My Pilates History...
My name is Stephanie Beeson and I started studying Pilates at a school for the arts in New York in 1979 (yes, I wore leg warmers and rolled up bandanna’s around my head in the fashion of ‘Fame”). I loved it so much I named my three foot tall teddy bear ‘Pilates’ not realising it was a person's name, I just loved the exercises we did every week.It never occurred to me I’d find myself dedicating my life to studying and teaching the Pilates Method.
I moved to England in my 20’s and would often share the exercises with anyone looking for a real abdominal challenge (we didn’t call it the ‘core’ back then). No one had heard of the system of exercises I called ‘Pilates”.
I trained initially in the UK with Body Control Pilates, but didn’t recognise the exercises they taught when I compared them to the Pilates exercises I had done before. I now refer to the Body Control exercises as ‘pre-Pilates’ exercises. What I had learned at school I now know are referred to as the Classical exercises. As soon as I was certified in the UK I traveled back to New York to study Classical Pilates. I trained with what was then called the Physical Mind Institute in New York. There I met Kelly Kane who had studied with Romana. I studied with her Kane School of Core Integration in the Classical Pilates Method which included all the original choreography using the Pilates apparatus.
I became officially hooked with the method and movement and have continued to study anatomy and movement, massage therapy, ideokinesis (helping to translate the manual for Eric Franklin when he first ran his course in London back in 2002). In 2008 I completed a 500 hour study of Hatha Yoga and qualified as a yoga teacher with Ruth White. I have completed the BodyMaster Method with the osteopath John Gibbons. I’ve continued adding to my knowledge most recently with Neurokinetic Therapy (NKT) and so, my learning continues….