Roberta Lanard

Born in Los Gatos, California, Roberta has spent her life geographically coming home to the Bay Area the same way she has mentally, emotionally, and intellectually come home to movement as a primary mode of being, learning, and engaging the world. She began her formal movement training as a ballroom dancer at the age of 11. At age 18 she began teaching ballroom, and shortly after she began dancing with her first professional partner, Jonathan Roberts, with whom she won the Professional Title in Rising Star American Smooth. While dancing with Jonathan she began cross-training in Pilates, and The GYROKINESIS® and GYROTONIC® Method. Her professional dance career continued the next nine years with three different professional Standard partners before she retired in 2006. During this time, Roberta channeled her physical energy into other movement modalities (running, ballet, and kickboxing) and her intellectual energy into earning a BS in Kinesiology from SJSU.

From the first day she began teaching in 1994 until now, through her professional career and her academic career, she’s never taken a break from teaching. Roberta has led teams at Stanford, San Jose State University, and Cal Berkeley and finds great joy and meaning in educating others in movement. Remembering how Pilates and GYROTONIC® immediately brought her new levels of mobility, stability, and fluidity all those years ago and knowing that her most competitive students needed to establish a cross-training protocol she reached out to Shannon in April 2017. Little did she know her intention to support her students in their dance journey would thrust her back into the world of Pilates and GYROTONIC®. Alongside her students she began taking regular sessions at Urban Body San Jose and in 2020 she began her formal teacher training journey into The GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM® with Shannon Bynum Adams as her pre-trainer and in 2023 completed her GYROTONIC® Foundation Course with Kathy Van Patten.  

Through the practice of many movement disciplines, Roberta believes that movement can heal. As an educator she is committed to helping people rekindle their love for novel movement and the freedom it brings to their lives. Roberta is thrilled to be teaching a method she deeply believes in while building the community she so deeply loves.