Pilates On Tour®, Atlanta

Join Ken Endelman and he takes you on a journey from the infancy of the Pilates methodology, Contrology, to contemporary times where Pilates is now a household name.  

Rotational imbalances are often a source of physical limitations as well as low back pain. Drawn from Advanced Movement Principles: The Low Back, this workshop takes a deep and detailed look at assessing and improving rotational imbalances in the core. We begin with a series of exercises for assessing rotation and creating clarity about possible root causes and potential movement strategies. Once the patterns are clear, we move on to cueing strategies and strength and mobility exercises to bring the body closer to balance. Let’s dive in! 

How can we manage and release stress before it causes us physical and emotional harm? In Free to Feel, Free to Heal, we will reflect upon the experiences that shape who we are today and how we connect to ourselves and others. We’ll also explore the powerful connections between our minds, bodies, and emotions as we embark on a movement journey toward finding wholeness. By taking the focus away from making external shapes and moving “the right way” and directing it inward toward conscious inquiry of our personal felt experiences, we will learn to better understand our needs so that we can be our truest, most illuminated selves – no matter what life throws at us.

What is our “scope” of work and how do we lean into movement and the practice of Pilates to create an environment rich and ripe for supporting the person in front of us. Join Christine Crooks and discover ways to maximize your teacher/client relationship to create endless possibilities. In this workshop we will utilize the reformer to explore ways to make movement accessible and to support the healing process specifically for clients with limitations of the hips and knees.

We all know that exercise improves so much within our physical body. From a better looking exterior, to pain mitigation, well “oiled” joints and more, Pilates-based movement is most certainly a fundamental need for a well lived life! Did you know that boosting neurogenesis through neuro aerobics and neuro plasticity is just as important? Join me in this workshop and learn simple ways to take yourself, clients and classes through strategies and games to impact and improve brain health!

The teaser is such an emblematic Pilates exercise and almost everyone can throw their legs up in a teaser and take that perfect photo. But how many of your clients can do a truly good one? Harness the power in the Pilates system and you will find the power in the Teaser. Ilaria will break down the exercise, you will explore the elusive balance point and different ways and options to introduce the teaser utilizing all the Pilates system has to offer. Come and experience the teaser like never before!

Creating strength and balance of the upper body in our Pilates environment involves understanding the structure and anatomy of the shoulder complex, the relationship of the shoulder girdle with the trunk, and the shoulder joint itself. Join Joy and Nicky and take a 360⁰ journey around the shoulder. In this fun, quick paced workshop you will apply exercises to the anatomy and discover through exercise application how muscle, bone, and connective tissue work together to give the dynamic shoulder its strength and functionality. 

Shapes, images, videos, and manuals are great learning tools, yet honing and harnessing your ability to set up, move in real time, and coach simultaneously is critical to designing and successfully delivering class formats that keep your students returning time and time again. In this workshop, we will play with coaching drills to help you untether yourself from the shape in the manual and joyfully explore moving and training the mover(s) in front of you. You will walk away with creative flows to add to your classes and the tools to make an impact on both their lives AND your teaching!

We all know that Pilates is amazing, but for many it may not be accessible, or worse, it may be intimidating. Learn how to use music and varied tempos to bring Pilates to everyone. Pilates on the count of 8 is a mat meets functional fitness workshop that will give you options on how to introduce Pilates to broader communities and will teach you how to create a variety of movements and patterns that take Pilates off the mat and into an exercise that inspire fun, curiosity and general sense of exploration. 

A keystone is a central stone at the summit of an arch, locking the whole together. The Sacrum acts as the keystone of the pelvis and supporting structure of the spine. Without the sacrum, we would collapse into a pile of bones. In this workshop we explore how the stability and mobility of the sacrum affects our entire structure. Learn how to assess and cue clients to control weight through their pelvis for better alignment, balance, and strength.

Get ready for a fun, fitness-based Reformer workshop. Working from one end to the other on the most iconic piece of Pilates equipment, the Reformer, John will combine the worlds of fitness and Pilates. Get some great new programming ideas, an amazing workout, literally from head to toe, and have fun in this dynamic and energetic workshop. With John Garey you are always guaranteed a balanced, full-body workout with both traditional and creative new Reformer exercises.

Introducing Classical Pilates to Seniors stays true to the Pilates Method while providing seniors with movement opportunities to meet their specific needs and challenges. With a focus on Pre-Pilates movements, and modifications specifically to manage the contraindications due to certain bone/osteo challenges, Everlea shows how Pilates can be available and beneficial to the specific needs of an aging body. With Everlea you will focus on balance, centering and control and smiles over speedy flow. 

Just like your physical body, your spirit needs nourishment to rejuvenate, replenish, and renew. As instructors who give so much to others, self-care is of the utmost importance avoid “running on empty”. This very interactive and experiential workshop will introduce you to the basics of sound healing, the impact of vibration, the power of intention, and more. You will leave fully refreshed, relaxed, and recalibrated. Please be prepared to lie down. Bring an eye mask/eye covering and anything you may need to stay comfortable and warm.

Join renowned speaker and presenter, Vicki Clark to explore the leader in us all.   

Just as there are fundamental movements that create pathways to advanced exercises, there are small and effective ways of being which opens leadership pathways. Join Vicki for an experience. She will make you laugh as she inspires you to look at yourself and motivates you to be the catalyst of change.

Everyone can agree that the Mat is challenging and often harder than the equipment. In this workshop you will break down Mr. Pilates original 34 mat exercises, as demonstrated in Return to Life, and learn how to connect the mat repertoire to the apparatus, bringing the system of Pilates together. Through the integration of the Pilates system and the apparatus you will learn how to build the strength needed to enhance your mat experience. You will come away with variations as well as exercise flows and combinations for you to teach to your clients and for your own personal movement practice.

The advanced and super-advanced Pilates exercises can be unobtainable for many Pilates students and teachers, but they do not have to be! Join Misty Lynn and Nicky to strip down the advanced work into recognizable, but perhaps unconventional, parts. These parts create the movement foundations needed to tackle the more advanced repertoire. Once the foundation is established, strength and confidence will follow, allowing for next level movement. This workshop will include troubleshooting and problem solving for advanced exercises on the Mat, Reformer, and the Pilates Chair and will provide client-centered strategies for successfully reaching the advanced work. 

Unilateral work highlights body imbalances, while simultaneously helping to correct them. With John, you will explore unilateral exercises that will add both variety and challenge to any workout and help to highlight and correct imbalances. In this workshop you will get a full-body workout but the information you come away with will provide you with  endless programming ideas. The exercises range from beginner to advanced.

Classical Pilates is not just about teaching exercises in isolation, it is about the utilization of the Pilates system. In this workshop we will choose 3-5 exercises and explore their movement patterns on various Contrology apparatus. You will learn how to utilize the system to progress your clients by disrupting their patterns, changing their orientation to gravity, understanding the intention of the original exercise, and learning how to specify your cues to the specific strengths of each apparatus. 

Most of us are aware that Meditation is a health benefit with documented data to prove so….and we may have attempted to be still but succumb to the wiggles, fidgets, and inability to “stop thinking”.  You may be surprised to learn that if you have done one set of 10 (think the Hundred!) you have already been a successful meditator. Join me as we explore the many ways a person can meditate and receive the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits without feeling restricted or restrained! Bring an eye mask/eye covering and anything you may need to stay comfortable and warm. 

As teacher, as trainer, your clients trust you, they are motivated by you, and they see you as a part of how they care for themselves. You are a leader, you are a change agent. You lead with your Core, your heart, it is the center of your being. Come and experience Vicki Clark as she inspires you to look to your true core and explore the leader you are and inspired to become.

As more and more studios train high performance and specialized athletes and as more athletes, athletic trainers and team directors seek out Pilates it is more important than ever to learn how to engage and to work with the needs of the athlete if you are to support them in achieving their physical goals. With more than 30 years of experience in Pilates coaching elite and Olympic athletes from a variety of sports, Ann McMillan shares her insights and her successful, and not so successful, experiences training the athlete. Join Ann to learn strategies on how to approach and meet the needs of the elite athlete.

Our head directs much of our movement whether we are typing on a smartphone or throwing a tennis ball. Creating support for the head and the neck requires work on vision, posture, myofascial balance, and upper body work. This workshop from AMP: The Upper Body takes you through a series of specific exercises to create balance and resilience in the head and neck followed by cueing, modifications, and support for decreasing pain and discomfort. You will come away with easy tools to use with clients who have a pain in the neck!

In this workshop we will look at some familiar supine exercises and how they support and build the skills to attain complex and challenging inversions and inverted exercises. Together we will explore the basics of supine from ab curls to bridges and then bridging the gap to the inversion exercises like rollover, bicycles, and jackknife on the Mat and the Equipment.

This workshop brings the essence of the Intermediate Classical, traditional, Reformer sequence and takes it to the Contemporary Reformer. Everlea will explore the original exercise experience and will provide recommendations and reformer settings such as riser adjustments and spring utilization to help you “go a little more Joe”. 

Both words and non-verbal communication reveal our inner feelings of comfort, uncertainty, and insecurity. One overtly, words, the other quietly but no less subtle, nonverbal. In this movement experience, you are invited into a conversation and encouraged to listen, move, share, and grow as we engage in an interactive discussion about the origins of microaggressions, their power (as there is nothing ‘micro’ about them), and how to counteract their effects by creating spaces and experiences which are safe. Through movement, you will explore how the language we use in our studios, and in real life, can have a dramatic effect upon how we are seen, who we attract, and how we are perceived. Go beyond diversity and inclusivity and learn strategies for establishing places of belonging for all who enter.

Donation suggested but not required. All donated money will be matched by Balanced Body and donated.

Join Joy Puleo, Director of Education for Balanced Body, to discuss the unique and wonderful place Pilates inhabits in the world of mind-body fitness and how we can continue to grow as a community of teachers, instructors and students.  

Designed to be an exploration of the present moment, EmbodiMAT weaves together Pilates and other movement modalities with affirmations and exploratory cueing to bring people fully into their bodies and to feel safe doing so. In this workshop you will experience and practice techniques for helping people connect to their present experience both mentally and physically while simultaneously developing your voice as a teacher and bringing forth all facets of your authentic self. By focusing on awareness, embodiment leads to empowerment as the body’s wisdom unfolds for both teacher and student.

Join Ann for a fun and high energy circuit group fitness class designed to target the whole body and will give your clients more workout intensity without sacrificing form. Emphasis is still on whole body form, core engagement, breath, and posture but the dynamics of the class is spiced up by the multiple station format. A well planned and designed circuit training session will also develop cardio and endurance. This workshop is designed for the Pilates studio environment.

The hip influences every one of our activities from walking to running to dancing to sitting to driving to sleeping. In Advanced Movement Principles: The Lower Body, we look in detail at the strength, mobility, and stability of the hip joint to create balance, improve functional movement and decrease pain. Join Nora for a thorough assessment of all aspects of the hip followed by exercise variations to develop three-dimensional strength and stability. You will walk away with a new understanding of the hip and how to work with it.

Low Chair Love is all about Joseph Pilates’ wonderful Wunda chair! The Chair is a phenomenal space-saving apparatus that can work your entire body. While this workshop is based on traditional work it is inclusive of all styles of Pilates practice and backgrounds. Join Everlea as she offers exercises designed to inspire instructors and intermediate and advanced level Pilates students alike.

One of the biggest challenges to an athlete’s longevity is injury risk. The risk of injury impedes valuable training time, making our job a tight wire act balancing injury care and prevention with improving performance. With over 30 years of training elite athletes, Ann developed a large repertoire of exercises and skillfulness to assist the athlete in avoiding injury while working toward their goals. Case studies of a gymnast, an ice dancer, a mogul skier, and a synchronized swimmer will be presented. Ann will take you through their adapted apparatus exercise programs, and discuss overall training strategies including warmups, cool downs, self-massage and recuperation. Many of these adapted exercises are excellent for all clients.

Discover how rehydrating your fascia can create a more efficient body that can better execute Pilates mat work. Experience MELT preparatory techniques with a soft roller as “pre-Pilates” moves that can increase specificity and decrease compensation–especially in the neck and low back. Discover how to complement standard Pilates mat exercises with a soft half roller, bringing the support and challenge of the apparatus work to a group setting.

Do your clients ever pair up at the last minute, wanting a duet session in your private studio space? Or do you have to adapt on the spot for using a mixture of equipment in a group class? I have been there too! Let’s explore some tools for creating similar programming on the Reformer, Tower, and Chair to find flow in your mixed apparatus classes and give each client the workout they are looking for. 

Do we cue inhale when the carriage goes out or in? When the legs go up or down? It is not about when we inhale or exhale but how. How the musculature of our breath supports movement and our bodies in space. Breathing the Back Body will explore how to teach and cue breath as an integrated element in the Pilates Reformer and Mat work. There is no incorrect way to breathe but keeping the musculature of our breath strong is a trained skill. Master your own breath and learn how to cue your clients for their needs.  

Pilates is not only about what is moving but about how well you can stabilize what is not moving. Think about the leg circles, the sidekicks, the twist and reach on the short box… the better you anchor, the better and the bigger you can move.  
Jay Grimes talking about the sidekicks always says: “don’t worry about how high it (the leg) goes, worry about how stable you are”. When this concept is executed at its best you tap into CONTROLOGY: “the art and science of control”.