The foundations for the Studio Pilates International instructor training courses began back in 2001 when my husband Jade and I launched our very first Pilates studio. This humble studio in Brisbane quickly grew into one of Australia’s busiest Pilates studios, where Jade and I personally instructed over 50,000 client consultations.
I began instructing Pilates with a background in Physiotherapy and Jade with a background as an Olympic swimmer and Personal Trainer. Both of us had undertaken Pilates certification courses with a large number of accrediting bodies in both Australia and the United States, giving us a broad basis in multiple Pilates training styles.
REALISING A GAP IN THE MARKET
After many years of teaching and training instructors to work in our studio, we realised that there is more to being a great instructor than simply learning a few exercises. We found that the new employees would come in with a certain level of knowledge, but often found it difficult to apply this knowledge, how to effectively instruct and modify the exercises for each person or have knowledge of the body and biomechanics. This ultimately decreased these instructors’ ability to conduct great classes.
We also discovered that in a lot of cases, unfortunately the knowledge of incoming instructors was not up to date with the latest science in terms of how to correctly activate muscles and cater for specific injuries. As a result, when we would hire new instructors, we would often spend a large amount of time retraining and up skilling them, sharing the lessons we had learned from many years of instructing. We saw these instructors grow from being good instructors to amazing, world-class instructors who were empowered with the practical knowledge to help their clients.
Our new recruits would often comment that they wished they had learned all of this in-depth and practical knowledge in their original certification courses and how easy we made it for them to understand and learn. This made us realise that there was a need in the Pilates industry to provide simple to learn, cutting edge courses that are able to be practically applied and are based on modern science.
REINVENTING THE PILATES INSTRUCTOR COURSE
We found that a lot of Pilates training programs were quite complicated and we wanted to challenge this status quo and provide something unique and different, while also delivering an even higher level of practical information to students. We harnessed our years of experience and set about creating a Pilates training program that had a far more streamlined approach, greatly reducing the time needed for training.
In the creation process, we collaborated with our leading team of Physiotherapists and Pilates instructors with an aim to create one of the most advanced Pilates courses available. We sat down and wrote everything you could possibly want to know about every exercise; from the muscles used, the correct movements, common mistakes, injury and intensity modifications, how to teach it, verbal cues and detailed pictures, all with the intent to produce the most comprehensive Pilates instructor training manuals.
We then filmed video tutorials not only on every exercise, but also on postural assessments, injury management, and how to become a great instructor so that our students could access this resource at any time by utilising our exclusive Online Training Centres. This meant that our students could learn in their own time and watch the videos as many times as they wanted to enhance their learning and cut down the need for students to take extended leave from work to complete their certification.
We then hand-picked an elite group of instructor trainers who have the same passion for Pilates and helping people to facilitate courses and help our students perfect their instructing skills. We continue to review and improve our courses regularly so that they remain the most up to date and best possible courses in the industry.
To date, we have already helped over 3,000 people begin their career in Pilates in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Arab Emirates and are looking forward to helping many more!
OUR AIM AND PURPOSE
We absolutely love Pilates and we are so passionate about it as a form of fitness and rehabilitation. Pilates has changed our lives, not only physically from practising it ourselves, but it has also given us a great deal of enjoyment, satisfaction and reward to be helping our clients to become fitter and injury free.
We also love helping our students to share in this excitement and enjoy the same benefits of a career in Pilates that we have experienced!
Tanya Winter
Co-Founder & Director