Explore Pilates Insights for an Active, Balanced Life

Most Pilates teachers begin their teaching journey as a client. They try Pilates and soon notice how it’s helped them in some way. They learn to love Pilates and what it does for their mind and body, and a spark is lit: they want to help others with Pilates, too.  Being a Pilates teacher isn’t […]

This past summer, I taught a Pilates mat class at the gym where I got my start in fitness over thirty years ago. Would you believe that some of the people in that class have been attending the gym since it opened? I taught some of them decades ago, and there we were, together again […]

Pilates, Pilates, Pilates. Are you seeing and hearing about it everywhere, too? I hear people talking about this “new” form of exercise; perhaps a studio opened up in their city, or Pilates popped into their Instagram feed. While I love that the internet introduces people to Pilates, I hate that the algorithm will start pushing […]

The idea of going to a Pilates class can be intimidating. You may think that you need to be a certain age. It’s only for women. You have to be flexible or strong. It’s for dancers. You must wear matching sets. The list goes on. Take a look around – none of that is true! […]

So you’ve done your Pilates teacher training… What comes next? For most people, it’s stepping into teaching and building confidence in their new role. This will most definitely take time because (like any new career, hobby, or sport,) you don’t know what you don’t know until you’ve been doing it for a while. Teacher training […]

Pilates can be very difficult to explain and it has many renditions – from clinical to the original classical work, to variations of fitness that actually don’t incorporate any Pilates exercises at all. Based on images and videos you find online, one might get the idea that Pilates is for a certain demographic. Joseph Pilates […]

Whether you’re a new or experienced Pilates instructor, becoming a more confident Pilates teacher will be something you’re always going to be working on. I’ve been teaching for twenty-ish years now and feel very confident in my knowledge and ability to share it – yet I’m still learning and tweaking my own skills.  Over the […]

Have you noticed that there are certain exercises in Pilates that show up on both the mat and various apparatuses? My teacher says that her teacher (who was actually taught by Joseph Pilates,) would point out that you could tell Joe felt these movements were important and beneficial to most people. Some of the most […]

From the 1920s to today, there has been an evolution of Pilates, while other things have stayed very much the same. An excellent way to see this in action is by watching old footage of Joseph Pilates teaching. There is one in particular where he is teaching a man the neck pull exercise and his […]

Did you know that learning Pilates can improve your brain health? You might know that exercise in general is good for your mind; it is an excellent stress reliever, after all. But there is another aspect to bettering your mind with exercise, and it comes down to whether you’re passively following a routine or actively […]

There are many reasons to practice Pilates. What’s yours? Is the reason you started the same reason you keep coming back to it? For most people, their motivation to keep doing Pilates changes along the way. Here are just a few reasons people start (and keep doing) Pilates. I wonder if yours is on the […]

Years ago, when I was just starting out as a Pilates teacher and building my business, I began working with a business coach who taught that it’s important to have an ideal client avatar. Basically, I needed to understand exactly who I’m talking to. Who are they? What do they like to do? What do […]

If you’ve ever taken a Pilates class and wondered how your teacher makes it all look so effortless, iit might surprise you to learn how much goes into that role. Teaching Pilates is so much more than just knowing the exercises. Pilates Training Hours It starts with 100 hours of mat training, at minimum. And […]

If you see trendy Pilates videos on social media, you will likely notice they are filled with toned, slim bodies. (I have some thoughts on that, which you can read here.) This might make you wonder if Pilates will help you lose weight. The truth is you might or might not. If losing weight is […]

Have you ever heard the saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know”? It perfectly sums up my experience with Pilates. In the beginning, even after taking classes at my gym for a year and then doing a 40-hour Pilates certification course, I thought I’d learned so much! Looking back, I know now that I […]