About — Pilates with Romy

meet Romy

Romy studied and trained in Anatomy, Movement Principles and as a Reformer Instructor with Keeley Craigie, Balanced Body Master Instructor for the UK. The Balanced Body program includes the full repertoire of Pilates exercises, along with modifications and variations to make a program successful for wide range of clients. By incorporating the Balanced Body Movement Principles, Romy is empowered to teach transformative Pilates.

Romy continues to develop her training and understanding of Joseph Pilates’ methods by attending and observing weekly classes with Keeley Craigie.

Benefits of Pilates

Pilates will teach you the ideal posture, where the forces of gravity are distributed evenly throughout the body. This means muscles are at their correct length, joints are aligned correctly, ligaments are less likely to be sprained and muscles less likely to strain. The body becomes balanced and therefore much less likely prone to injury and pain.

Pilates is not just a workout, it’s recommended by many healthcare professionals for its rehabilitative and preventative properties and is wonderful not only for sculpting your body but also for clearing your mind giving you energy and inner serenity.

It can be beneficial for back pain, pre and post-natal, osteoporosis, sports injuries, osteoarthritis, scoliosis, hyper-mobility, shoulder/neck problems and knee injuries.

What is Pilates?

Pilates is a mental and physical body-conditioning programme that uses exercise and concentration to develop body awareness, improving and changing the body’s postural alignment habits.

Learning how to align your body in its correct position before working through a range of low impact exercises, plus using breath to facilitate activation of your core stabilising muscles in the lower abdomen and back, mean you’ll feel toned and stretched in all areas of the body. This results in increased strength and flexibility in all muscles and joints allowing ease of movement. Your balance and stamina will improve and if wanting to rehabilitate, you will work to try and restore full mobility.

Pilates is easy to get started in and depending on your goals, can be as gentle or challenging as you’d like it to be. It’s suitable for all ages and abilities and with different levels of classes, there’s something to suit everyone’s needs.

Joseph Pilates said, "In 10 sessions you'll feel the difference, in 20 sessions you'll see the difference, and in 30 sessions you'll have a whole new body". Of course, results will vary by person, but rest assured the more regularly you practice Pilates, the faster you’ll feel the benefits and see the difference.

History of Pilates

Joseph Pilates was born in 1880 in Germany. A sickly child who suffered from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever, his childhood illnesses left him with twisted limbs and a stunted bone structure. Rather than accept his limitations, he was determined that with exercise he could correct his disabilities and lead a full and active life.

His belief that ‘Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness’ led him along an experimental journey where he tried many different health and fitness regimes. Through his hard work and determination, he rebuilt his body.

Using movements taken from yoga, martial arts, gymnastics, skiing, self-defence, dance, circus training and weight training, Joseph Pilates developed an exercise system which promoted the perfect balance of strength, and flexibility. He called this exercise method ‘Contrology’

He went on to create a series of 34 mat work exercises and developed apparatus such as the Reformer, Cadillac and Barrel, all of which were intended to facilitate movement and enhance the effectiveness of the mat work exercises. Many of these pieces of apparatus were so well engineered that they remain fundamentally unchanged in their design today.

Pilates taught self-defence and fitness to the police and army in both England and Germany and then emigrated to America in 1926, where he met his wife Clara and set up his studio. Many of his early clients were from the boxing community but word of his methods and success at treating injuries travelled and he soon started to work with ballet dancers, many of whom became teachers of the method themselves.

Joseph Pilates was convinced that one day his method, which he believed should be part of a commitment to a healthy lifestyle, would be known around the world. Sadly he didn’t get to see it happen. However, after his death in 1967, his method became known as “Pilates’ instead of ‘Contrology’ and his committed students went on to keep his method alive, training others in the system and spreading its popularity.