Seven years ago, Pilates saved me from the darkest moments of my life. I was 19 and so dang sick. After years of blissfully sitting in the passenger seat of my own life, Pilates gave me my power back. It strengthened my knees and healed my soul. All those years ago, Pilates was my only reason for getting out of bed.
I was in pain.
I was mentally weak.
I was emotionally broken.
My life at the time was difficult. I rarely take myself back to those days because quite frankly, I blocked those hard years out…the years I let arthritis + lupus have control. I played the passive victim. Things very much happened to me… not for me.
Then one day, I woke up wanting and needing more. I was a stay-at-home daughter…my only job was to heal my body from a neurotoxic adverse reaction to a medication.
That’s the day I found Pilates.
I could lay down. My joints didn’t hurt. I was out of bed. I was meeting people. I was laughing.
Six months after practicing Pilates, I signed up for the 500-hour certification that would alter the course of my life. (I’m forever thankful to the studio owner who saw my potential)
Pilates is the reason you are reading this.
Pilates, to this day, is still the reason I get out of bed in the morning.
Pilates is about connections. Connection to the mind. Body. Spirit. It’s where I connect to you.
Now seven years later as the instructor, Pilates allows me to read you, to scan your body. I know everything about you in the first 15 minutes of class. The way your feet turn in on the footbar. The way your hips are a quarter of an inch out of alignment. The way your face changes when you stop using your abs and move into your neck on the 100.
I see it.
I feel your energy. I use your energy to my advantage. I pull from your humor, your hard day, your untapped strength.
Some days I’m going to push you. I’m going to take you so far out of your comfort zone you forget there is a world beyond the four walls of the studio. Moving meditation. Class will be the fastest, most fun and freeing fifty minutes of the day.
Other days I’m seeing you need a recovery. A slow and stretchy flow. You need a feel-good story, a soft playlist, and the classical order.
It is my job to create connections. I want you to connect with your breath. I will ask you to connect your mind to the muscle we are working on. I want you to connect with me, the person next to you and the friendly smile at the other end of the room.
My job is through these connections to create a community. I hope when you leave my class you know the people in the room are cheering you on. I hope you leave with five new friends, myself included.
I create an unfiltered environment, a space to vent or share or brag. Let us help you through your struggles and celebrate your milestones.
There is something magical that happens the second we lay down on the reformer and let go. We exhale and release the day.
I can tell you, I have never laughed harder or smiled bigger than I do in that room with my girls. People I didn’t know existed a little over a year ago are my first thought in the morning.
I think about their healing back injury and their daughter’s first day of kindergarten and how their new puppy is sleeping through the night.
They have become my peace. The girls, my clients turned friends, have given so much more than they will ever know. They allow me to be authentic, unfiltered and unapologetic.
Pilates is the single greatest gift I have been given in life.
Make good choices. Look both ways.
I love you the most,
Katie
