In 1998, I came back from living (and teaching Pilates) in Hamburg, Germany. I was teaching Pilates at Velocity dance studio and my teacher, Cary Regan, had invited me to join her at her private studio at Velocity. But I also started teaching over in West Seattle on Saturdays in an Iyengar Yoga Studio.
At this particular studio, they had this beautiful wall system of hooks and straps designed for helping students of Iyengar Yoga get more out of the class. But while I was teaching a regular mat class there, I realized that I could attach the springs from the Cadillac (or Trapeze table) to the Iyengar straps. And so it began in 1999. I ordered some extra springs from Balanced Body and we started doing a lot of the classic Pilates Cadillac work in a class setting.
It worked out really well. The studio was small so I had 6 sets of springs and half the clients would be doing some matwork and half would do the Springs and then they would switch. This continued for a few years until I opened up my studio here at 21st and Union in 2001.
When I opened up my studio, I simply screwed 4 inch screw eyes into the studs and away we went. Except this time I added the ‘yoga straps’ which are actually ‘foot straps’ from the Universal Reformer. And we have never looked back. We, of course, have added other exercises to the classic repertoire and developed new exercises to fit our unique Wall system. And we are still using the Wall system in new ways.
When the TRX first came out, I was very interested and looked into this piece of equipment. But I was amazed to discover how many of the TRX exercises that we were already doing: pushups, pullups, rows, abs, etc.
Today, the manufacturer of Pilates equipment – Balanced Body – has their own version of my wall system (designed and created with a teacher in California) but Mind and Body Pilates’ Wall System predates that too. And while many Seattle Pilates studios have incorporated the ‘Springboard’ into their studios, I am proud to say that we are the ‘originals’.
Especially because of this Wall System, I think Mind and Body clients are much stronger in their upper bodies than most other Pilates studio clients.
