology, and his first students were dancers who helped build on his ideas. Piloxing was created by Viveca Jensen, a Swedish dancer and trainer to Hollywood celebrities, to "physically and mentally empower women through fitness."
Dabney teaches Piloxing at Washington University's recreation center during the school year and says it's been wildly popular with students.
"We've had to limit the number of people in the class," she said. "They're really interested in anything related to boxing."
During the Piloxing class at Scoop, Dabney led the class through a routine that went from boxing and hip-hop moves to squatting with the knees turned out into a modified plie, as in ballet. The participants raised their left legs repeatedly in a controlled manner, first out in front, then to the side and finally to the back.
Then they switched to the other side and did the same. 
Sometimes they ran in place with choppy, rapid-fire foot falls while punching quickly. Several women wore weighted gloves to help tone the arms and maximize the cardiovascular effects.
Dabney, 45, yelled and whooped throughout the class.
"I've never taken Pilates, so I was going in blind," Nicole Dalton, 19, of St. Louis said afterward. "But I'll definitely be back. It was so much fun."
Angel Deatherage, 19, of Oakville, Mo., has taken Pilates but said she still had a difficult time in parts of the class.
"I kept losing my balance and falling all over," she said.
"You know, I could balance way better on my right side than my left," Dalton added.
Boni Lang, 62, a Pilates instructor at Scoop, has taken three Piloxing classes and says it gets with practice.
"But oh, my god, it's hard," she said. "I found that when the (music) beat picked up, it required a lot more coordination."
Pilates practitioners believe precision is essential for the exercises to be done properly and to reap vital benefits.
"Pilates movement fundamentals help you find your balance and recruit your muscles more efficiently," Dabney said. "But there was one woman at the JCC who is a workout fanatic, and she said every muscle in her body was sore the next day. You recruit a whole set of muscles you don't use in other workouts."
She compares building muscles with Pilates and Piloxing to opening a Russian nesting doll from the inside out - you start by working the small internal muscles in the core, which help with balance, and move outward to larger muscle groups.
"And as we age, that element of balance becomes more critical, so it's pretty important for everybody," she said.
Photo two: Emily M. Rasinski/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT Exercising doing pilates.
