How I Chose My Pilates Training

There is a great deal of generic content online about Pilates teacher training programmes — what to look for, what they cost, which certifications are recognised. This is not that. This is what actually happened in my own case. Two training programmes, separated by several years, with very different decision processes behind each one. What I learned about evaluating training programmes came mostly from getting the first one partly wrong and being deliberate about not repeating that with the second.

The First Programme: An Unplanned Decision

I started practising Pilates as a private client in 2016. I had no plans to teach it. I was doing it for myself, enjoying the work, noticing changes, and intending to continue indefinitely as a student.

The studio I trained at offered two training programmes. One was an enthusiast programme — comprehensive learning but no certification to teach. The other was a teacher training programme — full certification through an international school, intended for professional teaching. The teacher who knew my practice was keen to bring me into the teaching track. I was initially reluctant. The enthusiast programme was what I actually wanted.

Eventually I took the teacher training programme. The reasoning was simple: if it worked out, good. If it did not, I would still come away with deeper knowledge and could continue my own practice. That was the entire decision process. Not much research. Not a careful evaluation of curriculum. Just a willingness to take what was offered and see what happened.

The programme was structured around intermediate and intermediate-plus level work. It covered roughly 65 to 70 percent of the full system. The advanced work was not part of the curriculum. The studio had Reformers, a Cadillac, Ladder Barrel, Spine Corrector, Ped-O-Pul, Mat and Tower — perhaps 60 to 80 percent of the classical apparatus. The Arm Chair, the F2 Spine Corrector, the F2 Wunda Chair, and several pieces of small apparatus were not available.

I want to be clear: that programme set me up for the career I have today. Without it I would not be where I am. I do not, in practice, use the specific style of teaching I learned there in my own teaching now — but the foundation it gave me was real and the programme deserves credit for getting me started. My opinions about it are mixed in places. The fundamental contribution it made to my career is not in question.

What I Did Not Yet Know

For three years after that first programme I taught, and as I taught I noticed something. There were questions I could not answer. Take a single exercise — Elephant on the Reformer. Why two springs? What happens if I use three? What happens with one? How does the spring tension change what the exercise is actually doing in the body? When should the spring weight be adjusted, and on what basis?

These were not questions about how to perform the exercise. I knew that. They were questions about why the method was constructed the way it was, and what the underlying principles were that would allow me to make confident decisions when a client in front of me did not fit the standard variation. Without those principles, I was teaching by recipe — following the way I had been shown without fully understanding why.

The advanced exercises I had not been taught were also a gap. Not because every client needs to do them — they do not. But because understanding what those exercises develop helps you understand what the earlier exercises are preparing the body for. Without the full picture, the progression of the method becomes incomplete.

By the time I was ready for a second training, I had a clearer sense of what I did not know. That changed how I approached the search.

How I Researched the Second Programme

For the second programme I was very particular. The work had to be grounded in Joseph Pilates' original design — not because contemporary approaches are bad, but because that earlier work was what I had responded to as a student and what I wanted to understand more deeply. I wanted lineage continuity, not a modernised reinterpretation.

I researched extensively. I read everything I could find online. I spoke to other teachers about where they had trained, what they had been taught, what apparatus had been covered, how many hours, what the focus had been. I looked at curricula carefully — what was included, what was assumed, how the time was structured. I asked specifically about the teaching environment: how many students were in the group, were questions encouraged or brushed off, was the teaching depth-first or coverage-first.

I narrowed it down to one teacher. But I did not enrol immediately. I sent the teacher an email and asked if I could observe four or five sessions first — before committing. I wanted to see directly how the teaching adapted to the body in front of it. How information was layered. How client questions were handled. Whether the teacher took the time to make the client understand why something was being done a particular way, or whether they simply asserted that this was how it was done.

This was a significant ask, and I was not sure how it would be received.

The Teacher's Response

The response was immediate and welcoming. The teacher extended full cooperation, with one request in return: that I would not alter the work merely to make it more marketable or dramatic.

I gave that commitment verbally. I have kept it, and I intend to keep it for the rest of my career.

This was the COVID period, which complicated logistics. I was based in India and the teacher was not. Travel was restricted, and the cost of full in-person residency for the entire programme was not something I could absorb without compromise. I would have preferred to do the whole training on the premises if it had been possible. It was not. The teacher worked with me on a structure that kept the depth of the training intact even where the format had to adapt.

What I Actually Learned

The depth of the second programme was different in kind from the first. The teaching covered the full apparatus, including pieces that are less commonly found in studios. Nearly two hours were spent on exercises on the Hand Tensometer alone — when to use it, why to use it, and what was distinctive about it within the system. The depth at which uncommon equipment was taught told me how seriously the teacher took the comprehensiveness of the system.

I was also taught what the teacher called archival exercises — the original versions of exercises as Joseph Pilates taught them, alongside the way those exercises are commonly taught now. Backstroke is one example. The archival version and the modern version are not identical. Learning both gave me material to compare and contrast — to understand how the work has been refined over time, and what changes have been introduced as the method has spread through different studios. That perspective had not been available in my earlier training. It changed how I think about the method itself.

By the end of that programme I had answers to most of the questions I had carried for three years. Not all of them — no teacher has every answer — but enough to feel genuinely confident as a teacher rather than confident in a recipe. The principles became clearer. The reasons behind the decisions became clearer. My understanding of how to adapt the work to the body in front of me — without abandoning the structure of the method — improved significantly.

What the Two Programmes Taught Me About Choosing Training

The first programme taught me that taking what is offered when you do not know what to ask for is sometimes the only way to start. I do not regret that decision. It got me into the profession.

The second programme taught me what to look for the next time. The questions that mattered were not about certifications, hours, or international recognition. They were about whether the teaching went deep enough to give me principles I could apply, whether the lineage was continuous with what I wanted to teach, and whether the teacher was the kind of person who took the work seriously enough to expect the same of their students.

If I had to do it over, I would still take the first programme — because the way I came to it required it. But I would have asked more questions. I would have observed before committing. I would have been clearer about what I wanted from the training rather than accepting what was offered. Those are the only things I would change.

The second programme is what I would choose again. Since then, I have continued to study through smaller trainings, focused topics, practice, and teaching itself. I do not see training as something completed once and left behind. Training gives a foundation; teaching keeps testing whether that foundation has been understood deeply enough to apply it to the body in front of me.

The first training got me into the profession. The second training changed how I understood teaching. Neither made the learning complete. They gave me a foundation I continue to return to, question, and refine through the work itself.