So excited to share our news!!! Can't hold this one in any longer...the search for a fantastic evening venue in the town is over.
CULLOMPTON VENUE SECURED! WEDNESDAY NIGHTS! ⭐️ PILATES: Cullompton Community Centre ⭐️ ⭐️ Starting from Wednesday 2nd May 7.15pm ⭐️ ⭐️ Claim your FREE taster class today! ⭐️ Do you have back pain? Tight shoulders? Stiff neck? Creaky joints? Struggle to move freely when you get up in the morning? Been advised by an Osteopath or Physio to strengthen your core, or rebalance your body? Do you cycle, run or weight lift and know you would up your game from improving your core strength and pelvic floor control? Pilates is for YOU! All ages welcome, men and women. Come and feel the benefits for yourself. Classes starting in Cullompton in the most beautiful venue right in the heart of the town. Spread the word and tag your friends and family. Please message us to find out more! Looking forward to meeting you and welcoming you to the magical world of Pilates...to ease your back pain, help you to find and strengthen your core and help you to you feel stronger and move better. Find out how it can benefit YOU today! Simply Pilates & Stretch
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When we break, I usually reflect over the last 6 weeks - any funny moments (there is always lots of laughing!), any exercises that I loved, people's feedback; how they have really noticed they improved during a particular exercise, what worked, what I could have done better etc.
This time I have reflected back a bit further. Easter time is my favourite time of year. Some special occasions and milestones around this time. It's also further away from my least favourite time of year (those that know me will know immediately what I mean by that!). This has been a poignant break for me. Thinking back to where it all began and also allowing myself some rare praise about moving into my fourth year of running my own business. Something I never imagined was achievable a few years ago. So how did I become a Pilates instructor and why? And how had running my own business been for the last three years? Well the start of my Pilates journey was back pain - agonising, shocking, out of the blue pain that I had never experienced. I could barely move without crying out. I took the tablets the doctor prescribed and prayed it would get better and knew I would do anything not to experience back pain like that again! It was my baby girl's birthday. I remember it clear as day. I couldn't sit up, without tears falling down my face, and open presents with her. As a single parent with two children (one a baby), life was already really hard. Being in pain like that and unable to do simple things with my kids was torture. As I lay on the floor with my little daughter, knocking back every painkiller I could, I decided I would do anything to make sure this could never happen to me again. As soon as I could stand up properly, I started a Pilates class...and fell, totally, head over heels in love with something which has stayed with me ever since. Maybe Pilates is my happy ever after(?!) The back pain episode was over 5 years ago now and since then I have changed my whole life. Giving up my pretty secure job, training to teach, starting to work for someone else, their business folding, being made redundant, and, in a sink or swim style decision, I went it alone. If I had known what lay ahead over the next few years, there is no way I would have started it. Luckily I didn't know how tough things would get...running a business and working for yourself is hard. With young children and being a single parent with no family around, I would never in a million years have chosen to start working for myself at that time. But I know things happen for a reason. It turns out I have made it work and found something which I am bloody good at - and love doing! I can also support my children without any help (that doesn't stop the lying awake and wondering if you can pay the rent sometimes and juggling it all, but I have the confidence in myself now to know I can and I will make it work). Giving up a good, secure job with paid holidays and paid sick (and a fantastic boss who was so supportive of me and understood how hard it was with small children) to train to teach was a gamble. There are still days I miss my old job and having a boss who was good to me. Not like the boss I have now - who is so hard on me and never lets me enjoy time off without working, makes me sit up in bed with my laptop and is good at telling me what I could have done better. I crack the whip on myself that's for sure! I really don't need anyone else to do that to me. So, let's fast forward through the last few years and here we are, with Simply Pilates and Stretch having celebrated its 3rd birthday - the third year in business, and moving from strength to strength. It's been years of working hard, not taking much time off, dreaming, breathing, bleeding Pilates and sweat and tears too. But I help people out of pain every day. I know I can move people from crying in pain on their living room floor, necking tablets, to walking tall and pain free again, see postures improving, strength returning, injuries rehabbed, Pregnancies flourishing, babies born, flexibility improving etc etc... However hard I work though, it is only part of it. The rest of it comes from you all. Those of you who attend classes, recommend your friends, bring your family to try it, share my free taster offer with those you know, comment on facebook, share my blogs, help me pack up the car...There would be no business without you all. It has become a community - classes where we laugh, where we support each other, where people ask when others have been off sick or injured, and chat to their neighbour on the mat beside them. Friendships have grown in classes too. We have had some great evenings in the pub and I am really looking forward to this this evening too! For me a celebration of making it through several of the toughest years of my life and being able to stop and appreciate what I have built. I am grateful every day for the support and loyalty I have from my clients. Some who have been with me from day one. I want to continue and grow the business. I want to bring on a new wave of Pilates Instructors and fire the same passion in them that I have. I want to increase classes, locations, and add more specialisms. To do this, I need your ongoing support and help, continue to recommend me and share my adverts and posts and to help build Pilates into as many people's lives as we can. The picture is of me and my sister. Like Pilates, she never ever lets me down. We are sipping a bottle of Moët together, chinking glasses at what I have achieved personally and in business these last few years. So, as they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and Pilates really has made me stronger and my passion continues! Until the next time...changing the world one spine at a time. El xx |
AuthorI'm Ellie - I started my Pilates journey when I had a bad back. I fell completely in love with it! Archives
April 2019
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