Over the past few years, we've noticed something interesting happening within the Pilates industry.
More and more experienced teachers are finding themselves drawn towards Classical Pilates.
Not newly qualified instructors looking for their first certification.
Teachers with years, and often decades, of experience. Teachers who have built successful studios, trained hundreds of clients and established careers within contemporary Pilates.
So why is that happening?
It's a question I've spent a lot of time thinking about because, in many ways, it mirrors my own experience and the experience of my mum.
Between us, we've been teaching Pilates for over 25 years. Mum began teaching in 2001. I started my training in 2010. Despite starting almost a decade apart, we both came through contemporary Pilates education and inherited many of the same assumptions about Classical Pilates.
The Story Many of Us Were Told
Neither of us trained classically from the start.
Like many teachers, our education was built over time. Matwork first, then apparatus qualifications as our careers developed. Reformer, Cadillac, Chair, Barrels and other specialist training came later.
Alongside that education came certain ideas about Classical Pilates.
That it was old-fashioned. A little rigid. Maybe less adaptable than contemporary approaches. Maybe built around exercises that most people would never realistically achieve.
Whether those messages were intentional or not, they were common enough that we accepted them without really questioning them.
The truth is that, for many years, we had an opinion about Classical Pilates without having studied it in any real depth. Looking back, I suspect many contemporary teachers would say the same.
Then Curiosity Got Involved
For me, the turning point came during Covid.
Like many teachers, I suddenly had more time to study, read, watch and ask questions.
What struck me quite quickly was that the Classical teachers I was following weren't teaching the system I'd always imagined.
They were teaching ordinary people. Older people. People recovering from injuries.
People who were strong, weak, athletic, non-athletic and everything in between.
The same people we teach every day at EQ.
That raised an obvious question.
If Classical Pilates was too rigid, too advanced or too impractical for most people, why were so many teachers successfully teaching it to exactly those people?
The more I looked, the more I realised there was a gap between what I'd been told and what I was actually seeing.
That curiosity eventually led me to study the method for myself.
Discovering What I'd Missed
I completed Lesley Logan's eLevate mentorship in 2022.
By that stage, I'd spent over a decade teaching Pilates and was already familiar with most of the apparatus. Reformer, Cadillac, Chair and Barrels were all part of my teaching world.
I didn't go into the programme expecting many surprises.
I was wrong.
Whilst some of the work felt familiar, there was also a significant amount of work that had never appeared in my training.
Some exercises were completely new to me.
Others carried familiar names but looked very different from the versions I'd learned and taught over the years.
In some cases, I'd only ever encountered modified or regressed versions and had never fully understood the intention behind the original exercise.
What opened my eyes wasn't simply the repertoire itself.
It was the logic behind it.
For the first time, I began to understand the method as a complete system rather than a collection of separate qualifications.
Exercises weren't isolated pieces of movement. They were part of a progression, with each exercise preparing the body for what came next. The apparatus wasn't separate either. For the first time, I began to see how everything connected.
That was a very different way of viewing Pilates from the path I'd followed previously.
Realising There Was Still More to Learn
The story didn't end there.
In 2025, Mum completed the EQ Classical Mentorship Programme, bringing Classical training even more deeply into our studio culture and creating a shared foundation for how we teach at EQ.
At the same time, I'm continuing my studies through PI Studios in London.
Part of that decision is practical. As we develop apprenticeship pathways within EQ, we wanted a deeper understanding of comprehensive Classical teacher education.
What has surprised us most is that further study hasn't simply confirmed what we already knew.
It's challenged us again.
When I started PI, I assumed I would be building on knowledge I already had. Instead, I've found myself revisiting exercises and concepts I thought I understood and seeing them through a different lens.
Exercises we feel confident teaching have revealed new layers.
Concepts we understood have become more nuanced.
Questions we thought we'd answered have resurfaced.
Not because the method keeps changing.
Because our understanding keeps evolving.
And I suspect that's something many experienced teachers recognise. The longer you teach, the more you realise there is still to learn.
Why So Many Teachers Are Making the Shift
I don't believe experienced teachers are turning towards Classical Pilates because they're looking for something completely different.
In many cases, I think they're asking questions they've been asking for years.
How does the method fit together?
Why does one exercise follow another?
What is the purpose of the progression?
How can we help clients develop more effectively over time?
These are questions that tend to become more important, not less important, as experience grows.
Perhaps that's why so many established teachers eventually find themselves exploring Classical Pilates.
Not because they're dissatisfied with everything they've learned before.
But because they're still curious.
Looking Forward
Neither my mum nor I see Classical Pilates as a rejection of our contemporary education.
Quite the opposite.
Our contemporary training gave us the foundations of our careers. It introduced us to a profession we love and allowed us to help thousands of people move better.
But studying Classical Pilates has encouraged us to look more closely, question more openly and remain students of the work.
And perhaps that's the real reason so many experienced teachers are finding their way towards it.
Not because it's old.
Not because it's new.
But because there is a depth to the method that continues to reward curiosity.
The longer we've taught Pilates, the less interested we've become in finding the answer.
The more interested we've become in continuing the conversation..