More than Fitness

This week I received a message from a former student of mine in Nashville letting me know she was training to be a Pilates Teacher! I was thrilled to hear this and honored that I had been her first experience with Pilates. To date I believe about a dozen of my former students are now Pilates Teachers! That really warms my Pilates heart.

Most of these folks, just like me, left behind successful high power careers to pursue Pilates. You might wonder why someone as in my case would leave behind a position as a VP at global design agency to pursue ‘teaching fitness’. The answer is really simple - Pilates is so much more than fitness. No professional award or bonus can compare to having a student tell you their chronic pain is gone and they got their life back thanks to Pilates.

When I think about what Pilates is and why it became so important to me, fitness is only a small part of that equation. I was already working out, teaching spinning, and running when I stumbled upon Pilates. Initially it was just going to be another form of cross training for me. Within a matter of weeks of beginning my Pilates practice, I saw and felt my body change and heal from surgery I had had ten years prior. I regained a confidence in myself and my body I had lost with the aftermath of emergency surgery. I stood taller, breathed better, and over time healed from the inside out. I also discovered living a life of high stress wasn’t serving me as well as I thought it was. I was on the go so much it was hard af first to slow down in a Pilates class. Once I embraced it instead of fighting it - I realized how much better I felt overall. I became happier and realized the goals I was chasing were not making me happy at all.

While this is just my story, I can share that the 10 women I went through training with all had their own similar story that had little to do with fitness and more to do with quality of life. So when I hear my former students are pursuing Pilates as a career, I am excited for all the joy that awaits them!