What Is Your Story That Led You To Pilates?
So I got into Pilates probably about ten years ago. I have always done ballet so I started to use it as cross-training and used it throughout high school. I did a lot of those old mat Pilates videos and then in college I had a back injury that led me into equipment based Pilates Reformer classes. That in combination with some other stuff really helped me correct my back issue and also just felt a lot stronger in my art form…
How Long Did You Wait To Start Your Pilates Teacher Training?
I think I knew in college I eventually wanted to get certified in Pilates, I’d say probably my junior year. It took me about three years because in college I was just too busy to get certified. Then after college and after working for a little bit, I found CORE and everything aligned for the right time of life to really invest in getting my Pilates certification…
What Other Pilates Certification Did You Consider?
So I as far as Pilates certifications go, I did do my research. I looked into balanced body certifications and I looked into a couple training programs in Seattle that were more classical based. I eventually ended up picking one based on location because I wanted to move to Austin and had found CORE. I also thought I didn’t exactly want such a classical base, I wanted something a little bit more contemporary. I’ve been to several Pilates studios where the teachers had a range of trainings, so I knew balanced body would have also been kind of similar to what CORE offers in the sense that there’s a lot of focus on anatomy, which I really enjoyed studying in college as well. So that is what led me to do this program, which I feel like helps me to be able to work with a range of clients. Not just give someone a good workout but give them a good workout and help them build lifelong habits to have a good posture and to take these kind of good postural habits outside of the studio…
What Did You Know About CORE’s Teacher Training Program Before Starting?
So before starting the program at CORE, I ended up talking to Brandi, who has been a teacher here for a while. She was just really nice because she was super personable and we had both been in Mississippi at one point. So I think just hearing about the program that way, just from someone who had personally done it was really helpful. She just talked about how there’s the physical therapy aspect of it, hearing from Stephen who’s a physical therapist and then Cheryl who just has such a long time in this field, like 20’ish years. I’d say that that sold me on it. Before I started the program in the next year, I came in December and I took a GYROTONICⓇ session to just get a feel for the studio, which helped me out a lot…
What Would You Say To Someone Hesitant To Start Their Pilates Journey?
For someone that is thinking about starting their Pilates journey, I would say you can start and just enjoy the process. For my time of life I was really able to like jump in and just kind of knock it out. But for someone that might be a mom and have kids, it’s still something I would say it’s such an investment in yourself… which has been huge for me. It’s just a way to feel so equipped to help others which is really life-giving to serve other people. I would say don’t be scared about the time because you know as long as you set realistic expectation for yourself, maybe it takes you nine months to do the training and then it takes you another year, year and a half to get those hours in but that doesn’t mean you did it wrong. I think as long as you create a plan for yourself that’s realistic with where you’re at and how much time you have in life…
What Did You Enjoy Most About Our Teacher Training At CORE?
So I genuinely could not be happier about the teacher training program here at CORE. Honestly, just working with Cheryl was incredible. She is so invested in her students, invested in helping us to know how to help other people but she also cared about us as people. We would have kind of like workshops, she’d workshop with someone like, oh let’s help your back feel better or let’s help your ankle feel better. Just to see the kind of investment that she put in us. Then also, just the group of ladies that I did the course with was so fun. We gave up a lot of weekends. I had a lot of long weeks where I would work and then go straight to a weekend of training and work all week again. It made it really fun because we would just laugh and also work really hard and it just felt good to move my body, so it was really fun. I just feel like I came out with such a wealth of knowledge and a desire to continue learning…
What Was Your Goal For Taking Our Pilates Teacher Training At CORE?
So my goal is starting the teacher training here at CORE was to get fully certified on all the equipment. I’d done enough reformer to feel kind of comfortable with that but I would say I really wanted to get to know how to use the other Pilates equipment. Also, how to not feel scared if I had a client that came in with a chronic injury or an acute injury or back pain and say oh I don’t feel like I can’t move. Now I feel like I can help people with whatever stage they’re at, whether it’s like an athlete who’s cross-training at a high level or whether it’s someone who’s 85 with osteoporosis… because movement is healing and I want to be able to give that gift of movement to other people which is really what I feel like the program here at CORE help me to be able to accomplish…