Hi, I’m Shay Kostabi… and every class I teach, consult, or coach is driven by one question: How can I make people feel something they’ll never forget?
MEET SHAY
How it started
I moved to New York City with a BFA in Performing Arts and a plan to make it on stage. Then life hit hard. A season of grief and depression kept me indoors, and in that fog I made a promise to change something. I walked into a 90-day weight-loss test group, lost twenty-two pounds, landed in a Beachbody DVD, and six months later found myself leading five hundred people through a workout on the Las Vegas strip… thinking, Maybe this is where I’m meant to be.
The pivot
A late-night decision (made from the bathtub) nudged me toward group fitness for good.
Certifications followed, but the breakthrough came when I traded a front-desk job at a tiny studio for a spot spraying shoes at Flywheel.
Six months later Flywheel bought the studio, and I begged for a mic. They gave me one (and a creative team role) because they could feel what I was trying to do: turn class into an experience.
My growth era
I hosted pop-ups, toured with Beachbody, became Fabletics’ first brand ambassador, shot Nike campaigns, and launched livestream workouts when livestream was still experimental.
It looked glamorous from the outside, but I was holding too many torches. I was tired. I lost my voice (literally and artistically) and realized I could do anything, but not everything.
That pain became my teacher. It asked me to focus on what mattered: music, storytelling, flow, and the emotional arc that makes a room feel alive.
A return to roots
Back in LA, I started consulting for boutiques, writing curriculum that blended choreography, production, and psychology. I flew to Taiwan to re-train a massive franchise, expanded into China, and eventually taught or coached on four continents. Everywhere I went, the same gap appeared: instructors knew what to coach, but no one was teaching them how to move people.
Suddenly my BFA made perfect sense.
The GXC is born
During lockdown the world pressed pause, so I hit publish. I pulled every framework I had tested behind closed doors for elite brands and built the Group X Conservatory, an online school devoted to the artistry and neuroscience of unforgettable classes.
Six live cohorts, countless beta testers, and one obsessive feedback loop later, the Conservatory became the first membership that goes deep into voice, musicology, flow state, and radiant presence… the things you can’t get from a cert alone.
“I think this is the most meaningful training module I’ve seen in thirty years in the industry.”
—Gerry Salmon, Founder, REVL New Zealand
Why I’m the guide you can count on
Decades of stage and studio. I have coached or mentored more than fifteen hundred instructors, built programs for global brands, and trained talent who now lead rooms I will never even see.
Art meets science. Dance, music theory, flow-state research, and behavioral psychology live side by side in every lesson I teach.
In the trenches with you. I still audit classes, give live feedback, tweak playlists, and test new frameworks in real rooms. Nothing I teach is hypothetical.
Heart first. Group fitness saved my life before I ever led my first class. I will never forget that, and I will never let you forget why your work matters.
What I believe about you
• You are more than a rep-counter. You are an artist of energy and emotion.
• Your voice can command a room, call people forward, and change someone’s story about themselves.
• When you master the craft, you get to lead a career that fuels you instead of draining you.
• The future of our industry depends on instructors who make people feel something real.
If any part of that rings true in your gut, you belong here. I built the Conservatory so we can protect the soul of this work and pass it on together.
