Stephen Dunn:
All right. All right, hey guys, what’s up, it’s Stephen Dunn with CORE Therapy & Pilates. Today I want to introduce everyone to Liz. Liz is our new Pilates apprentice, and has working with us one day a week the last couple months now, maybe two months, three months, six months?

Liz:
It’s been what, six?

Stephen Dunn:
Six months.

Liz:
Yeah.

Stephen Dunn:
Okay, one day a week, maybe two days a week?

Liz:
I’ve been, yeah two days a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Stephen Dunn:
Perfect. Yeah, and coming up real soon, in the next few weeks, she going to be available for more hours, and as she’s now transitioning from her old job into her new job. So I’ll let her talk about it a little bit more about that in a moment. But with that said, I just wanted to introduce Liz to everyone, because everyone wants to know who’s the new person around the studio? But with that I also wanted to to just do a little, let Liz tell her story and tell people the why she’s a Pilates instructor and the how it became to be. So with that said, thanks for hopping on with me, Liz.

Liz:
Absolutely.

Stephen Dunn:
And give me first of all your … how did you first ever even hear about Pilates, or the word Pilates become on your radar?

Liz:
Well I went to see my doctor for back pain that I’ve been experiencing since I was a teenager, and she referred me to you all. So I came to see Julia, who used to work here, and did physical therapy with her. That’s how I was introduced to Pilates.

Stephen Dunn:
Through physical therapy. I love it. I love it. And so by going into the doctor, asking specifically how to manage back pain, or help her back pain, and some other solutions besides medications or surgical interventions, the Pilates was an alternative solution, we’ll say. Now, with that said, you were exposed to Pilates through your physical therapy. How did that lead to you becoming, to doing Pilates for fitness and then wanting to become a Pilates instructor?

Liz:
Yeah, so it took me a while to really get on board with doing Pilates regularly enough that I actually …

Stephen Dunn:
Saw the benefits.

Liz:
… saw the benefits, about the effects of it, so I started just little by little, layering in, just an intro to Pilates, and started coming probably once a week to class. Then doing privates and I had a retail job, so I was on my feet a lot. It’s really hard when you are coming and getting help, but not super regularly and then you’re going back and doing that thing that irritates your back. Whatever issue it is that you’re having, so it took me a while to realize every time I went back to work I was undoing all this great work that I’ve done. In my head, I started to think, I feel like the only way I’m really going to make this a really big important part of my life in the way that I think it needs to be for me to feel better, I want to go through the training. So that’s how I got there.

Stephen Dunn:
Got it. I love it. And that’s a very common story for someone to become a Pilates instructor because of their experience of how it helped them along the journey, whether it’s managing pain, whether it’s improving performance with sports, or whatever it is, people find Pilates for many, many different reasons. That’s what I wanted to share, is that every instructor that works with us, every instructor across the entire country and world that teaches Pilates, they go into it for a different reason. Some for their own personal gains, and some to serve others. It’s one of those things that the people that find it for the right reasons and then become trainers, those are really the really great trainers because they’re coming from the right place and they relate to the clients that they’re serving. With that said, what was the Pilates certification experience like, going through the process to get certified?

Liz:
It was awesome. Cheryl’s an incredible teacher, and it was … there are ups and downs, I felt a lot of different things in my body, sometimes not great things, but being in that routine so consistently, being able to see how cumulatively you start to feel better.

Stephen Dunn:
Compound interest.

Liz:
Yeah, and so it was a great experience. I’m kind of jealous of everyone that’s going through it right now. Watching class, and I’m like, “I want to go through that again.”

Stephen Dunn:
That’s awesome.

Liz:
But it was great too, because you’re in this group setting with other people who … everyone who I trained with was coming to it from a similar place. They’ve had such a benefit and relief in their own body doing Pilates, that they wanted to come and learn and then be able to teach people like us …

Stephen Dunn:
Share with others.

Liz:
Yeah, and everybody came with a different experience. So everybody had a different story. There was some overlap in maybe structural things that we’re dealing with in our bodies, but it was really cool to be able to learn from everyone else as well.

Stephen Dunn:
And that’s was this is about. She’s sharing her story because we all have a different story to get to what we do and why we do it. But I want to say something real quick. We were working, she was laying on my table a couple years ago, and she was complaining about standing on the job, and you may not remember this story, and she’s telling me about how she really wants to leave her field. And I could tell with the way she was saying it, that she was really interested in the Pilates program that we had, and the stuff that she had learned with working with our Pilates trainers and with PT and Pilates, and I could just tell and I just told, her, I said, “Well, you’re going to go through our training, and you’re going to work for us one day.” And she looked at me like I was crazy, but I think she was thinking it, but she wouldn’t really, hadn’t put it to words yet, and I just threw it out there.

Stephen Dunn:
Then once she told me about her job, the more I realized it’s like, “You actually have a really good job. You have a great culture, you have … there’s so much positive about where you work, except you stand up and it bothers your back.” I was like, “It might take you a little while for it to happen, but you will end up going through the training and working with us.” I guess it was probably about maybe a year and a half, two years before she went to the training, and so whenever she ended up signing up to do it, I was like, “Yeah, I had a good feeling that day, and it was a correct feeling.” But I love when it all works out. And now again, when it’s all said and done, she’s still got a little more time with being an apprentice, probably some more observation hours, and some teaching hours, before she’s fully certified, but now her journey is starting to streamline a little bit.

Stephen Dunn:
There’s a new vision and then you go with leaving the job that she’s had for years, which I think she really liked, but it did bother her back and it became a scenario that wasn’t good for her back. And now she’s going to be able to share her story with every person that comes in as our client, to CORE, on how she can help them with whatever their story is that led them to Pilates in the first place. So with that said, you got anything else to add?

Liz:
No, I’m really looking forward to meeting more of the clients that are here and teaching on Tuesday mornings and Saturdays, and now on Thursdays as well.

Stephen Dunn:
So we’ll be having some more hours for you real soon, right?

Liz:
Yeah, yeah. So it’s been great to be here and it’s been an awesome dream. I’m just ready to start working with people, helping.

Stephen Dunn:
Start sharing. And we’re grateful to have her and again, we would rather have a handful of trainers who are coming in to this world for the right reasons than the trainers who are doing it because it’s a trendy thing to do and it’s a booming business. Yeah, those are great, but if you’re coming from the right space in your heart, it becomes very easy to do this work. So with that said, thanks for sharing your story today, and thanks for hopping on …

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The post Liz Found Pilates To Help Her Back Pain. She Now Teaches Pilates To Others Suffering With Back Pain appeared first on CORE Therapy & Pilates.

Dudley is one of the studio mascots and he steals the show in this video. Cheryl Dunn is a Pilates and GYROTONIC® Master Trainer and in this video we catch a quick glance at her teaching her 4 current students in our Pilates Teacher Training program or Pilates Certification.

Cheryl teaches a contemporary approach and is ideal for those future Pilates Instructors looking to work with injured clients. Learn more than just the list of exercises on the wall. Dive deep into the Pilates repertoire from a sound anatomical and bio-mechanical prospective. Cheryl has worked in Physical Therapist and Chiropractors offices since 2002.

Call 512-215-4227 to learn more about our Pilates and GYROTONIC® teacher training offerings…

The post Dudley Supervises Pilates Teacher Training with Cheryl Dunn at CORE Therapy & Pilates in Austin, Tx appeared first on CORE Therapy & Pilates.

Hi I’m Cheryl… I want to talk to you a little bit about how I got into teaching Pilates and Gyrotonic, the process and the steps that I took to get to where I am today…

I was working a desk job and going to the gym every evening and enjoying the movement. I thought, you know I should get paid to do these classes and take this stuff and exercise because I enjoy it and I’m here anyway. So I went through a little personal training certification thing to be able to do that and was able to teach a few classes here and there. Then I started hearing about Pilates a lot and so I started taking some Pilates classes and found some books on it and was doing a little bit here and there. And then Stephen comes to me and was like, “what’s Pilates?” So I tell him what I know and how I like it and what it’s doing for me. He then gets the opportunity to go through a Pilates training for physical therapists and I was like wait this is something I want to do. I want to go through a Pilates training so lets see if I can do it with you. We talked to the people and they’re like sure, of course, so I go through the training with him. I was able to start teaching Pilates when I wasn’t at the desk because I was kind of supplementing the two and then I finally was just like you know I’m doing this (teaching Pilates) full-time…

I worked for Stephen part-time and I worked for a chiropractor part-time. I was working with their patients and teaching them Pilates and helping them with what I knew and how much it had helped me.

Then we got married and we moved to Sonoma… the studio that I worked at there had Gyrotonic and so I was able to go through my Gyrotonic training. That led me to teaching both Pilates and gyro and I really loved the two systems and how they meshed together and complemented each other… and that kind of led me to where I am today… opening up our own studio.

I have two kids now so I don’t work all day because I take them to school in the morning… I work from 9:00 to 2:00 so that I can be there every afternoon to pick them up from school. I run them around and do all the things that need to happen in order to keep up with all the activities that they do. I’m able to adjust my schedule to their schedules because their schedules have changed as they’ve grown up. When they were babies it was different, I had a different schedule and then when they were in preschool I worked a little less. Now the more they’re in school the more I can work and really continue to provide people with two exercise modalities that can really help them. I get to teach people how much I enjoy it and what they can get from it… staying strong and active and continue to do things with my kids and my family as I age… and enjoy it… so that’s my story and how I got to where I am today. I hope that helps you make a decision whether this is something you want to do or not or just know a little bit more about me and Stephen and our studio and what we do…

Alright thanks…

Interested in starting personal training with one of our Certified Pilates or Gyrotonic Trainers? We offer a FREE Taster Session to make sure we are a good fit for each other… Click HERE to Apply »

Are you ready to get paid to teach others about your love for Pilates or Gyrotonic?

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This program starts soon…

The post Cheryl’s Pilates & GYROTONIC® Story: From A Corporate Desk Job To A Busy Instructor appeared first on CORE Therapy & Pilates.

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…

The post Alayna Pilates Teacher Training Testimonial appeared first on CORE Therapy & Pilates.

Hi, I’m Cheryl.

As you can see behind me, we’ve got our Pilates Teacher Training going on here. We are doing our apparatus weekend with chairs and barrels, and ladder barrels, and all of those pieces.

In January of 2018, we’re starting our next Pilates Teacher Training Program.

It is a contemporary Pilates Teacher Program. It’s going to be 465 hours.

It’s comprehensive so we work on all the equipment and the mat work.

It meets all PMA requirements. So when you’re done with our full Teacher Training Program, you’re then qualified to go take that PMA exam and be a PMA Pilates Certified Teacher.

So we’re starting in January of 2018.

If you have any questions, go ahead and call the studio at 512-215-4227 or email us at info@therapyandpilates.com, whichever works for you. And, hopefully, we’ll see you next year.

Click Here to download our Free Report on our Pilates Teacher Training Program

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Press Play to hear Alexis’ story

Hi, my name is Alexis Kistler, and I wanna talk to you a little bit about Gyrotonic, and how I became a Gyrotonic trainer. I’m originally from Germany, and there I’ve trained to be a physical therapist. And I worked there for a few years before I moved to the United States. And then, here I found out I would have to repeat the entire education once more in order to be licensed as a physical therapist. And since I decided against doing that, I wanted to find something that fulfilled me to an equal measure, where I could be a contribution to people. Where I could help people reach their goals, physically, mentally, and not just only reach their goals but also, you know, maintain their fitness, and on a very easy and unique way.

And I’ve…in one of my internships back in Germany, I learned about Gyrotonic and I started training myself. And even though I never really had any issues with my body, I found that it improved my posture tremendously, and it got me in a very new space, in a very good space. I felt physically very balanced. And so when I came here, and I was looking for a sort of a replacement for physical therapy, and I thought about, hey, why not do Gyrotonic? And so I looked a little bit more into it, and what it was required. And so I started my training here in Austin. So what it entails means that, first, you do a few sessions with a master trainer or with a trainer to get the feel for the movements. And then, I just jumped right into my pre-trainer course. And then after that finished a foundation course which is 12 days. That was very, very intense. I never thought it would have been that intense but it was just an absolutely amazing experience. The way I’ve experienced my body, it was very new to me.

And yeah, and then I was lucky enough that I could start as an apprentice right away with a pretty decent schedule. So I had a fair few clients right of the bat. And yeah, so the…one of the fun things about working as a Gyrotonic trainer is that I’m really the boss of my schedule. I can be very flexible, and it allows me to be very flexible with the people that I work with. So I can accommodate a lot of their needs, you know, because we all are super busy. We all have things that change constantly in our schedules. So as a trainer, I’m able to accommodate that which is one thing that I like about this work. It makes it easy for them. It makes it easy for me. Yeah, and it’s a fun way to work. I get to be in contribution to people all day long. And one of the best things is I don’t have to sit at a desk. I’m the boss of my own time, basically.

And so that is all right now. I’m in the middle of my apprenticeship, and in two weeks, it’ll be coming to an end, and I’ll be testing out in one of the two locations that are currently possible in San Francisco. The other one is Washington, DC. And that’s another three-day, it’s like a little three-day course, basically. And I’m really looking forward to it, to be fully certified, and where it will take me from there. What Gyrotonic has done for myself in terms of training is I train as a triathlete, and so that is a very demanding training. And with Gyrotonic I found that I can cut off, I can shave off some hours that I have to spend in the gym, usually. And it helps me to stay balanced and stay on track with my training.

Yeah, so if you are interested, and if Gyrotonic has already piqued your interest, I would definitely say it’s worth looking further into it. So far, I only see benefits, not just from working as a trainer but also training myself and working myself out with the system.

The post Case Study: How This 30 Year Old Woman From Austin Earns $500+ A Week Teaching Gyrotonic appeared first on CORE Therapy & Pilates.