Choose Your Method

Pilates is Big in Birmingham Right Now. Why?

More and more, the medical community recommends the core strengthening of Pilates for patients to ease the postural imbalances that can lead to chronic lower back pain, plus it’s a tremendous full body and mind workout. The Pilates equipment, such as the Reformer or Tower, can utilize spring weight resistance during non-weight bearing exercise to build long, lean muscles without negatively impacting joints.

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What’s Your Niche?

We achieve the full rage of therapeutic Pilates benefits for our clients while also providing a challenging total body workout for all ages and fitness levels. Clients range from professional ballet dancers to those in need of post-surgical rehabilitation. With highly experienced lead instructors and a small (4 – 6 person) equipment class size we can often address injuries and imbalances even within the scope of group training.

Classical or Contemporary… What’s the Difference?

The methods that originate most directly from Joe Pilates himself are “Original” or “Classical” -- both maintain the original exercises in the order that Joe intended. These methods also have a lineage line back to students of Joe Pilates and his wife Clara from days teaching in his initial New York City Studio. One of Joe’s students, known collectively now as “elders,” was Romana Kryzanowska, and, really, the teachers that are trained in her “Romana technique” are those considered Classical. Classical Method retains the Original exercises, but uniquely utilizes dancer-like turnout or external rotation of the hip and a dance-like flow of movement. Contemporary Pilates takes a twist from the Pilates lineage of the elders. I think of the Classical and Original Methods as being in the immediate family of Pilates and the Contemporary forms as cousins, still family but sometimes twice removed.

What’s Your Method of Choice?

It’s a well-kept secret to many that we have had true lineage-based instructors teaching here in Birmingham for decades. Though my original training is Classical or Romana-based my recent continuing education has been in the Original Method. For me it’s fun to mix it up some days with a Contemporary exercise if I can use it as a tool to inform or relate back to an Original one. I say search out a studio with experienced leadership and start with the Classical or Original Method. There’s real genius and research behind how the exercises relate in the original manner and order first intended. You can always branch out the “family tree” from there.

You’ve Taught for More than a Dozen Years Now. What Drives You?

I have taught professional athletes and celebrities, yet my proudest accomplishments have been in creating quality of life improvements for my many clients -- bringing people out of pain. Physically looking your best happens from the inside - out. That people feel better or more empowered from movement, that’s my first goal as Pilates teacher.

‍Alison Page (AERO JOE’S Owner/Pilates Instructor) was recently selected to attend the fall 2017 Heritage Training in Philadelphia, PA under the direct mentorship of Master Instructor Cara Reeser in the lineage of elder Kathy Grant. Alison is a Pilates Method Alliance Certified instructor with over a decade of teaching experience garnered in both Alabama and New York City. Her instructor training began with Physical Mind Institute in 2003; in 2005, she completed a comprehensive apprenticeship at NY PILATES in Manhattan — originally becoming a third generation instructor in the lineage of elder Romana Kryzanowska.