7 0 m a r c h / a p r i l 2 0 1 0 p i l a t e s s t y l e . c o m

If you’re an instructor or even an avid student of Pilates,

you can probably trace your roots back to a special

mentor or formative teacher. And because the work is

so life-changing and so many teachers are so inspiring, quite

a number of us end up becoming teachers ourselves. This

is how the living chain of Pilates lineage goes: Our mentors

change our lives in a significant way, and then we teach the

next generation of students, inspiring them with the transfor-

mative magic of Pilates.

We are extremely fortunate that so many of our revered

Pilates “elders,” the first generation of master teachers who

studied directly with Joseph Pilates, are still teaching today.

Ron Fletcher, Jay Grimes, Lolita San Miguel, Romana Kryza-

nowska, Mary Bowen and Kathy Grant are in their 70s and

80s, but it is a testament to the vibrancy of our method that

they are still very much alive, healthy and exemplarily fit. And

what a blessing that they continue to teach and share their

insights with us to this day.

My first teacher: Kathy GrantI have been extremely privileged in my personal teaching

heritage: I initially studied with not one but two Pilates elders

simultaneously: Kathy Grant and Carola Trier. In 1981 I

was still dancing professionally in New York City, but years

of ballet training had taken their toll on my body. A fellow

dancer told me about her Pilates teacher, Kathy Grant, who

had helped her with a chronically painful back condition, so I

decided to give her a try.

Pearls of Wisdom

fewinstructorsareasfortunateasIwas,studying

withnotonebuttwopilatesmasters,first-generation

teacherskathygrantandcarolatrier

By Jillian Hessel

Kathy Grant at her Henri Bendel studio in W, a weekly newspaper, Dec. 1987.

p i l a t e s s t y l e . c o m m a r c h / a p r i l 2 0 1 0 7 1

J i l l i a n H e s s e l

Kathy’s studio was located in a some-

what surprising place: the top floor

of the tony Henri Bendel department

store, which was then on West 57th

Street. Her clientele sought her out at

the very back of the top floor, past the

hair salon and snack bar, in a very small

gym right next to the ladies’ restroom.

Her students were a hodgepodge of “la-

dies who lunch,” students at the Alvin

Ailey school, modern dancers from

downtown and dancers from the Dance

Theatre of Harlem (DTH). Many

people say the DTH dancers who

My first impression of Kathy’s studio

was that it was intimidating. It was very

small and filled with all sorts strange-

looking apparatus. But oh, the beautiful

movements her clients performed on

that equipment! To my untrained eye,

it looked like a combination of gym-

nastics, yoga and underwater ballet. I

longed to do it immediately: after all,

I was a professional

dancer, so why not?

All too soon, I was to

learn why not.

Kathy took one

look at my back

(a double S curve

caused by scoliosis,

made more lopsided

by years of profes-

sional ballet dancing)

and banned me from

all the resistance

equipment. She had

me lie down on a

mat and practice

breathing evenly into

both sides of my rib

cage. This turned out

to be quite a frustrat-

ing challenge, since

the muscles in my

back were so imbal-

anced. “You can’t even breathe correctly

without throwing your spine out of

alignment,” she said accusingly. “What

do you think is happening to you when

you dance? We’ll have to rebalance your

entire structure if you want to dance

pain-free.”

Yet each time I would return to

dance class after a super-focused Pilates

session, I would destroy all of Kathy’s

new alignment cues—and Kathy

noticed. You can probably imagine

how much trust I had to have in her to

comply with her strong suggestion that

I stop dancing for an entire summer.

Imagine an eager 26-year-old dancer not

taking a class for three months. But I

took her advice, and that’s what allowed

her to completely deconstruct and

rebuild me and create a new and more

efficient way for me to move my body.

Pearls of Wisdom

worked with Kathy became outstanding

performers in half the time it usually

takes to become a dancer, thanks to her

specialized training.

Kathy had evolved an idiosyncratic

way to administrate, teach and manage

her clientele all by herself, so she had

no teaching assistants. Her clients had

to memorize their personal workout

program (I still have my original notes),

and we all worked extremely hard at

improving because we wanted to please

Kathy, who was (and still is) an exact-

ing, extremely detail-oriented teacher.

Kathy’s training completely trans-

formed my conception of alignment.

She taught me to work “from the inside

out,” as we say in Pilates. She was also

the first to teach me that I could alter

my body alignment by changing my

breathing pattern. With Kathy’s guid-

left: Kathy Grant with dance partner Walter Richardson performing in europe, circa 1950. above: Carola Trier performing a contortion trick on the publicity card she sent out to talent agencies in the 1940s.

above: Kathy (second from left) with the Zanzibeautés from Zanzibar in new york City.

7 2 m a r c h / a p r i l 2 0 1 0 p i l a t e s s t y l e . c o m

P e a r l s o f W i s d o m

ance, I gradually developed a

completely new paradigm with

which to observe, translate and

process movement. (Today I tell

my own students that learn-

ing new, healthier movement

she first saw my back she truly

did not know what to do with

me. Thank goodness she never

showed any of that self-doubt

to me. She also confessed that

she is not a patient woman at

Carola was a certified massage therapist who prided herself on her anatomical knowledge. she often showed muscle charts (Joe was the model) to her clients to give them a mental picture of exactly which muscles she wanted them to recruit.

patterns is akin to erasing all

the memory on a computer to

get rid of a virus. Only once the

computer is emptied of all data,

can we reload programs.)

Years later, after I had

become one of her “success sto-

ries,” Kathy confessed that when

all, just stubborn.

Thank heavens

she was stubborn

enough not to give

up on my crooked

back until she

invented a way to

work with me.

I spent the

summer of 1981

studying intensely

with Kathy three

times a week while

collecting un-

employment benefits from my

previous dance gig. I realized

I had stumbled on not only a

unique method of exercise but

a rare and gifted teacher. Pilates

was so restorative that I gained

hope that I could soon resume

my dance career relatively pain-

The Learning from Two Masters Workshop

back in 1999, you couldn’t find many weekend workshops for Pilates teach-

ers, and teacher-training courses were still in their infancy. Jennifer stacey invited me to present a teacher’s workshop at her san Francisco theater-district studio, and i was delighted to accept. When i asked her what she would like me to teach, she said, “How about some Kathy and Carola stuff?” so i immediately began to think about the unique teaching heritage i had from these two special women, which came together as my learning from Two Masters workshop.

it was a last-minute decision to video-tape the workshop, but i’m so glad we did, because i have not had the honor of giving it again. The day-long workshop footage originally filled two VHs tapes: One discussed the posture analysis i learned from Carola, the warm-ups i learned from Kathy, and the matwork i learned from both; the second covered the Reformer work i learned from both women. i also wrote a teacher’s manual to accompany the videotapes, which detailed the exercise setup, execution and apparatus settings.

last fall i updated the entire package using the latest DVD technology. nearly four hours of footage are contained on a single long-playing DVD, with lots of navi-gation buttons so you can cruise directly to the exercise you are looking for. The manual has likewise been rewritten and redesigned. Thanks to all this new tech-nology, the entire package costs less to produce, and i can pass those savings on to our community. i consider the Learn-ing from Two Masters DVD and manual my gift to future generations of Pilates teachers. They allow you to build upon a solid classical foundation in Pilates work, inspired by two outstanding first-genera-tion teachers, and will help guide you to finding your own unique teaching style.

The Learning from Two Masters DVD/manual package is available for $50 at jillianhessel.com.

Carola Trier instructing a student on the Reformer.

p i l a t e s s t y l e . c o m m a r c h / a p r i l 2 0 1 0 7 3

J i l l i a n H e s s e l

free. Alas, autumn arrived, and my

unemployment benefits ended with still

no new dance gig on the horizon.

I needed a job, and Kathy had a

great idea: Her friend and colleague

Carola Trier needed a new

apprentice. So I trotted four

blocks crosstown to meet

with Carola, proud that

Kathy thought enough of me

after only a few months of

training to recommend me.

My other great mentor, Carola TrierCarola Trier’s Studio for Body Control-

ogy stood in stark contrast to Kathy’s. It

was in her spacious apartment, and an

elevator operator shuttled you up and

down; the brass fittings on the build-

ing doors and elevator buttons were

polished every day. Carola was the first

person to open a studio with Joe Pilates’

blessing. He had even supervised the

construction of her apparatus, a show

of his complete confidence in her as a

teacher of his work.

Carola greeted me graciously in

her old-world style. She spoke fluent

English with a charm-

ing German accent that

was still thick despite

all her years living in

America. I felt scared

and shy, but after our

initial interview, she

gifted me with 10 ses-

sions to “try me out.”

This was for me to

see how clients were

handled in her studio and for her to

observe my facility with the method.

I will never forget what Carola said

to me that day—in fact, I have passed

those words on to countless aspiring

teachers: “You can make a very nice

living as a gym teacher [her

name for our profession], but

you will never become rich. It is

very hard work, but it can also

be very rewarding. You have to

love helping people, and then

when you really help them,

you’ll find the satisfaction most

rewarding—almost as good as

performing!”

My introductory workout

was taught by Carola her-

self, and she began with her

signature posture analysis. Our

work began on what we then

called the Universal Reformer.

The session moved along at a

much brisker pace than I had

been accustomed to, so I was

grateful for the careful foundation of

warm-ups Kathy had given me. To this

day, I like to say that it was Kathy who

got me into alignment and Carola who

got me strong.

The clientele here was an interesting

mix of professional and aspiring danc-

ers from American Ballet Theatre and

New York City Ballet, plus a sprinkling

of New York society’s rich and power-

ful elite. Businessmen and professionals

came to work out with her, an unusual

phenomenon in the early ’80s, when

practically no one had ever heard of Pi-

lates, and the few men who did practice

it were mostly dancers.

The first time I showed up for my

shift, which started at 8 a.m., I was

nervous about arriving too early since

I knew the studio was also her home.

When I rang her doorbell at the stroke

of 8, however, I received a stern lecture

that I should be dressed and ready to

receive the first clients at 8 a.m., not

just be arriving myself. Needless to say,

I was never “late” again.

My first tasks as her teaching appren-

tice were to clean finger marks off the

wall, fetch towels and hold the feet of

clients while they performed footwork

on the Reformer. I was encouraged to

observe like crazy, ask intelligent ques-

tions and, most important, ask for help

during more complicated exercises such

as Short Spinal Massage or Backstroke

Swimming, as I was not yet permitted

to handle these on my own.

Carola ran her business and taught

with the precision of a Swiss watch.

Teachers and clients alike lived in

absolute dread of her explosive temper,

which added to our desire to please her

as she barked out her commands. In

another life, Carola could have had a

career as a drill sergeant, but we were

grateful that she chose to teach Body

Contrology. And while she was never

7 4 m a r c h / a p r i l 2 0 1 0 p i l a t e s s t y l e . c o m

P e a r l s o f W i s d o m

known to apologize after losing her

temper, she would show contrition

by serving us European coffee and

muffins or inviting us for an after-

hours glass of sweet sherry served

with cheese and crackers.

Clients she handled in an

elegant manner, with the ut-

most respect. Using her “magic

touch”—she was also a massage

therapist—she employed far more

hands-on guidance during exercises

than is common today. She called

the extras “candy,” and clients had

to earn these rewards by working

extra hard during their session.

Carola adored her gorgeous

exotic creatures (like the balleri-

nas Stephanie Saland and Gelsey

Kirkland), and they always got

plenty of candy. I also remember

Carola’s one-on-one specialized

work with a polio victim who

was paralyzed in one leg and who

exercised wearing a brace. Carola

had an instinctive nurturing and

gentle side that prompted her to

dole out extra attention when

someone was emotionally upset

or injured.

Nothing ever looked skimpy

in the studio. She replaced paper-

towel and toilet-paper rolls before

they ran out and threw away bars

of soap (specially ordered from

B. Altman’s department store) be-

fore they got too small. She was a

savvy businesswoman: She never

told a client they had finished a

series of exercise sessions. Rather,

she would say, “You start new

next time.”

And so began a very interest-

ing and transformative time in my

life: working at Carola’s studio

four mornings a week, and study-

ing with Kathy three days a week.

The two were so different in

their approach to Pilates, yet each

taught me new ways to look at

and transmit the body of exercises

passed down to us from Joe. But

both encouraged me to find my

own interpretation of the work as

I developed as a teacher.

I owe my exactitude, keen

eye and precise teaching style to

Kathy’s continual quest to find

perfect form for each individual.

She always demanded purity

of form in the execution of the

movement from all her clients,

which made (makes) her a very

tough taskmaster. My style of

teaching in clear layman’s lan-

guage comes from Carola. She

didn’t like a lot of talk going

on in her studio; long-winded

explanations of how to execute

an exercise were verboten. I also

learned from her the ABCs of

running a studio. She was a very

accomplished professional in a

day when few women ran their

own companies.

I believe both women’s individ-

ual contribution—their example

of how they filtered Joe’s work

through their own sensibilities

and life experience—had a bigger

impact on me than any individual

exercise or routine.

Every Pilates teacher needs to

develop his or her own teaching

style and voice, and I was lucky

enough to have Kathy and Carola

hold my hand along that path

until I discovered mine.

Kathy’s “Song”

twenty-eight years after first meeting Kathy Grant, i still find myself striving

to uphold her high teaching standards in my studio, and i still demand her special purity of form from my own students. it is so beautiful when it happens—then all the hard work looks effortless, and it is truly satisfying to behold.

To this day, i use a version of Kathy’s “Warm-ups,” which she now calls “Before the One Hundreds,” to tune in my body and mind before i get on any apparatus. Here is a special series of cues she calls her “song,” which helps her stu-dents connect to their deepest abdomi-nals (the powerhouse in today’s lingo):

Kathy’s SongZip tight jeans (imagine).

Belly button to the lowest part of the waistline.

Put a belt on (imagine).

Put a vest on (imagine).

Tape measure (imagine a dressmaker taking measurements right under your breastbone).

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Carola’s Teaching Cues

long before the famous nike slogan came along, Carola Trier’s students

learned to just do it! Here are some ex-amples of the quick verbal cues—sound bites before there were sound bites—she often used:

Cue for Posture Check: “if your body is a building, the feet are the foundation.”

Cue for long stretch (which she called straight stretch) on the Reformer: “From the head to the heel, you’re a piece of steel.”

Cue for body placement performing Knee stretches on the Reformer: “if your belly button fell off, it would fall between your knees.”

Cue for Backstroke swimming on the Re-former Box: “Curl up tight like a baby.”

Cue for less talk and more work: “now get going!”

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