Issue #452 – Wednesday, February 16, 2025
Beyond the Studio: Expanding Your Pilates Career Flexibility and Profitability
– Part 1 –
Stretching the Pilates Teaching Landscape
by Anne Bishop
One of the biggest myths in teaching Pilates is that in-person private lessons are the apex or pinnacle experience of teaching and learning Pilates.
Here are the common reasons I repeatedly hear that in-person private lessons are best:
- You can use touch cues
- You adapt the movement to the client’s individual needs
- You have all the equipment you need in the studio
- You can’t replace in-person connection
However, these strengths can become a crutch when overused, create rigidity in the Pilates learning experience, and cause roadblocks for teachers and students. On the learning level, the in-person strengths can keep your client needing you as the teacher forever and reduce your client’s ability to progress. Lionizing in-person studio teaching also reduces your career prospects.
As we all know, the world is experiencing repeated disruptions and complexities, which are not anticipated to wane. Examples include the COVID-19 pandemic and global climate events such as repeated hurricanes, floods, and fires. If you train your clients to exclusively value in-person Pilates appointments, your livelihood and ability to make a dependable career in Pilates may be hampered.
This is why I want to explore teachers working outside the in-person studio model, beyond just myself, and share their experiences, strengths, opportunities, and lessons learned.
Importantly, I never want the Pilates industry or teachers to be caught flat-footed again with something as challenging as the pandemic. Even Joseph Pilates famously taught Pilates outside in the snow, not just in a studio, and was deeply impacted by the pandemic of his day.
For this article, I interviewed Pilates and Gyrotonic Teachers. While listening to and learning from them, I was reminded how many innovative and bright embodied brains are embedded within our industry.
The Online Appointment + Membership Models
First, we’ll explore online appointment teaching and how it is used today to augment in-person teaching for client and teacher flexibility and enhanced revenue and creativity.
A few teachers exclusively taught online almost 5 years after the pandemic. Most teachers taught in person occasionally, but it was not the bulk of their income, bandwidth, or time.
Aimee McDonald shared she loves teaching online as it allows her to balance her work with her role as she leads her dance company.
Anne C Bishop is co-founder of the Embodied Business Institute with Chantill Lopez. Anne is a licensed Pricing Overhaul® Coach, has owned a profitable Pilates Studio for 20 years, worked for Cast.org a curriculum design firm, and received her Master’s at Harvard University.