Coming back to the studio for the first time in three months felt like visiting a childhood home – it had a feeling of “lots of memories but we don’t live there anymore.” After tending to my thirsty plants and looking through all the mail, I sat down to reconnect with the space.
This space has been a home to me almost the entire 11 years I’ve lived in NYC. It has been a touchstone for all of my development here.
In a time when we are using our personal spaces for our office, daycare, gym, meditation, play, activism, restaurants, movie theaters, etc., it got me thinking about the way spaces are set up to function, the intention of a space, the energy a space can hold, and the way it can make you feel.
My sweet little space is one where seemingly small adjustments are a huge accomplishment. Where you can come to feel supported and achieve a lot against resistance (a spring metaphor – wink!). A place where transmutation is witnessed:
Broken body systems/mechanics become whole
Pain turns to strength
Anxiety turns to peace/calm
Fogginess turns into clarity
“I can’t” becomes “I can”
Disconnection turns into alignment
These things are possible anywhere. It’s about the intention and believing in a little bit of magic. Showing up with curiosity about the unknown. Commitment to working for big little wins, even when it takes time to find out that if you move just a liiiiittle to the left, you’ll find your sweet spot. All the time it took wasn’t a waste; the win is big because of the time you spent in the process of discovery.
#KnowYourself #LookBetter
The work is never over.
Just like the work of body awareness and mindful movement within a Pilates practice offer endless evolution, the work of highlighting and changing the inequity in the fitness and Pilates industry does not stop.
I recently had a chance to attend an Anti-Racism in Pilates workshop with Sonja Herbert of Black Girl Pilates and Commando Fitness Collective. One eye-opening highlight was Sonja breaking down how Pilates has morphed to covet and revere the dancer body – long and lean – as the ideal way to look, and how the meaning of health gets attached to that “look.” It perpetuates an ideal that you aren’t whole until you look a certain way, and that message is especially harmful and alienating to the BIPOC community.
I’ve spent the better part of my teaching career saying things like, “I won’t promise you a six-pack in ten sessions because that’s a lie. But here are more holistic ways we can measure progress…” What I realize now is that this only happens in person. I have not always been loud and clear on all of my platforms about how we at The Co Pilates actively push back and change the “long and lean” narrative. For anyone reading who hasn’t worked with us directly, know that we are in the business of helping you to know yourself better and feel better in your body. From that place, lots of other fitness goals can be achieved. It’s not the other way around.
However you may be connected to the Pilates community, please consider joining me in supporting Black Girl Pilates’ 3rd annual conference and contributing to Sonja’s scholarship fund for 20 Black instructors to attend.
Check Us Out!
We were so honored to do our first ever Instagram Live with Dr. Alex Duma of FICS and to take part in Act 2 Interviews with Sofia Negron. If you’d like to hear our creation story as a business and studio, a discussion around what virtual Pilates life is like, or all about our new #pilatesparty offer, check out those interviews. You can also catch me and Molly testing out a Ballet Barre sequence here. Try it out and let us know what you think!
#WitchyWednesday
We’re coming up on the first New Moon after a really intense eclipse season. To honor this moon, support each other in renewal, and cultivate new opportunities and new growth, we’ll be circling up on Wednesday, July 22 at 8:00pm EDT.
We are halfway through the year and in the thick of a new landscape. There is no going back, despite any pull or longing you may have. We will use this time together to thank and honor that time and also challenge ourselves to keep fully stepping into what is the “now.”
If you’d like to prepare and align with the New Moon on the exact day (July 20), take some time to reflect and/or journal on what needs to be released around you, and ways you can neutralize adversaries and reduce harm. The time just before, during, and after a New Moon is a great time to fully embrace rest and solitude – if only for a moment.