What brought you to Pilates?

Whenever I put this question to other teachers and clients, there is normally some tale of searching for help with back/ hip / shoulder pain, finding inspiration (a great class or teacher) and getting hooked. Naturally, I’m speaking to the converted. But even so, what many people may find strange is that this wasn’t what brought me to Pilates, or to being a teacher for that matter.

My journey was more one of chance and circumstance than one of choice.

I was a recent graduate of a conservatoire dance school. After three years of full-time training I found myself out in the real world with absolutely no means of supporting myself. Like many other dance graduates I worked three part-time jobs whilst applying for every single pot of funding and audition that I could feasibly aspire to. I took pro-dance classes every morning and worked shifts on a gym reception desk every afternoon / evening. Years went by with me wearing myself into the ground. I did make some progress, I achieved a few commissions, a few awards etc, but even these achievements took their toll. One day I was due to join a company class (quite a coup to get into in the first place) but I just couldn’t get myself out of bed. I had to admit that this way of living was just not working for me.

At the time, the artist development team at The Place ran a year-long Pilates teacher training course in collaboration with the Pilates Foundation. Having trained at The Place and knowing two of the course leaders, I felt that this would be a natural way to gain a skill that could relieve some of the grind of shift work. If The Place had collaborated with any other training provider, I wouldn’t have known any better. If they’d run a Yoga training course, I would have become a yoga teacher. That was the amount of thinking that went into it. All I knew was that I needed some means of earning a living, and this seemed like a good option. I managed to convince the owner of the gym that I worked in to loan me the course fee, and in 2006 I started my teacher training.

As it turns out, my trust in The Place was well-placed. The Pilates Foundation were the most comprehensive teacher training organisation in the UK, and I was lucky enough to receive the best training possible at the time. In hind-sight what I was gaining was more than a simple qualification. I was learning a skill that would sustain me financially, intellectually, and artistically even to do this day. I learned about the ethics of body-work practices, not simply how to instruct people, but how to work with, support and learn through my clients. The result has been a rich and rewarding career.

Soon after completing my teacher training with Hana Jones, Susanne Lahusen and Sonia Noonan, I started attending classes at Pilates off the Square, a Pilates equipment studio known affectionately as POTS. The equipment work completely changed my thinking and approach to movement and I became stronger and more flexible than ever before. So much so that I did my bridging certification (so that I could teach on the equipment) with Dominique Jansen at POTS.

My teaching supported me through a Masters degree in Choreography and then through years of project work with different professional collaborations weaving in and out of my regular teaching. I had amazing clients who always understood when I needed to be away for creative work and group classes who were (and still are) my biggest fans. I was incredibly well supported and as a result my teaching gained the attention of other teachers in the UK and abroad.

In 2017, with 10 years of teaching under my belt, I felt it was time for a gear change. I had reached a fork in the roads. Should I give up on dance altogether? Open my own Pilates studio? Start my own teacher training? Write a book? All of these options were open to me, and objectively, they presented an obvious next step, but I just couldn’t walk away from my dance work. After much reflection I decided to re-focused my career back towards dance, starting a part-time PhD in solo dance in 2019. It was a difficult step to make, and one that was met with resistance from some colleagues and clients, but I knew that I couldn’t be the best teacher possible, unless I had fully exercised my creative demons.

Prior to my teacher training I had no means of looking after myself physically. 3 years of full-time dance training had left me absolutely dependent on full-time dance training in order to maintain my strength, flexibility and stamina. So when you walk out of that kind of training the only option is to regress. My Pilates knowledge equipped me with a wonderful tool to enable me to keep on improving and learning. Without that knowledge I wouldn’t be standing here now embarking on a new career as an artist-researcher and taking to the stage solo at the age of 40.

So this is the story of what brought me here. Pilates may never have been the end-game or even the intentional aim, but it is the reason I’m still going.