THE PILATES INDUSTRY IS A TAPESTRY OF MINDS AND MOVEMENT ROOTED IN FOUNDATIONAL WORK OF MR. JOSEPH PILATES. IN THE SPIRIT OF EMPOWERING OUR INDUSTRY AND BRINGING TOGETHER COMMUNITY, WE WELCOME YOU TO ebp to LEARN, DISCUSS, AND GROW AS A TRIBE OF MOVEMENT ENTHUSIASTS.
2025 Presenters
Kristen Davis
March 1st and 2nd 2025
Hands, Feet, Seat: Pilates Programming for Aging in Place (3 CECs)
Presented Saturday March 1st
Americans are living longer than ever, and they overwhelmingly want to live independently in their own homes– or age in place– as long as possible. How can we, as Pilates instructors, adapt to the changing needs of our aging clients? How can we help them age in place successfully while teaching them with dignity and care– even when their repertoire may be getting narrower and shallower?
This workshop examines three metrics for successful aging in place– grip strength, gait speed, and ability to squat– and how they integrate into the Pilates system. Participants will leave this workshop able to identify how and when to focus on each of these skills within the repertoire they already know and teach. Participants will also learn archival and lesser-known exercises that speak to grip strength, gait, and squatting, as well as ideas for simple homework assignments using everyday household objects.
Pilates as a Concept: Enhancing Your Teaching with Eve and Kathy (3 CECs)
Presented Sunday March 2nd
“Pilates is not just a series of exercises,” Eve Gentry famously said in 1991. “Pilates is a concept. It’s a philosophy. Now, you can learn every exercise on every piece of equipment, and you don’t know Pilates… If you just teach exercises, then I have to ask you: are you a teacher or are you a conveyor belt?”
What could it mean to teach Pilates as a concept rather than a series of exercises? Exploring the work conceptually might account for why two of Mr Pilates’s original students, Eve Gentry and Kathy Grant, contemporaneously developed similar repertoires while living on opposite sides of the country. Eve Gentry’s Movement Fundamentals and Kathy Grant’s Before the Hundred protocol are preparatory series of movements– sometimes dismissed as warm-ups or pre-Pilates– and yet they also offer a lens into how Mr Pilates taught each of them after injury and surgery.
This workshop will explore the Gentry Movement Fundamentals and Before the Hundred through the lens of teaching Pilates as a concept, seeking to answer how we, as teachers, can think about the work conceptually to avoid conveyor belt syndrome. How can we use work from different lineages not just to add depth and challenge, but also to teach conceptual skills that set up our clients for success?
Daily Schedule
Warm-up: 11am
Courses 12pm - 3pm
Pricing
The Bundle $528
Includes warm- up class and courses on both Saturday and Sunday.
A la Carte Options
Single workshop : $280
Single mat class : $30.00
Private Session with Kristen : $155
Semi private with Kristen : $60 per person. ( 3 participants required )
About Kristen
In 2005, while (somewhat miserably) pursuing a PhD in Chicago, Kristen Davis booked a lesson at the Pilates studio across the street from her apartment. It was love at first Hundred. By 2007, she’d started her comprehensive teacher training with Balanced Body Pilates. In 2009, she’d said good-bye to academia to teach Pilates full time.
Since then, Kristen has studied extensively in the lineages of three of Mr Pilates’s students: Eve Gentry through Core Dynamics Pilates and with second-generation instructor Debora Kolwey, Romana Kryzanowzka through Real Pilates Teacher Training and with second-generation instructor Alycea Ungaro, and Kathy Grant through Cara Reeser’s Kathy Grant Heritage Training and with second-generation instructor Blossom Leilani Crawford.
Kristen’s education is unique in that it has given her the skills and depth of knowledge to apply the work of three Pilates elders to clients of all ages and experience levels. Because Pilates is an unregulated industry, she believes it is critical to understand where and from whom exercise modifications and variations come, as well as when and why to teach them.
Her work is playful, precise and patient, and she enjoys working with clients who are returning to fitness after surgery or injury. She believes Pilates is a lifelong pursuit suitable for all bodies, and in any given week she works with clients with scoliosis, osteoporosis, joint replacements, spinal stenosis, chronic pain, and autoimmune conditions. She is particularly passionate about helping older populations maintain strength and fitness with dignity.
In 2021, Kristen and her business partner, Susan Bange, opened The Pilates Lab, St Louis’s first fully classical Pilates studio and host studio for Real Pilates Teacher Training. The Pilates Lab is a trusted host and partner of Alycea Ungaro and Real Pilates NYC, and together Kristen and Susan oversee and mentor the future generation of Classical Pilates teachers.