When Feng Siran is not working his regular job, he's dancing for a living.

The 26-year-old from Beijing is juggling two careers — one as an e-commerce operations manager, the other as a dance instructor at a gym in Haidian district. As a result, his life is run like clockwork. He wakes at six in the morning and orders an Americano coffee to be delivered before heading to the gym to give his first dance class 90 minutes later.

Students take part in a zumba class in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. CHINA DAILY

"I consider it a warm-up for the day," Feng said. At the gym, music blares from a stereo and Feng, tall and limber, instantly becomes the center of attention. He nimbly moves his body to the beat while giving his students instructions and interacting with them.

Feng mainly teaches jazz party, a dance genre he considers relatively easy, but which has movements that improve posture and burn off calories. "I enjoy the class, especially when I see the smiles on their faces and get positive feedback," he said.

After the 50-minute morning session he heads to his job as an e-commerce operations manager.

He manages to squeeze in another dance session during his two-hour lunch break, and ends his day with two back-to-back night classes.

"It's dancing that makes me disciplined and good at managing my time," Feng said.

Movers, shakers

In recent years, gyms have picked up on the rising public demand for dance as a form of exercise, and are rolling out a range of different classes and recruiting more professional dance instructors.

Yan Hao, who is in charge of dance class operations at the Hilefit gymnasium chain, said the number of people attending dance classes has been continuously increasing. For example, the dance class enrollment rate in May 2023 was 6 percent higher than in November 2022.

"The demographic is getting younger, with the majority of members being young women," Yan said. "The classes often reach full capacity, and it has been a frequent phenomenon for people to rush to enroll, sometimes resulting in classes being fully booked within seconds," Yan added.

At the moment, dance classes comprise more than 20 percent of all group classes at Hilefit, said Zhou Denghong, who is in charge of the group classes.

Dance genres featuring freestyle K-pop, street, and jazz elements have been developed to help novice dancers. "They cater to the needs of customers who love dancing, but have zero foundation," Zhou said.

K-pop dance classes are popular with female clients who love the allmale and all-female pop idol groups from South Korea, Zhou said.

The gym also offers a dance that combines zumba and body jam styles. "It targets customers who lean toward fun exercise through dancing, and makes up more than 15 percent of all classes," Zhou said.

Compared with many other popular pastimes, dance classes have a strong social aspect. Members share common interests in music, dance moves and filming their activities, Yan noted.

Hilefit has organized at least 10 large-scale public events that offer dance sessions, including one at a sports carnival in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, in June. "Dance classes were in demand and were mostly fully booked shortly after they were made available during the carnival," Yan said.

Dance sessions held during the carnival were broadcast online and attracted over 800,000 views on the short-video platform Douyin alone.

"We received requests from users expressing their desire for more dance classes afterward," Yan said, adding that more traditional gym trainers have started to learn how to become dance instructors to meet the rising demand for classes.

"It's exciting that an increasing number of male dance teachers have emerged in our system," Yan said.

Hilefit said it will continue to upgrade its dance classes, and introduce new ones to satisfy its customers' needs.

"We welcome professional and outstanding dance course brands and research and development teams to contact us for in-depth cooperation," Yan said.

Li Qian, co-founder of the dance genre known as pop dance, is now working with multiple fitness chains including Hilefit and Keepland, as well as some primary and middle schools, to offer the dance in more than 30 cities nationwide.

"Most of our members said the classes help them blow off steam and cheer up," Li said.

She is surprised that many men and middle-aged and senior people have joined the pop dance classes.

Li believes most people can easily learn the dance moves and feel like a "superstar" while burning off enough calories to stay in shape. She believes this combination of factors is why the dance is growing in popularity.

"Pop dance covers diverse styles and updates every three months to incorporate the latest trendy music and dancing elements," Li said, adding that all the moves they include in the lessons are based on class members' preferences.

The full measure of the public's enthusiasm for the dance genre was witnessed at recent dance promotional events at Peking University and open space plazas in Beijing, Li said. "The tickets sold out within seconds after they were released," she said.

Many of the pop dance trainers are part-time. Li said she also encourages them to create their own style based on the essential dance moves and added they should enjoy being innovative.

Jiang Weichen, 35, became a full-time pop dance instructor in 2021 after quitting his medical equipment business.

He studied and trained in dance at college, but didn't choose it as a career.

His business wasn't doing well when he started dancing again at the gym. "It rekindled my passion for dance, which brought positive energy back into my life," said Jiang, who lives in Beijing and works at gyms in Changping and Chaoyang districts.

Many of his dance students have become his friends.

"They surprised me by bringing cakes to the class on my birthday, and seeing them enjoy my class has given me confidence to carry on with my new course in life," he said.

Jiang gives two to three classes a day and almost all of them are fully booked.

"I want to become a coach for trainers in the future, and I believe there's huge potential in the business, as people are paying more attention to fitness," he said.

Feng, from the Haidian gym, says he makes time every week to take four to five advanced dance training sessions for himself. "I'm still a novice in the business. Many of my teachers have danced for more than a decade," Feng said.

"I will keep exploring different dance genres and express myself through multiple platforms and hopefully evolve into a warrior on the dance floor," he said.

Brimming with self-confidence, Feng says he is a far cry from the person he was four years ago when he started to learn dance shortly after he graduated.

He said after work he had nothing to do, so he would lie on his bed and scroll through "mindless" social media.

But at some point he remembered his childhood dream of learning how to dance and decided to give it a try.

"I had never danced before, but I always knew I wanted to dance because it would allow me to express myself," he said.

He first signed up for lessons at G-Steps, a franchised street dance training facility in Beijing.

"My four limbs were rigid and I could not catch up with the trainer's instructions," he recalled.

As he carried on, he began to enjoy the beauty of the art form, building up his dancing strength while interacting with people who shared his interest.

"I felt empowered and motivated when other students would sit on the ground and watch me dance," Feng recalled.

The student-teacher role was reversed, and in April 2022 he started giving dance classes at multiple gyms, including Hilefit and Super Monkey.

"I could feel members' passion for dancing classes, and afterward many of them would approach me and tell me the dance moves look really nice," Feng said.

As he enthusiastically pursued his interest, significant changes happened to the way he looked at himself as he transformed into a dancer.

"I could barely look at myself in the mirror at the beginning," Feng said. "But now I can't keep my eyes off the mirror. I can delve deeper into each move and work out all the nuanced details," he said.

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