I believe in Pilates. I have seen and felt the difference this work has aloted me, I have worked for the last 17 years in many different fitness regimes/modalities and nothing has come close to touching the developmental gain you can acquire with a committed Pilates practice.
The Long
I have loved working and playing in my body since I can remember. As a young girl and adolescent I was a team sport athlete who played sports all year round. I remember I used to play softball for a little league team and then run over to my high school to practice for track and field, I just ran it was what I did, and I loved it. In college I let go of the team sports and picked up whitewater kayaking mostly, throw some climbing and mountain biking in there and I got myself a trifecta. Later on I picked up surfing and never looked back to what had been. Surfing is what changed the way I think about how to train the human body, I have always been fit and athletic, but after about six months surfing I noticed my body was leaner and I felt longer. Looking back I realize it is the exspansiveness on how much you are reaching out of your body to paddle on to a wave or out past the break and what ties you together ?your core!…Pilates in a nut shell.
Fast Forward a few years ...I took over a Pilates class at a wellness center I worked at teaching all sorts of fitness classes. I had no idea what Pilates was at the time but I self taught myself for a year and knew in my soul that this was my path. How did I know? It was the first time in all my years teaching fitness and health that changes were happening in a new way for my clients.The changes im referring to are balance. vitality,awarenss,strength,spinal mobility, etc... I had no idea what I was doing and yet the work was changing these bodies right before my eyes, I had to know more, I wanted to get deeper and so my journey began. Three years later I have never been so happy about a decision as I am about moving to San Francisco to study something I hadn’t even tried yet, yeah that’s right I still had not even had my own Pilates workout. After three months practicing under the guidance of Erika Groff and Susanne Staer my body was connected to my mind in a way I had never known before. The awareness I felt even just walking down the street, sitting on the train, was amazing. Not only that my whole outlook on life and how I handled stress, and my emotions changed. There was space for a new way to act, a bigger breath changed my physiological responses to hardships and I felt at ease even in those moments, things were shifting and I liked it!
I completed the Advanced Teacher Training with the Pilates Center of Boulder CO at a liscenced studio The Pilates Workshop, in the spring of 2014 and have been teaching in the Bay Area ever since. Pilates changes my life daily. My clients are from all different walks of life, ages, gender, injured, athletes, traumas, post/pre natal etc… They all teach me what it means to be a teacher and I am humbled by their faith and trust in me everyday. I am a firm believer in holding space for the person in front of me, this is their time not mine. One thing I have noticed is we are so hard on ourselves, I thrive and inspire my clients to be okay with where they are in the journey of self discovery. So often do we want to skip ahead or force ourselves into a shape that is not available to us yet. My goal is to guide you to the door and when you are ready you will open it. “Pilates never gets easier, it just get more possible.” said by the late Romana Kryzanowska.