Mary Alice has been my client for 5 years this month (Happy MELTiversary Mary Alice! ), so I decided to interview her about her MELT practice and share her experience. If you've never heard of MELT, MELT is hands off manual therapy. We use a soft foam roller and small balls to balance your nervous system and hydrate your connective tissue system to help reduce inflammation and pain.

As a seasoned fitness instructor of 30 years (how can I be that old!? I obviously started when I was 10, but I digress…) I’ve seen and taught a multitude of fitness classes. Hi lo aerobics, step aerobics, slide aerobics, shallow water aerobics, deep-water aerobics, spinning, Boot Camp, TRX, rip trainer and finally Pilates.

I consider the five Basic Principles the essence of STOTT PILATES; what distinguishes the STOTT PILATES brand from all other Pilates methods. As a trainee, if you are going to learn one single thing from our training courses, learn the Basic Principles.

Feb 15 I was skiing in Aspen and on my final day skiing I fell, my first fall in 5 days. As I was going down I felt a pop in my knee and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get up.

May 30 I was waiting to turn left, blinker on and I was rear ended by a distracted driver- he didn’t even brake- resulting in whiplash a concussion and my car being totaled.

My love affair with Pilates began around 2005. I was a stay-at-home mom with a 2-year-old at home and two children in elementary school. I was constantly running around with the kids so it was a challenge fitting in a workout. At the time, I belonged to a gym so I often went to classes that were packed with tons of people.

When I started pilates as a client in 2012, I just had my first job after receiving my bachelor’s degree. I saw my chiropractor regularly since I was 16 and I knew that it would be a bad idea to sit 40 hours per week at an office without exercising.

When teaching, counting reps is easy (most of the time). It can be a good idea to give your client a sense of how many of each exercise she will be doing.

As a newer teacher it's harder to give the perfect cue to a client or a class to enable the client to feel the exercise.

A client recently asked me how I got started in Pilates. After 15 years of teaching it’s such an integral part of my life, I had to really stop and think about what brought me to this passion. My first love is ballet. As a young professional dancer, I was introduced to Pilates and the reformer in particular after a groin injury.

Students often ask me about taking the Cadillac, Chair and Barrels courses and if it's a good idea. Of course my answer is YES, but I'd like to give some of the rationale behind my thoughts.

While Mat and Reformer give you a wonderful foundation and a great selection of exercises, they are a drop in the bucket of Pilates knowledge.

I started doing Pilates in 2003 after I had my second child. A few years later I found myself in the middle of a divorce. I no longer could be a stay at home mom and housewife. I wanted a career that could give me more purpose and afford me the opportunity to work and be a stay at home mom at the same time.