Pilates Education By Heather O'Donnell
When I was looking to train as a Pilates instructor, I was 27 and already developing a career in the corporate world. I was living in the UK at the time and while I was advancing in my career, something felt off. It was clear to me that I needed to do something different.
As someone who enjoys exercise, I had done Yoga/Pilates fusion classes at my gym and I really enjoyed the Pilates side of the classes. The creative use of props and the challenging exercises piqued my interest. I was also drawn to the idea of running my own business and having a studio of my own was compelling. I decided to look into how to certify as a Pilates instructor. Living in London, England at the time, there weren’t many options available to me. As an American citizen who planned to move around a bit, I needed a school that was recognized around the world. I stumbled upon a Pilates studio situated in a Dance school in South London that was a host studio for BASI Education. The instructor, Amit Younger (@amityounger), greeted me and took me through a few exercises. It was clear I had some work to do, this guy was serious!
I signed up for equipment Pilates classes at the studio to dip my toe in. Amit was running a BASI comprehensive course at the studio the following year. I decided to sign up for the MAT portion, to see how I liked it. It was wonderful. I really enjoyed learning the full MAT repertoire and diving deeper into The Pilate Method. About halfway through, I decided I wanted to do the Comprehensive Course in its entirety. It was official, this was my next career move!
A year and a half later, after completing the course, doing apprentice hours, observing and practice teaching, I was a fully qualified Pilates instructor. I left my corporate job and started teaching full time and I haven’t looked back since. While the transition from the corporate world felt scary, I felt much more satisfied on this career trajectory; it was clearly a better fit for me than corporate life. Since then, I have opened two studios, one in London and then CoreWorks here in Toronto.
Looking back, BASI education was the best choice I could have made for my foundational education. Most importantly, the training is comprehensive. This means in one course you learn all the repertoire on all the pieces of equipment. This is very hard to find these days. Most other schools provide the material piecemeal: Mat level 1, Reformer level 1, etc As a studio owner, one of my biggest challenges is finding instructors who are trained on all the equipment. As a BASI host, CoreWorks is proud to help bring BASI education to Canada and help more people start their careers as Pilates instructors with one of the best education programs in the business.