My personal journey with the Pilates Method began in 1989 with Elizabeth Larkam at St. Francis Memorial Hospital’s Center for Sports Medicine in San Francisco, CA. Pioneered by Dr. James Garrick, it was the first facility on the West Coast to feature a Dance Medicine division with a fully equipped Pilates studio. As an injured and financially insecure young dancer, the staff of the Dance Medicine division took me under their wing and offered me a work study position. I still remember taking a ballet class after my first session on the Pilates Reformer. I was descending into a grand plié during a center adagio combination - always a dicey situation - and I couldn’t believe how confident I felt; I KNEW I was going to have enough internal support to maintain aplomb, and I also sensed that I could repeat this feeling over and over again. All at once, my paradigm shifted: old negative messages about body type, talent and “facility” melted away, replaced with the knowledge that I was in control and could use my mind/body connection to help my dancing.

In 1996, I became a certified Pilates instructor through Marie-José Blom and her Long Beach Dance Conditioning program. Marie-José’s approach to the Pilates method was life-changing — she taught me to see movement from a completely different perspective. Weaving in cutting edge information from geniuses such as Tom Myers, Eric Franklin, Jean Claude West, Alan Herdman, Diane Lee, and Marika Molnar, her course provided me with information for a lifetime. I remained at Long Beach Dance Conditioning until December, 2021. When Marie-José retired in 2013, I took over studio ownership and renamed the facility Up Studio. It was a fully equipped movement studio with both the Pilates method and the GYROTONIC EXPANSION SYSTEM®. Attached was a ballet studio, and this ideal arrangement allowed me to help the dancers apply what they were learning in their Pilates sessions to their dancing.

For 17 years, I taught the Pilates method as well as classical ballet technique to students at Lauridsen Ballet Centre in Torrance, CA and the results were wonderful. Combined with the school’s focus on correct placement and alignment, the dancers developed connections that allowed them to progress to professional level work. Many of the cues and ideas in The Inner Life of Ballet™ material were developed on my students at Laurdisen.

Every exercise in the Pilates method involves the principle of “centering”, and this contributes to calm and efficient movement patterns with deep core support. With efficiency, a ballet dancer can prevent many overuse injuries as well as have extra energy left over for artistic expression. Technical skills can become more consistent, and this can help ballet dancers feel more confident and at ease. And perhaps most importantly, the Pilates method can help a dancer internalize their effort, which is a key to moving gracefully.

Many ballet dancers, including my personal favorite, the astonishing Marianela Núñez, principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, practice the Pilates method on a daily basis. They use it to get connected before their daily ballet class, recover from an intense rehearsal and performance schedule, prepare for an upcoming season, or rehabilitate from an injury, among many other reasons.

For ballet dancers, this method is invaluable. Ballet requires an extraordinary amount of control in order to develop refined movement. Precise placement is also involved for both functional as well as aesthetic reasons, and the awareness dancers achieve with a regular Pilates practice can empower them to partner themselves from the inside out.