My Story & Approach to Movement

My path to Pilates comes from a very personal experience of healing and recovery. Pilates has changed my relationship with my body in ways I never expected.

Living with hypermobility can be exhausting. Over time, the ways we compensate just to keep ourselves moving can create more tension, instability, and pain. After years of those patterns, along with the physical changes of perimenopause and other health challenges, I reached a point where my body was barely functioning.

Eventually, I made the difficult decision to transition out my beloved teaching career after two decades. I had given so much of myself to that work, and my body was telling me it was time to turn my attention inward and take care of myself differently. I needed more than exercise. I needed a way to move that could actually help me heal.

I found that in Pilates.

As I began to feel better in my own body, my lifelong love of teaching and human development started to take a new shape. I became deeply interested in rehabilitation, somatic movement, and helping people understand their bodies in a way that feels useful, empowering, and real.

Today, as a fully certified Pilates instructor specializing in individualized, rehabilitation-focused sessions, I help clients build strength, improve function, and feel more confident in their bodies.

My own rehabilitation has given me a close understanding of how complicated movement can be in a hypermobile body. Years of dislocations, subluxations, compensation patterns, and later surgeries left me with very limited mobility, especially in my right shoulder. To regain full function, I had to relearn movement from the ground up and look carefully at how joints, muscles, fascia, and movement patterns were all working together.

That experience still shapes the way I teach. I pay close attention to each person’s structure, history, habits, and movement patterns rather than asking every body to move in the same way.

My teaching is also informed by ongoing study in hypermobility, biotensegrity, and fascial anatomy. I know that conditions like hEDS often come with a much bigger health picture, and I try to keep that whole picture in mind when helping someone build a movement practice that feels safe and appropriate for them.

My Training & Lineage

I began training with second-generation Pilates elder Christy Crowley in 2023. Christy studied with Ron Fletcher, who was a student of Joseph Pilates, and through her I was introduced to a direct lineage of the Pilates method.

I had worked with many movement teachers over the years, but Christy was the first person who showed me that it was possible to exercise regularly without repeatedly getting hurt. When we started working together, I was barely mobile, and years of pain had made me nervous about movement. With Christy’s careful and precise teaching, I slowly learned to trust my body again. I have loved Pilates ever since.

I now hold a 400-hour comprehensive Pilates certification, with extensive training in mat and apparatus-based movement. I continue to study with Christy as my master teacher. Her precision, depth of knowledge, and respect for the method continue to shape the way I teach and work with my own clients.

Who I Work With

I love working with interesting bodies. Bodies with histories, adaptations, injuries, diagnoses, changing needs, and sometimes a complicated relationship with movement.

People come to me for many different reasons, including hypermobility and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), osteopenia and osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, diastasis recti, hernias, spondylolisthesis, chronic pain, recovery from injury or surgery, postpartum rehabilitation, cancer recovery, menopause, and simply wanting to start moving again after a long period of inactivity.

I especially love helping people gently coax sedentary or movement-wary bodies back into motion. I am also deeply honored to work with women as they navigate the changes of menopause and begin to feel stronger, more capable, and more at home in their bodies again.

Whatever brings you to Pilates, we start with the body you have today. From there, we work together to build strength, improve function, and create a way of moving that respects your individual structure, history, and goals.

A Compassionate, Collaborative Approach

I know what it is like to spend years navigating the medical system and still feel like important pieces are being missed. That experience has had a big influence on the way I work with people who have complex health needs.

I try to be the kind of practitioner I once needed. Someone who listens closely, takes the time to understand what is going on, does the research when needed, and is willing to work alongside your other providers. My goal is for your movement practice to feel thoughtful, safe, and connected to the bigger picture of your health.