Beyond the Reformer
Welcome to Beyond the Reformer, the podcast where Pilates professionals and enthusiasts come together for thoughtful conversations, genuine insights, and inspiring stories. Join Nic every Monday morning to feel more connected, inspired, and empowered in your Pilates practice, teaching, and beyond…
Beyond the Reformer
Has Pilates Lost it's Identity with Ava Rodriguez
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"Pilates won't lose its identity just because you learn different methods. It loses identity when you haphazardly memorize a set of exercises and think you can just teach this."
In this episode, Nic is joined by Ava Rodriguez, a movement specialist, international presenter, and founder of the globally accredited Mobility Fitness Academy (MFA), recorded in person while both were in London ahead of speaking at a Reformer Pilates industry conference. Ava has spent her career training movement professionals across the world and is no stranger to BTR, making her second appearance on the show.
They explore whether Pilates is losing its identity amid the current industry boom, why social media and AI are making studios sound the same, and the line between healthy diversification and diluted teaching that's lost its essence.
They unpack the real gap between certification and competency, why most teacher training only gets you to the starting line, and how true continuing education means going deeper, not collecting more credentials.
They also get into studio business clarity, why trying to serve everyone means standing out to no one, and finish on what actually matters in this work: helping people move, live, and function better, not just look good doing it.
Timestamps
00:00 Has Pilates lost its identity?
02:38 The blending boom: more methods, less focus
03:35 Why AI is making every studio sound the same
10:45 Instructor vs. teacher: what training doesn't give you
13:18 The lifelong question that makes you a better teacher
17:32 Diluted messaging and losing your specialism
18:49 Why you can't be a studio for everyone
24:16 Change is coming. Are you on the right train?
24:36 Fighting with ChatGPT on purpose
34:48 What Pilates actually gives people
39:38 What it really means to lose your identity
44:03 What training is actually for
48:13 The client told it was impossible
58:09 Outcome over education
1:01:50 Where the industry is heading next
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Coming up on this week's episode of Beyond the Reformer, I'm joined by Ava Rodriguez, who's back for a second time. Do you think that Pilates has started to lose its identity?
SPEAKER_01The hype in the way is diluting quality. People just might want to jump on the trend rather than actually making sure that they qualify in the language they want to introduce.
SPEAKER_00I feel a little saddened.
SPEAKER_01The boom is not allowing that to come through. Pilates one loses identity just because you learn different methods. It loses identity when you haphazardly memorize a set of exercises and then think that I can just teach this.
SPEAKER_00Ava has been on the podcast before. So if you go back quite early days actually, she talked about her story into Pilates and that she has trained in so many other modalities and now runs the MFA, which is an academy all working around how do we get better movement in our joints specifically? She is such an interesting person to talk to. She has been in the world of Pilates a good while. She's also looked at lots of other movement modalities and kind of blends them together in a really, really clever way. So we decided as we were together, why not sit down and have a conversation about blending Pilates with things? Does it work? Does it not work? Should we be doing it? Should we not be doing it? So this is a great take on what Ava and myself think and maybe how we think we could do it better, how we could do it well. Before we get into today's conversation, it would be so helpful if you could like, subscribe, follow wherever you're watching us. We are on YouTube and Spotify video, maybe soon to be on Apple Podcasts. Maybe by the time this goes out, it might be on there. And also listening on all the podcast platforms. It has been amazing building this community with you. And these small things that you do really do help us to grow, help us to get sponsorship, help us to get guests on, and help us keep these conversations going, really. So thank you so much if you've already done it. If you've not, which by the way, is most of you, please, please, please, could you do it? Okay, let's get into today's chat with Ava. Ava, welcome back to Beyond the Reformer. This is your second time on the podcast. It's great to be here in London with you. I love being here with you. It's so different in person. Well, we met via the podcast. It's this happening lots to me recently, which is really nice, but we kept in touch. We've messaged you're visiting the UK, and I said, hey, let's do an in-person. And yeah, I would love to explore. You know, when you created the MFA, the Movement Function Academy, you were met with quite a bit of resistance because you were seen as changing Pilates. But now the industry almost feels like it's gone the opposite way. Do you think that Pilates has started to lose its identity?
SPEAKER_01That's a really good question. And it's a complicated one because I think, look, from a point of view of someone that introduces something new to Pilates, I think that diversity is important. I think that the more languages you learn to speak in movement, the better problem solver you become. Because let's face it, as soon as you worked just for two years, you realize we're detectives. We need to solve problems at all times. And the better problem solver you become, the less you gatekeep and the more you lead. But there's another side to it, and that is, I think often people just might want to jump on a trend rather than actually making sure that they qualify in the language they want to introduce or they want to teach. And that's where things lose its essence. Pilates is really good at what he does because it has a very specific focus. And when you blend into many things, you might lose that focus if you don't know how, when, for who. So pro-diversity, obviously, but I think that the bit that gets often overlooked is how are you blending things together? Why are you blending things together?
SPEAKER_00And what shifts are you seeing now? Are you seeing more blending happening?
SPEAKER_01Oh, we see globally, you know, I travel between maybe eight to ten times a year to present at Pilates Convention, Fitness Convention, teach the seminars. And globally we see more studios and instructors popping up, like mushrooms everywhere. And we see more instructors qualifying in different methods. And that's a great thing, right? But where does the where do we so things evolve whether we like it or not? The question is, does it evolve intelligently with where you have respect for tradition and then hold curiosity for evolution in the other hand? Right? And I guess it gets messy because of social media, FOMO comes in, which is what we were talking about. When everyone's like, oh, I should be doing this too, I should be doing that too, without thinking through why are you doing it? And did you actually learn it?
SPEAKER_00You know, for the first time in the 11 years since I've had the studio, I had, I was on holiday last week. I desperately needed the break. And I think part of it was for the first time ever, I wanted to totally switch off social media. It's the first time I really felt a sense of noise. And I would say I'm not really a FOMO person, but you know, you feel quite distracted from it. You feel like, oh, and I think with the birth of AI in the last six months, where studios are particularly using it, everyone sounds the same. It's a lot of the same messaging, which I think can be confusing because they're saying one thing and showing something else. And I think, I think social media has got its part to play in the drive, diversify, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And what you just mentioned. You're saying one thing and you're showing another, which then also dilutes the message and takes away from what is. I see, I mean, in the Pilates world right now, we're like, what's Pilates, what's not? Can we define it? And then there's that other side that goes, but do we need to refine it and define it? Because movement is movement. It is, but through a client's perspective, and actually, if I'm gonna be honest, I think it's more almost important through a teacher's perspective. Because when you're choosing an education, and I know people DMing you, DMing me the same thing. If I want to become a Pilates teacher, what do you suggest? Or if I, Ava, I want to learn biomechanics, where do you think I should go? When people use terminology in the wrong context, it dilutes the message. And when the message gets diluted, it's really difficult to decipher what's what. So I think that's even more important through our perspective, who's trying to evolve more than it is from the client's perspective, even though that is important for them too. But at the end of the day, as a client, you want results. So when you come into a studio, you probably would recommend it to lartis because you're in pain or something has happened to you. But you want to walk out feeling change. So you're not maybe gonna care so much about the exercises, you care more about the outcome. But as teachers, we need to understand the difference. How disheartening is it for you to take a course that you thought was gonna deliver A B C and then it turns out it was something completely different?
SPEAKER_00Well, we're both in London because we're presenting at a conference tomorrow around reforma Pilates, and I think some of the subject titles are quite interesting. And I'm on a panel talking about sort of education standards, and it is an interesting point that you make because it's hard, I think, more than ever, for people to look at a course or look at courses and decipher. Because whilst the studio owners might be using AI to describe their studios, so are education providers and they can all sound very much the same and they're not the same. I think if you've been a client across multiple studios, you'll definitely see there's lots of different flavors to Pilates. Even if we stepped away from some of the modern blending, there's always been flavors to Pilates. And I remember I was sort of thinking about this event tomorrow, and I was thinking back to when I signed up. The internet was that long ago, the internet wasn't quite as detailed as it is now. And I remember really only had the choice really of sort of the big global players. And even still, I was like, what's the difference between Stop, between BASI, between Polestar? And even was finding it hard then. Now, of course, you have so much more. And I think the question isn't just about the standard or the depth of that teaching, but also the style. And in preparation, I kind of went on a load of different training providers that actually I know quite well and I know their style. And they sound like mine, my training, which is very different in style. And I hope that what we've done has tried to write how it is. And I think it's a big challenge, isn't it? It's a big challenge for clients, it's a it's a challenge for students coming in. I was wondering when you started the MFA and you were talking about the resistance you were met with, what was the Pilates landscape like then? I wonder if that might help us understand the landscape as it is now.
SPEAKER_01So I think when you bring something new into a space that holds a lot of tradition and people can tend to get defensive. Because I think Pilates is so beautiful and so intelligent, right? With the creme de la creme. Let's just admit it, okay? I said it. And it changed so many of our lives. So sometimes and because of that, we tend to tie our identity to an ideology. And we because of that, we don't come to the table with curiosity. We just come to the table to defend, right? So when I created the MFA, that was the landscape. So I had to spend a lot of time and just stay with the same message long enough. And then my community obviously helped me along the way that this guys, this is not replacing anything. I'm giving you something that you can just sandwich it into your sandwich that you're already eating. But the outcome is very different. I think now, also because of science evolving, more people understanding we need evidence-based education, and not everything has been studied, to be fair as well, right? But we understand that every system has a language and an outcome. One is not better than the other, but they do completely different things. And that is okay. So the question is: what do you want to specialize in? What do you want to offer? And what does your clients need? That's why it's so important to speak different languages. But when you hold the good qualifications, you have respect for the method. You have respect for the system. So when you blend, you blend it very intelligently. You don't just do it because someone and so-and-so and the cool people on Instagram is doing it. You do it because you have a very distinctive goal of where how you where you want to lead someone.
SPEAKER_00And why do you think, I mean, look, your background is that well, talk to me about your background is in, and you've got we've got a previous episode with with you that you talk in a lot more detail, but you have got expertise in different areas that you've blended together. And I think that's an important point, isn't it? So you're not just a Pilates teacher.
SPEAKER_01No, no. I I think I spent still doing my career to be very good at movement. And more importantly, understanding how the human body behaves instead of just being good at teaching exercises. You have to start here. It is really important. You know, like we would, as well as I know, that when you take a Pilates certification, it's not enough. That's your starting point.
SPEAKER_00And I don't think enough people appreciate that. It's it's not enough. Even if you've done, you were telling me earlier when we had lunch how many hours you spent on yours. But nowadays, I think what did you say, 1600 hours or something crazy? I mean, and and officially you have to do 950, and 950 is even like crazy today. A 500 feels like for many people they're not even getting there. But even if you've done that, there's still work to do. You don't come out of it like ping, you know, perfect. You you just don't. Because being a teacher is more than just knowing the repertoire and instructing it. Because I think a training might produce an instructor, but if you want to be a teacher, that's a different quality. Your personality is part of that. The way that you hold the energy in the room is part of that. You know, there's so much that goes into being a successful teacher. And I think it's important that people understand that. I don't think I was lucky with my training. There was such an emphasis on continuing education. And it's been nice to actually, not quite as much as you, but to expand outside of even the Pilates world. And you realize a lot, as you said, movement inspires movement and anatomy inspires movement. There's lots of ways that we can enhance our understanding of this work.
SPEAKER_01And I think that it's important also to distinguish the difference between being good and understanding the repertoire versus being good at understanding the pain point of the person that's standing in front of you. You know, we talk I see it on social media a lot. We talk about clarity, but it's subjective. What are we talking about? Clarity around how to break down the Pilates roll-up, you need that. Super important, right? Clarity around being able to take it apart biomechanically. Next step. That's that's that's depth. Clarity around seeing what someone biomechanically is limited in. Now we're talking different language, right? So you are not, it's not enough when you're starting point. You have to blend it with working because as soon as you start teaching bodies, you start learning. You understand that your manual wasn't enough. That was an intra point, right? That's an entry point. It's your introduction. Human bodies react differently because that's physiology. Physiology is what sets us apart. Pyromechanically, we all have the, you have knees and ankles, we all have the same thing. And then what continuing education do you need to take to cover your blind spots? And that's difficult because you have to then start questioning yourself. This is something I learned during my journey through my community. If I were telling you one thing, MFA coaches how can comment, we're allergic to operate inside one box. We just don't know how. We probably get rashes and hypes. And I'm not saying you have to be like that, but the point is that when you ask questions of what do I not know? And try to understand that, you become a better problem solver. You become a better teacher. And it's a lifelong journey. It's never gonna end. Even by the time it's time to check out, you're probably not done. But at least you try to cover as much as you could because of duty of care. People trust us.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's about being curious, isn't it? And I was at a conference not long ago, and there was an educator there that I really respect teaching, and some of the audience were saying, but I was taught it this way, and you're saying it's that way. So does that mean it's wrong? And she was like, No, like that's also right. You know, that movement is movement. And I think it's it's whether we consider ourselves sort of Pilates teachers or movement teachers using the method of Pilates to help us and therefore allowing ourselves to be inspired if we are by other trainings that we might have done and bringing them together. But I think I was so lucky, I felt like my educator really instilled in me this idea of why. Why do my hands need to be there? Why do I need to be like that? You know, and to your point, Ava, the training your eye takes time to be able to see. 100%. Almost no training ever gets you there. I feel like I'm still learning all the time and being able to see and working with real human bodies, it's like a mystery. You're like a detective, you know. And if someone could make it really easy, then like we would. But I mean, there's no wonder people can end up in chronic pain, even though they've seen a lot of specialists, because they, if it was that easy to fix, they would do that. So yeah, I think it's I guess it's just but a challenge, a question I get asked is to your point, where do I find these courses? How do I, how do I know where my blind spots are? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Look, I think that in the Pilates community, we have one advantage that I will say the broader fitness is not as good as us, and that is we are pro-continuing ed. We spend most amount of money on continuing education, and that is a beautiful thing. The other side of the coin, though, is that we tend to spend most of our education within the same system. And at some point, you're just redecorating what you know, right? Because when you take Pilates for back pain, Pilates for knee pain, Pilates for, I don't know, beak toe pain or whatever pain that may be, that's great because you're learning how to adapt the Pilates repertoire to a specific pathology or problem. But you also need to realize no system on its own is complete. Therefore, Palatas cannot alone be the solution to everything. So now it's time to start looking atwards because movement is movement. Your body doesn't understand the difference between Pilates or strength training or bar or yoga, it just understands commando, do this. So the question is do you, if you want to spend your time to perfect a repertoire, by all means. We need those experts too, because when I come to learn Palatas, I want to learn from someone that knows the ins and out of this method, 100%. But I think most people are not clear about what they want to achieve, they're not clear about what they stand for, which then the noise of social media starts messing with you more, right? Because, like everybody else, I'm human, the noise is there, right? You see this and you see that, but I'm really good at pulling back and keeping my eyes on my own price. I mean, I also told you during lunch, I'm a strength coach. I'm qualified to train pro athletes. Do you think I know a thing or two about nutrition? I do, but you never come to my Instagram where I am giving you nutritional advice. And it won't be anything wrong if I did, but I want you to know me for the thing I specialize in. And I think that people confuse sometimes who they are for. So the messaging becomes so much diluted, which then takes away not only from what they do, but takes away from those people that specialize in X, Y, and Z.
SPEAKER_00And I guess this leads on to studios being clear on the ethos that they are about. Because I don't think that's happening enough. And hence everything sounds the same. So if you're a studio owner, how do you start to approach who you are, what you are, what you stand for? So that then your marketing message is clear, your socials clear, you make sure you're hiring the right kind of teachers. Do you think that's an important thing to do?
SPEAKER_01I think it's exceptionally important thing to do. And I think that comes from understanding what problem are you solving? You cannot be for everyone. And I think, you know, when you're a good teacher, it doesn't mean you're good at business. They're very different things, right?
SPEAKER_00We talk about that on our training, you know?
SPEAKER_01They are two different things. And along the way, you realize maybe you are that good at business, or wow, I'm really bad at it, right? So that's where delegation comes in. Or you simply take courses and you educate yourself. Those are your options. But I think it's very important to be clear about what you do because that's where your messaging gets sharper. You cannot be for everyone. I see studios, they want to be for athletes, they want to be for public flora, they want to be for mobility, they want to be for menopause. You're like, well, no, that's not.
SPEAKER_00But then it's hard for them recruiting, bringing in the teachers that are going to do that. They're gonna have well, you know, there's a in the marketing world, my background's in marketing. It's like if you try and talk to many, you talk to nobody. If you talk to one, you will still pick up other people, but you'll be clear on your messaging. And I was thinking recently, like, we're all using AI to help us out. It's a great tool, but AI is powerful when you input the information into it. So if you input your ethos, your beliefs, your brand pillars, then it will give you great copy that you can put on your website or hooks that you can use on your social media. I think the challenge is if we're just putting more general things in, I'm a Pilates studio, help me write a homepage. I do think that's a big challenge of why everyone. Everything sounds the same and why clients are confused. But you know, the client with the back pain going to more of a dynamic reformer class, that's not the right place for them. Absolutely. And I I always use that as an example because I think that that was for a long time, that was most of us got into Pilates for that reason. I think it has shifted a bit. People are coming to it for different reasons now. But I do think that still exists a lot. And I don't think we should. I was thinking recently, I'm I'm certainly not rooted in it must not change and it must be protected in that way. I'm I'm very like you. I think evolution in the right way is good as long as we understand its roots. But there is a reason it's this successful. There's a reason it existed. And I think we have to be a little careful about diluting it if we're not making it clear that that's what we're doing. So if I go to, you know, there are studios out there that have blended a lot of strength work into it. And we'll talk about what we might think about them. But I they make that positioning very clear. I know if I'm going for rehab, that's not the place to go to. But there are plenty of other studios that kind of all sound the same, but you might go and have that experience. Why why do you think that it was met with such resistance when you started? And do you see that there's shifts now that we're more open to the shifts happening?
SPEAKER_01So I think we spend so many years as Pilates teachers trying to convince the world you need Pilates. Okay? Just gonna be great, just do it. And no, it's not yoga, you know. And with that passion, because we care so much, you know, when you're a Pilates teacher, it's almost we have all something in common. Like perfectionist, we want everything to be perfect, and we want you to feel amazing when you leave our classes. But along the way, we over-promis. We start promising things that Pilates wasn't designed to do. And now, because more and more people realize you need to care a little bit about science, it's important, we start cleaning it up. So I think that helps to understand oh, there are different things out there and they do different things, and I might need them in my toolbox. Other, and because of that, everybody felt already in Pilates that they are doing a lot of things for their joints. But then my community helped me to spread the message. People were like, oh, oh, you can achieve that now. Let me pay attention, let me see. Okay, this sounds different. Or they try my free hip class and they go, okay, we're not even talking about the same thing, and realize that there's an added value here. I'm teaching you how the human body works, which means you can apply any method because there's a difference between understanding how to apply an exercise and understanding why it works and why it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's about teaching movement and having tools, and as you said earlier, understanding what is what does that client want as their outcome? What are their challenges, what are their goals, and how do we help them? And not being rooted in it has to be this methodology or not, which I think is interesting. But then if we were to look at, you know, what is your view now around this huge boom? And you've lived in lots of different countries. So different countries have had these booms at different times. In the UK, it's kind of happening now at this rapid pace. How do you see that being in the Pilates Industry? Bearing in mind that, you know, you were pulled up for blending and now it's happening across lots of ways. You know, how do you see that? Is that good for our industry?
SPEAKER_01Look, I think I'm a girl who don't resist change. My one of my closest friends who's a psychologist said to me, Ava, most people don't like change. And then there are people who accept change, and then there are people that evoke change, and you're that person, okay? And I was like, oh, really? She's like, Yeah. Um, I don't resist change because it's gonna happen whether you like it or I like. I am, like I teach my two daughters, change will always happen. The question is, are you gonna be on the right train or the wrong train? And to me, the right train is did you educate yourself enough so you understand how to leverage off this change and how to be respectful to the roots of that change. It's gonna happen anyway, whether you like it or not. And what you mentioned with AI, so I thought that everybody receives an email weekly. I receive an email weekly from ChatGPT asking, do you want to be part of a pilot program to optimize ChatGPT? And I thought everybody receives this. And all my friends and my husband's like, Well, and it's because I fight with ChatGPT all day long because I don't want him to give me content. You are not good at giving content. He's there for you to become smarter. And the only way you're gonna become smarter is that you learn how to analyze. Yes, it's exhausting. I can tell you that right now. It takes a lot of your time because you have to read through a lot of things. But you know, I come from a world of academia, so I'm used to reading research, I'm used to reading a lot of data, I don't mind it, but I fight with him all the time because I get annoyed, like you said, wherever you go, everything sounds the same.
SPEAKER_00So talk me through then how you work with AI.
SPEAKER_01Let's try teach me the ways. So I think one of the things I'm pretty good at is that I feed information into him and then I ask him to analyze it. And depending on what he feeds back, I then have second question and third question and fourth question. So we spar. I want him to spar. I want him to lead me to my blind spots so that I can know how to cover them. I'm an educator in heart, in every fiber of who I am. My mom says I was always this way since I was a kid. So I want to know how quickly, effectively, and intelligently I can cover my holes. And for that, I need someone to challenge me. He's wired to be agreeable. I have to tell it sometimes. I'm like, please don't agree with me. Stop it. Stop it. And I'm like, listen, I don't need you to boost my confidence, okay? This is not what you're here for.
SPEAKER_00It's so interesting hearing that. I um I used to, prior to being a political teacher, I worked in marketing agencies. And so when you're an account director in marketing agencies, you've got creatives and you've got strategists and you've got people who do SEO and you've got all these experts. And my job was to kind of take the brief and then talk to all of them and quiz them and kind of go back and forth with conversations until I've which is basically what that's why I do this now. But that's how I talk to TV TV. I, you know, I my husband's like, you literally have like not a relationship, but like it's a back and forth, back and forth. And I just think that's kind of interesting. And I guess for people listening, I think it's such a great tool. And we've got to move forward with the tools that we've got. I remember when people, you know, when social media first was a big thing, it's like businesses. I remember being in marketing and big brands being like, we don't want to be on social media, we don't want to be part of that. You know, you've got to kind of go with all this stuff, haven't you? But it is about how you use it. And I think as an industry, we have to learn how to use it because otherwise it is just giving you the basics, the same, the, you know, the vanilla version of Pilates messaging. And I see it all the time, like to the point where, like I said, we've had all this noise. I was gonna just block myself off for a little bit while, which is, you know, not a bad idea every now and again. But actually, I kind of went back and said to my team, I want to do some more work on our brand. I want to drill down more because we need to be even clearer who we are, because we're in a privileged place where, and I think through the podcast as well, like people are looking at what we're doing. And then you start seeing your messaging showing up again. And you're like, and by the way, some of that messaging I personally wrote, I didn't put it through AI. Like, it's mine. I spent hours on those taglines. So I think it's an interest, it's an interesting point. But if we get back to Pilates and we're sort of seeing these shifts and changes, do you think it's a good thing in that you mentioned before you have no issue with evolution, you have no issue with blending, but it's about having expertise in the different areas and blending them together in a way that makes sense. Are you seeing that's what's happening in the studios that are blending? No, some absolutely, but not yet.
SPEAKER_01I think that right now we're riding this wave of trends because the competition is higher. We have instructors and studios popping up everywhere. So there is a lot of like, I need to take this space, I need to take that space, and therefore quality suffers. Quality suffers. I have people that reach out to me that will say, I went to this Pilates studio and then we were doing weights on the reformer, and I hurt my neck, right? I'm gonna tell you this. There are no bad movements. I know we have a lot of rules in different systems, but there are no bad movements. There's lack of prerequisites, and then we taught and then, like a very good friend of mine says, there's also lack of ha the volume. Is your body ready for the amount of volume I expose you to, or was it too much? That doesn't make something bad. That just means your body's not ready for it yet. And then if you then as a teacher don't understand how do you assess and verify what's missing, how do you have the tools to change what you see, then you're gonna be stuck about working around this, right? So I think right now the hype and the wave is diluting quality. But I think we will come to a place where we find our way.
SPEAKER_00I often wonder what's driving uh the need to for studios to feel like they need to be offering something unique.
SPEAKER_01The science that comes out, the clients. Because they are smarter now too. They are exposed to the same noise you and I are supposed to. So they will come and they will say they might express themselves in more simple terms because you know they don't have this education, but people will come and say, Ava, I've been doing Pilates for 30 years, and then my doctor said to me I did my DEXA. This is my third one. I have osteoporosis. What am I supposed to do? I saw on your Insta, you had it before and you reverted it, right? Well, I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm gonna say you need to load, you need to do this. But you've seen I have a gym in my kitchen, right? And I'm an old school Pilates teacher. So if I'm gonna teach you Pilates, I'm gonna teach you Pilates. If I'm gonna teach you strength training, I'm gonna teach you strength training. But that's just me. I'm not saying that's what everybody else needs to do. That's just who I am. That's I like it that way. Because if I'm loading you, I want to go for maximum load. And I'm not gonna put you on an unstable surface because it means we need to lower the load because you're fighting for stability.
SPEAKER_00It got me thinking something you said earlier as well about there's a lot of information coming to clients as well. And there's a lot of noise of like all the things we should be doing. So, as women in our midlife now, which is annoying to say, but it's the truth. We know it's great. I mean, I feel like my mum has osteoporosis, my mum didn't have the benefit of HRT. Which of our moms then? No, because they were all lied to about how that works, you know. And I went on HRT at 41. Oh, I went at 432. And it's been great. But also the doctor was like, you know, you'll probably won't get osteoporosis now. But also, we now know we need to be doing progressive overload, we need to be doing strength training. And so I've been doing that the last few months and I've been loving it. But there can be a lot of noise, can't there? Like, all right, I should be doing strength training. I've heard Pilates is really good. I've got to do some cardio, I've got to make sure I'm eating whole foods, um, I'm not eating processed or ultra-processed food. I've got to read all the labels, I've got to have creatine, I've got to have collagen. Like there's a lot, right? And then people are time poor because, as my mother-in-law said to me, which I thought was a really kind thing, she said, you know, I do feel like the perimenopause was such a challenge for us because we didn't work like you did. I think that's a fair point. They often had their children younger as well. And so I think life's have life has changed, you know. I think it's interesting. So people are time poor, and you can see then why studios might feel like, right, in an hour I'm gonna give you cardio, strength training, and Pilates. Do you think that's possible to do all three well in a class?
SPEAKER_01I think that it's nuanced. I think that if I said yes, then I need to then we need to question. Then the question becomes, what does the quality what qualification does this teacher have? Right? And how well are they qualified in the subjects? Because remember, we don't have standardization. And the only way to say it works, it's when the person teaching you actually understands the variables. Now, personally, for me, it's just a personal. I don't I wouldn't do all of that in one hour, no.
SPEAKER_00For me, Pilates was this thing that slowed me down, got me to understand myself more, educated me on my body in a way that, you know, I'm talking sort of 20 years ago, where the world was about being really skinny and attacking your body and not liking your body and trying to make your body be a certain way and going to the gym, not because you enjoyed it, but because you were there. I had this kind of punishing mentality. And I, to the point where I felt like I was allergic to the gym, you know, and recently having gone back and doing strength training, I actually realized strength training and Pilates are quite aligned in that there's a slowness to them, there's a consideration to them. I, my trainer laughs because I say, I still really struggle with the rest breaks, you know, the sitting for two minutes, being like, what do I do for two minutes? And she said, That's the point. So I love, so I'm actually finding strength training is also slowing me down. And often on the podcast, when I ask people who've been doing this work a long time, like, what was it Pilates gave you? Almost everyone says something along the lines of, I've got to know myself more. And I feel a little saddened that the boom is not allowing that to come through. And I was at a Pilates conference recently where it felt like 99% of the discussion was innovation. And I'm not against innovation, but I actually came away feeling like But innovation or what? Exactly. And it felt a little bit like the for the sake of it, if I'm honest. And it sort of made me feel like we have a challenge around losing the identity of what Pilates is. And in your mind, Ava, what makes Pilates unique? And what is the benefit? How do you see it?
SPEAKER_01So Pilates is a mind-body practice. So, like you said, to your point, it makes you understand the trajectory from A to B. That's why we become so mindful. When you're in the gym, and I'm a curious cat, everyone knows this. I can spot a Pilates teacher for miles because the way she lifts. Now, that doesn't mean just because you're a Pilates teacher, you understand strength coaching. This is important to distinguish. Strength training has a language on its own. You need to understand that you can't just Google progressive overload and think you're just gonna up the weight forever. There are variables to this. And you need to also, more importantly, be able to read how the body is reacting in real time so you can adjust. Because when you program for athletes, it looks very different to writing a class plan in Pilates, right? So, to your point, Pilates allows you to understand and hold off for a second to feel what things feel like inside your body, and that has value in any other training, that mindfulness. And then the practice in itself is a full body. We have a lot of eccentrics in it. We think about alignment maybe too much sometimes, but we do. It has a lot of beautiful principles. So I think it's uh one of the most important foundations to have, if I'm gonna be honest with you, coming into movement. But I also equally think that we talk a lot about strength, but nobody teaches us the principles of strength training.
SPEAKER_00Do you do you see the No, I do, and having only recently, the last few months, really been on my own strength training journey, and my PT is actually the operations director of my business. So I know her very well, and we've worked together for six years now, and so we're very close. And I actually had this conversation with the other day and around this, and in a nutshell, you know, I can't even remember everything she was saying. She was like, you know, we think of this differently. We think of, you know, she's created me a push plan and a pull plan. And she was kind of talking about the different ways that is programmed in strength training, which I thought, you know, I was like, this is a completely different language. And I could see how strength training has come into Pilates somewhat, because I can see how there is some synergy. Equally, I think for such a long time, when I talked about Pilates, and I think probably while we all got a little bit on our pedestal, like everyone should do Pilates, it's good for everything. It didn't mean it did everything, but it was pretty much good for everybody, in that in, you know, one of the principles in my training that I wrote was the principle of efficiency. Because I think more than anything, Pilates has taught me efficiency of my body, efficiency of my energy. When your body is efficient, you don't wear it out. So you don't get injured, which means you can load it, whether that's strength training, running, playing tennis.
SPEAKER_01I think the mindset of just pushed through more is better kind of thing, right? But then there's also another side to it for me, coming in through the joint perspective. At the end of the day, that we talk about gentle, you know, when we come to midlife, I was like, we need to be gentle. And I'm all about working with your body. I mean, I spent my career learning how, but something that is also important to understand just because your body cannot tolerate load, but within we need to strength train, there are other languages that will help your body to increase its tolerance, right? That's where my work comes in. It's beyond all of those exercises. You're like, wait a minute, let me just take your part for a second, put it back together, now you can go. Because gentle is a word almost like a label to say it's okay that your knees are not functioning and your hip is not functioning, this is not functioning. I'm simplifying a very complex subject because it can be due to many different variables. But there are different languages, they are complementary to each other, and there's a benefit in understanding both. I think you teach smarter when you understand both 100%. And I think that being Pilates won't lose identity just because you learn different methods. It loses identity when you haphazardly memorize a set of exercises and then think that you be I am now can t just teach this.
SPEAKER_00What is this exercise about? Like what is it trying to teach us? I sometimes think that's not taught enough to because I think if you understood it like that, then you don't become so fixed on it must be done this way. And I guess it would allow people to be more open to playing with the positions. Talk to me a little bit about your training, because you've talked about it a little bit. Like, who's coming on it? Is it Pilates teachers? And why are they coming and what are they coming out with? And are they bringing that into the studio and blending it in in that way? I'd love to understand that a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01So, majority of people that come to me are Pilates teachers, physiotherapists that are Pilates teachers, and then we have personal trainers. And because I speak all of those languages, I know how to adapt it to what they do. Because if I'm strain training, I'm going to utilize it very differently than when I'm doing Pilates, et cetera. And what they get are very specific frameworks so that they can identify the exact location of the limitation. You know how good we are at seeing compensation, but that doesn't tell you what's not working. Imagine knowing what's not working. There and they're in class, whether you're in group session or private session. And then give them a framework that allows them to increase the load tolerance for the body, the body to be able to take higher impact with less need to recover. I mean, let's think um baya into the sunset.
SPEAKER_00That leans back into the efficiency that I think is at the heart of Pilates, actually. So I think that's, you know, but we go deeper.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know once you do that, you go, oh, that sticky roll up. I get it now. Because you can unpack it and then get the most out of it. You know how we are so good at, and this is a brilliant quality we have in Pilates, which is we adapt exercises to the body in front of us when we have worked long enough, which is really important because you meet people where they are, right? But then imagine being able to take it one further step and go, why can't this body express what I'm asking of it? Instead of me coming up with 52 variations on helping this person execute an exercise, let me throw in three things within my repertoire that changes that outcome. That's pretty powerful. So, because of that, I have now a huge influx of people coming in because they're like, well, that's life-changing. Because all of a sudden, clarity takes a different form.
SPEAKER_00I was running a course a few weeks ago, and one of the girls actually it's it's often the roller. And she was talking about, well, if I I think just put a pad underneath her, or and this conversation came up several times around modifications and around even less than modification, almost adjustments because you can't do it. And I was having a conversation saying, I'm not against, you know, adapting. Of course I'm not. I mean, that's our job. But is the adapting helping them learn to do it? Or is the adaptation actually holding them back? And that's kind of what you're talking about, isn't it? How do we start to understand how we could help them? Why is it you can't do that? And what tools do we have to help you do it? What restricting movement?
SPEAKER_01Why is there a block and why can't you get around it? Because sometimes, obviously, with exercises, it resolves it. It's not always that it's just a full stop, but often there is one. And the body's adaptive, it's smart. It will find an alternative way for you. This is why you people can do three people can do equal well teaser, but two of them are in agony, but you just can't see it. So then my question is so was the end goal to tick the teaser? Because I know nobody wakes up and loads their dishwasher in a teaser. Do you know what do you see what I mean? It's a skill-based exercise. You've that's why you feel such like a lot of us. But was the end goal to tick the box, or is the end goal to be able to do it efficiently minus a chihuahua in front of your hip flexors, your back pulling when you're watching Netflix? Because that's what I'm interested in. How can I load my body, and I mean load it, right? And then go home, sit back, relax, and enjoy my life without something thumping all the time.
SPEAKER_00And for me, that's how I got into Pilates. I feel like some of the shifts that are happening are kind of moving us quite a bit away from that. But it's interesting hearing that, you know, your work is taking you all over the world and you're finding Pilates teachers come to you wanting that depth of knowledge so that they can help people. So it's interesting to hear that despite this boom and we could talk about that, there is still a core contingent of the work that we've always been doing. It doesn't mean we're doing it in exactly the same way, but that the mission is there. Because I think a lot of people think that they are just supposed to live in pain, that you get to a certain time of your life and it's normal. And it can be really empowering for people to be like, it's not normal.
SPEAKER_01We can, we can work through this with, you know, if you work with the right person who understands what what the problem is or at least knows how to verify how says how close to 100 can I get you? Is the question, right? So your physiology, your prerequisites, your injury history, your consistency, all of that plays a role, right? You know this now that you started strength training. If your macros are not on point, it's pretty pretty hard to see the outcome, right? So all of those variables play a role. We're simplifying it because we like chit-chatting, but there are a lot of people that want depth. I mean, those that come to me are people that care way more about outcome than methods. There's no question about it. Because they all walk out, they come in for sticky joints, as we usually joke, and they're like, how do I get a surface? But they walk away understanding I taught them the language of the human body. This is why they are successful in actually unlocking the joints. Because joint training has been around for a long time, but it's quite complex to understand, let alone know how to integrate and program for an outcome. So the MFA, the essence of MFA is that I teach you to see things that were there, you couldn't see them before because you didn't have the tools. And I teach you how to put them in correlation so you understand when someone's Pilates roll-up is sticky and you give them 60,000 props and it's still sticky, but they can just do the roll-up. Is that what's important? Or do you want to find the bits and pieces that's blocking movement, train its quality, stand back and see how their body does the roll-up now?
SPEAKER_00Which one's better? And as I was listening to you, I was thinking about how much influence Pilates has had to date, even excluding the last few years, you know, the Franklin method, Feldenkrais. Like if you go to what you might consider a pretty classical Pilates class, maybe not true classical in that sense, but a traditional Pilates class, you'd realize if you really knew the history of this work that there's somatics in there. There's, you know, there's lots of things. So as a teacher, I think it is really powerful to have these different tools to create an experience. And of course, a big part of it is understanding the client's goals and being able to get them. I mean, I love, and you mentioned some of them, I love the clients who'll give you, you know, a goal that's like life-changing for them. So I had this one client who she'd had a hip replacement. And I said, What's your goal? And she said, Oh, it's a bit ridiculous. I don't know what is it? She said, I want to be able to put my own shoes on. But my physio told me that was probably impossible. Six weeks later, she put her own shoes on. She was having to ask her husband to put the socks on. She was having to ask her husband to cut her nails. You know, she said that was life-changing for her. And of course, that's a big part of it, isn't it? Is understanding it's for me, Pilates and movement that centers around this ethos is about helping people move better in their lives to do whatever they want to do, whether that's run a marathon, cut their toenails, you know, do strength training.
SPEAKER_01But that's the point of training. We're not training to look good in the gym or in the studio. We forget that as movers as well, because we have a bucket list of things we want to do. We are training so that we can be independent. Open jars, open a door, man. Sit in a car, drive, come out, and not be folded.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's being a little forgotten, certainly on social media. Do you think there's a fear almost around the simplification of some of those, what I think are incredibly powerful parts of our life, but that's not what you see being talked about. Or maybe it's because the algorithm won't pick it up and show it to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I think people focus too much on the algorithm. Look, I live with the mathematician who builds algorithms, right? So maybe because of that, I don't obsess about it because I know it's me against trillion bots. How are you gonna win this one? You can't. So I think a lot of people, when they are on social, they let social mess with them. And when it messes with you, you start losing your identity because you are jumping left, right, and center. Like if you ask me, how did your post perform? I cannot tell you. Now, this might be a mistake. Anybody's ask coaching, they're like, oh, she said that she's crazy. And maybe I am, but that's not how I look at social media. I look at social media as my dynamic CD. That if we meet somewhere and you're like, Ava, who are you? You're like, check it out, and then you understand.
SPEAKER_00Well, it goes back to what you said about not being distracted, like understanding who you are and what you believe in. And I think it's a really good point. I actually pulled up my team recently where there'd been a lot of people had seen a post, someone on my team had seen a post. Nick, can you create a version like this? But you know, bring it to life in your way. And we did a bit of it. And then I had a meeting a couple of weeks ago. I said, I do not want to be sent anybody else's post and told to create a version of it. I want you to read what we're about and come up with some ideas that feel like they're unique. And I think that's such a good point because then it's also that's a represent it's authentic and it's a representation of who you are and what you're about. Of course, if you do understand the algorithms, you can see why there is such a drive in choreography-based content flows, steal this.
SPEAKER_01Because people don't want to think. Look, it's called socials. It means it needs to evoke simple feelings, right? For me as an educator, I'm bottom on the list. People are like, I need to think now. You're bad. And then they swipe through. But that's okay for me because I want to speak to the right people, my people. I don't need your popularity. I'm 48 years old. Girl, I'm already popular in my head.
SPEAKER_00I don't need to be popular on social. And of course, there's many social media influencers who aren't successful in a brick and mortar, whether that's a studio or a restaurant. And there are plenty of hugely successful businesses in all areas that are not, you know, social media is a business in itself, isn't it? And I definitely battle with that in a is this where I want to put my time? And really, what does it give us? But I think I did a solo episode recently around creativity in Pilates, and it was about how you come out of your training, you spent thousands on learning this manual and understanding it. And before you've even had time to practice it, you're being influenced by what is essentially an algorithm and thinking you need to change it immediately. And I do think that's why then teachers are struggling with not being present, not building communities with their clients. And it's a shame, really, because there's a reason you spent thousands of pounds on that training. Maybe spend some time with that first.
SPEAKER_01I think we're lucky for the generation we come from that we didn't have this distraction. We were not exposed to this in the same way. So we actually had the time, like you said when we were having lunch, that we took our time to actually sit down, study, practice, you know, check it out, versus now it's too much noise. When I hear this, the noise, I'm always thinking, so why would you be distracted of the noise? But then I think maybe it's unavoidable.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it is everywhere. And you even mentioned earlier there might be even an element of clients thinking that that's what this practice is.
SPEAKER_01I have studio owners that I know really well, and they will come to me and say, My clients will come and they save things on their phone, and then they show it to me, and then they ask, can we do this? And I get this in my courses as well, and they ask, How do you deal with that? And I say, Well, you know, call me a bitch, but if you're coming to me, you come and pay me for my expertise. I have no one that ever shown me anything on social media and asked me, hey, what can we do this? Maybe for the style of who I am, what I teach, but I'm not here to entertain you. If you want me to entertain you, I'm pretty fun. We can put on red lipsticks and heels and girl, we can, I can take you out. But you're here for a specific outcome. That means you trust me, you pay me a good amount of money for me to program something for you. I'm in charge of that.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's having confidence in who you are and what you're about. And I think it's your energy, isn't it? That I think if you're feeling insecure, then clients kind of feed off that. But the same, you know, my methodology at the studio is not part of this boom, let's just say. I never have anybody querying it to me. But I sometimes have teachers saying to me, you know, maybe some of the newer teachers who maybe haven't trained with us, being like, Do clients not want more? It's like, no, not here, because it goes back to what I said earlier. I make it very clear from the start, like the homepage on our website talks about our ethos. You know, that's we do our best to try and meet the expectations of people and find your tribe of people who want to be like that.
SPEAKER_01But the confidence you said, sorry to interject, comes from the fact that when you have a solid education, so if you're gonna fall prey to your clients showing you the cool stuff they see on Instagram, they don't understand it, they're just thinking it's cool, and you feel that the need of taking them through it, I would question my own education then.
SPEAKER_00And I do off the off the back of this podcast, I get at least one a week of somebody messaging in saying, you know, I've heard these kind of conversations. And that's kind of why I did the podcast. Like I wanted to inspire people to learn more because I was seeing a lot of people coming out of shorter trainings. That's no judgment. Like you've whatever your entry route is, is your entry route in. But you've got to do more. Even if you've done a big training, you've got to do more. So I wanted to inspire people to see and be inspired by different trainings like yours and other people's, and maybe, as you said, notice where the gaps are in their knowledge and get them to be, yeah, just thinking about this work a bit deeper, really.
SPEAKER_01And an evolving education with you as you learning, as you're aging, as you have more experience. Everybody always says, always keep learning. But the truth is, most people don't learn things in depth because it requires a lot of time. I get it, it's exhausting. I do it all the time. It requires you to change and it requires you to reflect. And if you're not willing to do that, it makes it really difficult to actually learn something of value.
SPEAKER_00And in our previous episode, I was reminded in my head then of just we were talking around some of the cues that you hate and sort of the simplification of engage your core, shoulders back and down, you know, these kind of things. We're talking about it in a bit more detail. And I asked an educator who I really admire, I said, Why are some of the big schools still training that when we know that this is not how the body works? And she said, Because it's simple. And if I need you to at least go out and just instruct and be able to sort of put a class together, it takes time for you to understand. And then if someone's not doing it, it takes time for you to understand how else I can cue you to get your body in the right position so that the muscles are firing up just as much as they need to, but not too much. Which I thought was quite interesting. And so these people who write in and they say, I'm listening to this and I'd love to know, like, how do I teach with more depth? What answer do you have for them? Like, how does somebody go about looking? Because if the Pilates teacher trainings themselves are tricky to know, then I'm imagining even the extra courses that we could do are tricky. You know, where do we find them? I mean, I'm lucky at Polestar Pilates where I train, they put a lot on, both Polestar and outside of Polestar, which I've and I feel like I've got exposed. You've got lots of Pilates conventions. I had Amy Havens on the podcast this week at the time of recording, and she said something interesting to me, which was she's had periods in her life where she's thought, I'm really interested in this method. I'm gonna go and learn this method and kind of go to a conference and just be trained by certain types of teachers. And she was fascinated by the different Pilates schools. But then, even like as you said earlier, there's outside of Pilates as well. And I had someone recently saying, you know, manual therapy is actually a great training to understand tactile cueing. People often say to me, How do I learn more tactile cueing? So where and then other people say to me, Ava, I feel like my anatomy isn't enough. You know, how do we answer those questions and support them?
SPEAKER_01So to make it simple, I think that when people choose education, they always ask, what is this education? Rather than what is the outcome of this education? You know, like when we were younger before going to uni, we would think, I want to be a, I don't know, I'm gonna make something up, a fashion designer. But you have no idea what that means in like working as a fashion designer. So what do you need to do? Maybe email one and ask, what is your day today? Ema few. Sit with that, analyze it, understand it so that you know, is that what I want to do? You have no idea how many teachers in my seminars, there are at least two, three each time that will say, hands creep up, you know, at the end of it, once we have like done all the things and kiss and hugs, and they go, you know what? I have that and that certification, but I never knew how to integrate. And so it's not so much also the education, people don't ask the right question. You need to understand that when you take an education, what's the outcome of that education? Right? Because you can go take a course in biomechanics, and that means you're learning anatomy more in depth, but that doesn't necessarily mean you know how to integrate. So if you're walking into class and there are six people on the floor, and Karen in the corner can't extend her knee, no matter how much you cue her, no matter how much, you know, Frankenball releases you utilize, or whatever it is that you do, then did the biomechanic course you took like helpful here? Because we still think about my glute medius is weak. And I'm sitting here thinking, there are moments when I'm like, yes, when we we come so far, and then there are moments I'm like, oh my, it's a some okay. You think one muscle, just one muscle is gonna be the real example, you know?
SPEAKER_00So But we still get quite a bit of that, don't we? And it frustrates me when you get the clients coming in who've seen an inverted commas the specialists, and the specialist said it's just your hamstrings are tight. Like, oh come on.
SPEAKER_01No, no, the best one. I love this one. Your uh not glued meat. What is it called? I lost it. I'm thinking in Swedish now. But the downside of knowing many languages, seriously. Where's the one? The performance. Your performance is tight, and the lie in your tummy, and then we just gonna I'm I'm gonna swing your leg from right to left. And you're like, really? Did that change any outcome? So, see, for me, outcomes are more important. So let me take it to something simple. I have two daughters, 15 and 14. And when I come home, I'm Iranian, right? You need to study. So I come home, I'm like, okay, what happened? They're like, Mom, I've studied for three hours. I'm like, really? Show me the outcome. Because sometimes you can study for 45 minutes and the outcome is like, Mama got respect. Or you study for three hours and you absolutely wasted your time.
SPEAKER_00It's about efficiency again. I feel like Pilates, it didn't just teach me efficiency in my body, it taught me efficiency in my mind. Because I realized in order to do some of the really big movements, you had to make the more fundamental ones feel easy. You'd have a whole other conversation on why does everything have to feel hard? Because that's a big topic that I have. Ava, this has been an absolute joy to talk to you. If we were to end our conversation today around the future, you know, you've been in this industry a while, you've seen a lot of changes, you've seen changes in lots of different countries already in different cities. Where do you see us heading in the next five to 10 years? Can we even think that far out? We were talking earlier about, I mean, we both had the same view of like, I don't make plans more than a year, because it's like, how can you do that? But as an industry, do you have thoughts on where we're going?
SPEAKER_01Well, one thing that is very clear, the businesses that stand out are the ones that are very clear about who they're for. What are they standing for? I think that diversity is going to become a thing. I think that it would take a minute for us to refine where we're going, because when something is booming, it just grows. And then nothing is linear. But I do also see people being coming to a point where we are more honest about what each system and method provides. And that when we get there, then it's going to be easier for you and me as a teacher when we're using education or provide education. It's also going to be easier for the clients when they're seeking solutions to their physical problems.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's about understanding the complementary nature of these systems, isn't it? I get a little frustrated when I see an expert on social saying something like Pilates isn't enough. It's almost like it's fighting other things. And it's like, it's not meant to be that. It's not meant to be strength training. It that's not its intention. It's not meant to be cardio. You might blend it in, but you you choose to do that. And I think, like you said, it's it's maybe an the future is about an understanding of where Pilates fits in with this and how we do it well and how they support each other. Because I know for me myself, if I hadn't done the Pilates training that I have done for the last sort of 20 years, the strength training I'm doing at the moment just wouldn't be as enjoyable. Because I came to Pilates because I was in a lot of pain, because I couldn't, you know, if I was to load my joints like I am now, well, I'd it would take me out for weeks. And then I then I'd hate my body again. And I think my body had failed me again and my mental health would suffer, you know? And so, yeah, I love that idea. Well, listen, thank you so much. I'm looking forward to speaking alongside you at the event in London. If people want to hear more about you, just give yourself a little blurb about who you are, what you do, and how they can find out a bit more about you and your courses because you're all over the place.
SPEAKER_01I am. Nobody ever knows where I live. Everybody's always shocked. They're like, You live in Australia. I'm like, I know. They're like, you don't live in London. So, socials. What's my social handle? Move Beyond with Ava. If you have questions, email is the best. My DMs are always exploding. So it's not that I'm not replying because I don't want to. They're pretty bad. So send me an email to Ava at movebeyondwithava.com. And if you want to come to a seminar or explore it, start with a free hip class or do the sticky shoulder. Otherwise, you go to movebeyondwithava.com and you've got everything there.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Ava for sitting down with me. We had lunch beforehand, we had our recording, we had a good chat afterwards, we were in torrential rain in London. There was a tube strike, it's all the things. And then the next day we were presenting together at the reformapilates.com award ceremony and doing some talks there, which was really great. Ava did an amazing talk on brands and how to build a brand and all about niching. So if you were there, I'm sure you enjoyed that. And I was talking around the standards and education. So it's just been amazing that through this podcast, we're getting to form these connections, these friendships. I'm loving that I'm getting to meet people like yourself at these events, but also be on panels alongside so many of the guests. Like I'm just a nobody, I'm just a studio owner who was like, hey, let's have some conversations. I love talking. So it's been amazing to be able to do a bit more with you, and I'm hoping more is to come. I've got a few things up my sleeve that I can't wait to share with you soon. On that note, I'm gonna say goodbye and I will see you next week for another episode of Beyond the Reformer.