I quit Equinox, tired of dreading the gym while paying hundreds of dollars for it. My problem wasn’t the place—I’ve started and stopped Blink, Crunch, and ClassPass since moving to New York City—but more a feeling of isolation and occasional intimidation that came with attempting to be a better version of myself, by myself. I craved a new fitness routine and the strength I used to feel in high school, when I was a soccer player and horseback rider with flat abs and toned calves.
I knew the next workout I chose would have to be something I could stick to, one that didn’t trigger my old social anxiety of being the last to finish an exercise in P.E., but still gave me the happy-tired feeling of being physically spent. As it was, I felt like a crumpled version of myself, sometimes literally: I found it so hard to get out of bed in the morning that after hitting snooze seven times, I’d leave the house with sheet marks still on my cheek.
An effortlessly athletic colleague suggested Pilates and Lisa Jones Pilates specifically. A longtime dancer who trained at the Martha Graham School before becoming a professional Pilates instructor, Jones has developed a roster of private clients who often rely on her to train them for their physically demanding jobs, whether they’re in sports, acting, or modeling. She has worked with Lauren Hutton and helped models like Lily Donaldson prepare for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
When the founder of the technique, Joseph Pilates, opened his Manhattan studio in 1926, the method gained traction in the dance community before going mainstream in the late ’90s. A low-impact workout that emphasizes core strength, flexibility, and alignment, it has a continued association with the long, lean muscles that dancers display. And despite New York magazine’s 2015 “Pilatespocalypse” story that reported the technique was fading as the boutique fitness market boomed, a quick search of Tribeca shows five Pilates studios in a four-block radius. When high-speed, data-informed workouts are overwhelming us from all sides, perhaps a slower form of fitness feels just right.
I worried I might not be the Pilates type. (I imagined that type to be the aforementioned perfect specimens, or simply a bean-thin woman with matching workout sets for every day of the week.) And, used to team sports or spin, I was skeptical that Pilates would give me the feeling of release I wanted in a workout. Still, I packed my best leggings and made my way to Lisa’s softly lit Union Square space.
