Friday Lunch Disco Fitness in Leuven: Why I Went Solo

Why I stopped chasing partnerships and started Friday disco myself

There’s a special kind of optimism that comes with hitting “send” on a carefully crafted email and thinking, “This will be the one.” That was me earlier this year, trying to grow Groove Fitness beyond Sunday, Monday and Wednesday by partnering with existing organisations in Leuven.

On paper it made perfect sense: they already had the people, I had the disco & soul. A neat shortcut to a disco fitness class in Leuven for adults who love classic music.

That’s not quite how it went.

Phase 2: when “just add a partnership” looked sensible

I call this Phase 2 of Groove Fitness: the bit where I thought I could bolt my joyful, slightly eccentric project onto other people’s systems.

The logic was simple:

find organisations already working with mature people, offer them a fun, low-impact dance fitness class, let everyone win, and avoid building every single time slot from scratch.

So I started reaching out. Emails, follow-ups, a few promising replies. And then the reality started to show.

The non-profit that was already “full”

One of the first places I contacted was a local non-profit VZW focused on activities for older adults. They already had a completely full dance fitness class. Brilliant, I thought. These are my people.

I suggested we explore adding a Groove-style session. The initial response was friendly.

Then… silence.

No drama, no big disagreement. Just that soft “no” you can hear in the quiet. A reminder that even when the fit looks perfect on paper, organisations have their own rhythms, politics and full schedules. And that’s okay.

But it also planted a question: how much of Groove can I really bring into someone else’s structure?

The gym with all the numbers

Next up: a branch of a popular gym chain in Flanders. On the surface, this looked promising too. Their daytime timetable had gaps, my Groove crowd is mostly 40+, and we’d already had some friendly chats.

Then I started looking properly at their website.

Everything was performance metrics, before-and-after stories, body measurements, “results.” Very normal for a gym. Completely logical. But as I read through it, I had a small internal “hang on a second” moment.

Groove Fitness is almost the opposite of that.

I don’t track anyone’s numbers. There are no leaderboards. Nobody gets congratulated for “smashing” anything. The win is: did you move, did you smile, did the music do its job?

If I tried to squeeze Groove into that environment, one of us would have to compromise. Either I would start quietly shifting towards the performance mindset, or my class would feel like the oddball in the corner. Neither sounded great.

Realising what Groove Fitness is (and isn’t)

Those 'conversations' weren’t failures; they were data.

They reminded me that Groove Fitness isn’t just “a dance fitness class.” It’s a very particular kind of space:

• For people who love classic disco & soul and want to move without being judged

• Where you can adjust the moves to your body and energy that day

• Where the atmosphere matters more than how many calories you burn

If your idea of a good time is heart rate zones and weekly progress charts, there are plenty of brilliant places in Leuven for that.

But if you want an hour where the main objective is “enjoy moving to music with like-minded souls,” that’s the gap I’m trying to fill.

And the more I thought about it, the clearer it became: I can’t expect other organisations to magically share that ethos. If I want this kind of class to exist, I probably need to build it myself.

So I’m starting my own Friday lunch disco in Leuven

Which brings us to the next experiment: Friday lunchtime at SportOase Heverlee.

In December I’m testing two free Friday proeflessen at 12:00 (12 and 19 December). The idea is simple: a disco & soul dance fitness class that works for people who work from home, have flexible hours, or are simply free during the day and like the idea of ending the week with a bit of movement and music instead of another sandwich at the desk.

It’s not about performance. It’s about a regular lunchtime slot where you can move, laugh, and leave feeling a bit more alive than when you walked in.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, you can book a spot for the Friday lunch trial classes via the website:

class timetable and Friday proefles page.

And if you’re just curious about the broader story of Groove – why it exists, who it’s for, and how it all started – there’s more on the About Groove Fitness page.

Hope to see you on a future dance floor.

Richard, Chief Groove Officer 🪩