I found Pilates in 2006 while studying Poetry at Reed College. It spoke to me unlike any other system of movement had before, and quickly became the most fundamental way I made sense of my physical self. I took Mat Pilates class 2-3 times a week with an instructor and a couple other nights a week would practice alone with DVDs in my basement. It felt like very private work I was doing — to build myself up from scratch, from the deepest center of my body and soul. It took me years to understand how important that intuition was, and what a serious gift Joseph Pilates has given us.
After undergrad, I became a Sourdough Bread Baker in San Francisco and more or less lost touch with my body as anything other than a tool of the trade. It was very physical, demanding work with erratic, long hours; I grew quite strong through the lifting of flour sacks and tubs of dough, but as the years went on I felt myself deteriorating. At the end of my 7th year as a baker when I was thinking of next steps, I remembered the feeling that Pilates had given me years earlier and became fixated on the idea of rebuilding myself with it. Joseph Pilates designed his system for just this purpose, as he defines in his small, poetic manifesto “Return to Life.” So I did. I slowly returned to life with his system.
I took my time, beginning in 2020 on my own with the Matwork, and then after a couple years when it was clear that I had to put Pilates at the center of my life and there was no better path for me to walk, I was lucky enough to find Physique. Petie and Mary welcomed me first as a client and then helped usher me into the teaching community, a kindness for which I will always be grateful. In early 2024 I got certified to teach Mat Pilates by Power Pilates and jumped right into teaching the Matwork that had given me so much over the last two decades. For the next year and a half I spent well over 600 hours in a very rigorous, comprehensive certification program at Lifespan Pilates in NYC, the NY hub of Romana’s Pilates International. I feel unspeakably lucky to have studied under the expert guidance of Cynthia Shipley. In June of 2025 I received my certification and am thrilled to be working at Physique.
I’m beyond excited to share the beauty and perfection of classical Pilates with all of my clients and to help everyone access that quiet, steady resilience within themselves that working within this system provides.
