Kat

I’m pretty sure my lower back is my greatest source of intuition because that was my first sign something was totally off– I had a horrible sciatica flare. I was 25. I had just moved into my first solo apartment that I could finally afford after landing my “dream job” and was training for a half marathon. Life was perfect on paper, but my body was signaling to some cosmic misalignment. 

That misalignment was not just in my body. It was my body signaling to the real misalignment in my values and the way I had been living my life. I spent my post-college years grinding away in the fashion industry, miserable but convinced that the next job, next relationship, next apartment would hold the key to my happiness. This narrative began to crumble, as I asked myself for the first time, “what really are my values,” and “how can I change the way that I’m living to become aligned with them?”

Before becoming a Pilates teacher, before moving to New York, before working in fashion, I was a high school girl who, like many girls, struggled with an eating disorder. That’s where this story really begins because it’s when I fell out of communication with my body. I hushed its signals and forced myself into strict regiments and used exercise as punishment. 

Due to this, I had pretty much divorced myself from exercise for several years until I found Pilates. Pilates felt like a language my body spoke naturally. I had struggled with injuries and back pain for most of my life due to undiagnosed hypermobility coupled with my eating disorder. Pilates became less about exercise and more about showing kindness to myself.  

Pilates is all about creating alignment within the body. As my practice deepened, I started to understand my body as a source of intelligence, pointing me to the misalignments in my life. This brings me back to my core values. I defined four of them – freedom, creativity, alignment, connection. Every move I made was an intentional action to become more aligned with those values. 

One of those actions was becoming a Pilates teacher myself. What I thought was a love for doing Pilates became a passion for teaching. Teaching completely cracked something open, and me and it’s like the light can now pour out. I love helping people and guiding them into the same experience of embodiment that I found through Pilates.

I took my first ever Pilates class with Will Taylor at Equinox. He now owns his own studio in Flatiron. I owe him for showing me the real essence of Pilates, which should be simple and understandable in the body. He’s still my teacher now. It’s so important to remain a student even when you become a teacher. 

I found Mina through mutual friends. Her breathwork classes really cracked something open in me; they gave permission to feel and heal. I also had a Reiki session with her before I left New York that felt like building an energetic shield. She’s a really special person, gifted healer and space holder. 

Katherine Graham led my Pilates teacher training and she also now owns her own studio, Pilates Park. She’s a genius at teaching, specifically teaching teachers. She gave me the best piece of advice I’ve heard a Pilates teacher, which is that, “some people need therapy but come to Pilates instead.” What she meant was that being a good teacher does not always mean progressing your clients to the most advanced level or giving them the hardest workout. Sometimes it does but sometimes it just means holding space for and teaching the body in front of you.

I met Eden through Pilates because she’s a teacher, but she’s also an astrologer. I find astrology to be a great tool to understand yourself better– your patterns, relationships, fundamental understandings of the world. People write it off as “woo woo” but it’s an ancient science. Eden has a beautiful, calming energy and a real gift of bringing you into that deeper understanding of self.

I learned to trust my body, to be in conversation with it and move without judgement. Being in the fitness world, I knew it could  be easy to slip into old patterns of disordered eating and movement. But I haven’t because I really believe in my method and what I’m doing. I want to be a guiding light for people to also break their toxic cycles with food and fitness and their bodies. 

Pilates also led me into other modalities of movement and body work. I recently became certified in trauma-informed breathwork. I practice meditation and yoga. These practices also brought me back to my creative practice as an artist and designer, which I had abandoned while working in fashion. I’ve developed a daily practice of breathing, moving, writing or drawing and meditating. This integration is a real pathway to healing, self-understanding and true happiness.

I feel present today. I feel happy and good in my body, but also respect the moments when I don’t and can be gentle with myself. 

I’ve been calling this phase of life my “cocoon phase” because I recently moved out of New York. I went on a two month long backpacking trip in Europe, and now I’m living at home and building my business. I’m unsure of where I want to go next. This time has been a real test actually of everything that I preach. I have been listening to my body and trusting that my intuition will guide my next move. 

I’m launching a business next year that combines movement, breathwork and creative practices. I want to redefine the movement studio space as a place for self-expression and embodiment. It’s scary to go out on your own and create something that has never existed before. When I feel lost, I return to the values I defined for myself two years ago. They are my north star and remind me of my sense of purpose, which is to do something meaningful in this world, so that’s what I’m doing now.