LIFTS Episode 109 - The Pilates Journal Expo 2026 | Los Angeles | Part 2

0:01As I age one of the things I have taken out of the equation is vertical load. You look at a bodybuilder the same guy at age 30. He has four inches between his ribcage and his waist. Same bodybuilder exact same muscle anatomy he has two inches between his ribs and his waist. Taking those principles, the methodology of what Pilates is about, actually threads in to anything you do. Weight training, running, rock climbing, any kind of sports. All those principles can be attained in anything you work at. We wanted to reinvent and reimagine the reformer. We wanted to have it tackled so that it went beyond.

0:46People need to feel something when they work out. But if we can lower the barrier of entry so that when you come in, so many things are built in. Safety was built in for what we wanted to create. And it just falls into the background to make it more accessible.

1:05Well, Sean, I'm excited to have you on. I'm a little bit nervous. Should I be nervous? Nervous in what way? Not knowing what to expect on this. Okay, that's good. But should I be nervous too? Because I feel like it's like an even thing going on here. It is. You should be a little bit nervous. But let's start with this. One, if you don't mind me sharing, you're 60. I think. Nearly. Nearly 60. But you look great. You too. Matthew, well, I'm not near 60 or I'm closer to 50. Okay, fine. But I'm actually 45. Yeah, well. But you are older than me by a few years. And we always kind of talk about just, you know, men being healthy.

1:47Let's just say past 40. Because it is a challenge. Like things do change. So in our podcast, we spend a lot of time. In fact, we just had an episode where we were talking about the different things that men can do. whether it is strength training, working on your VO2 max, supplementation, peptides, TRT, HRT, all the things. So let's start with this non-Pilates related. But what are some things that you do to be active and retain muscle mass and do your thing? So what do I do personally for activity? I'm a hiker. Okay. Yeah. Hiker, bike rider, road biker, um trail trail trail riding that kind of stuff uh you know and i i lift every day not conventionally like at the gym you know but athletic because the challenge with growing up and um having gravity not as our friend i've learned that top loading horizontal loading and top loading are two completely different things.

2:54And so as I age, one of the things I have taken out of the equation is vertical loads. You know, like standing with dumbbells, pressing overhead, everything vertically because it's too compressive. Yeah, oh yeah. If you look at a bodybuilder, the same guy at age 30, he has four inches between his rib cage and his waist. Same bodybuilder, exact same muscle anatomy. me he has two inches between his ribs and his waist and that's constant abdominal compression spine compression from vertical loading and so one of the things that i think that keeps me motivated is athletic reformer training in addition to biking and hiking and swimming when i can

3:37Matthew Januszek:that's interesting well i um yeah i my kids tell me i'm getting smaller like my and because they're getting bigger like my son's 13 that's different perspective but there is there is a level i'm just kind of now thinking well am i actually getting short because i do do a lot of vertical you know squatting pressing and that kind of stuff from spine compressive and it's not bad right but a little is good too much as a you know not that healthy for the spine that's why you know like if you were just to grab a cable machine and you were stand with the cables behind you and you're doing bicep curls like that that's not vertical load right but it's the the standard olympic weightlifting kind of concepts that have come into the gym or have become back in popularity those are very spine compressive and we're not doing the things to negate it and the the great thing about athletic reformer training and getting out there with natural activity and not just building your body in the gym but building it more natural with activities outdoors you're getting that movement that it needs to kind of combat all that compressive vertical loading we find in the gym that's a great sales pitch for men doing politis because i've been you're the first man that we're speaking to about politis it's a very female dominant category event and um and i'm just starting to get i know yeah i get that but i'm i'm sort of thinking about getting into it and um and i i love that point because that's the first thing that's hooked me in it's like okay i don't want to get shorter i want to kind of look taller as we all do um give us a little bit of an overview from a male perspective of why incorporating pilates is important and where is a good place to start if you're already working out and if you're a little bit of a sort of a muscle head that's traditionally done bodybuilding style exercise well that was used to be me yeah i used to be you know just Olympic weightlifting bodybuilding lots of bicep curls going into that you know going and just doing you know squats and deadlifts ad nauseum right and I think what what men are going to benefit whether they're aging or they're younger is the Pilates method itself is designed to unwind what we're doing in our daily lives de-stress our spine I like to call it and also give us movement that we're not doing.

6:02So let's say we're doing, you know, everything in, in one plane of motion versus a more three-dimensional movement. There's a lot of movements we're not doing. And then we get to the point kind of like, as we age, we're, we're doing the same thing over and over again, because that's what we're comfortable with. That's what we know. Um, and our body doesn't get that other natural movement that's required. And that's what the systematic approach of specific movements done a certain way to release the hips to release the spine and i believe joseph pilates said um you know you're as old as your spine is flexible and that's true and so what i what i believe in as a man who came into the industry which didn't fit in and i am i am a pariah by a lot of people you'll hear people say that's not pilates we heard that a lot yes correct yeah and the problem is that may not be that form of pilates but if you're following the principles of movement and you were doing it the way it's intended to do when you're teaching movement it is pilates but the problem is our our industry has taken this idea that this is this isn't and they can't call it that no i don't call my method pilates i call athletic reform or training because it but it's based off the foundational principles and it aligns with the foundational principles of Pilates and I do both I just don't do one or the other just like I just don't only uh bike ride I get out there and I do and you know if you think about yoga there are so many different modalities of yoga but here's the challenge and it's because I think it's just starting to change now the mindset because men athletes are starting to do Pilates and they're doing Pilates for the reason why I said they're they're unwinding the spine from what what's happening in there they're moving their body into the the ranges of motion that that perhaps their type of sport doesn't go into and so they're getting that more balanced movement and balanced portions of the spine that need unlocking so to speak you know if you're unilateral work like you're always moving from one side or the other um but i i think men are going to benefit when they can understand that the pilates method is they have to know like you said they have to understand it's female dominated but they also have to understand that it's possible to break through that barrier when you stop saying it is this and like i've said just a minute ago in yoga there's so many different methods you don't hear people in the yoga industry say that's not yoga right they say that's this style of yoga but because the pilates industry has had such a hyper-focused female dominant classical concept they will say that's not pilates and i've heard people say it all the time and i say it's not a classical contrology pilates but it is an athletic based pilates using the reformer i don't know if that makes sense but it makes a lot of sense because it still holds a lot of the fundamentals of pilates every fundamental of pilates like um control concentration concentration your breath breathing coordination all that all that's still there you know we had um someone earlier right before you yeah and i brought up she says what kind of pilates do you do i'm in the dc area so home base of solid core.

9:41She's like, well, that's not Pilates. I mean, it's not her kind of Pilates. Yes. And there's nothing. So here's the thing. It will take another generation for the Pilates teachers to go, that's Pilates. It's just a different form. Like I said, I'm sure when people started bringing on power Pilates and sculpt Pilates, or power yoga and sculpt yoga and hot yoga. Vinassia. Yeah, all those. When they started creating the modalities, people probably freaked out in the beginning, but maybe it's been around so long, we didn't see that evolution that we're seeing now with the Pilates industry. And so they're like, that's not Pilates.

10:20And I disagree vehemently. It's just not the Pilates you learned. And that's fine. Stay in your lane and I'll stay in my lane. What I'm going to do is I'm going to reach out to people who want to experience it without saying, no, you can't do this. because there's a lot of guys who will go into a Pilates class and their names for exercises are completely different they don't say let's do a chest fly like just let's do hug a tree or they're going to use a cue like feel that loving butterfly reach up through your skull it turns people off you know you say hey we call this hug a tree but you know it is a chest fly or we call this serving but it's an underhand chest press you know what I'm saying so we all on a reformer yeah right but i mean but what i'm trying to say is i think the reason why that it is so dominated by female is because dudes go in there and they're like what the hell are you saying what are you having me do they have them do such crazy things right away that guys are like this is not for me and your handles and your loops are so small i can't even fit my hands in them or your machines are classical machines which were made years ago have you ever gone into an old house and the shower heads down here yeah so the old machines are small like that okay so you get somebody like me that has a larger hand a larger foot a larger body and i get on those machines and they feel like they're made for barbie dolls so but the problem is you get a machine that i work on that's what do you work on what machine it's a studio reformer 18 inch height with an infinity foot bar which the foot bar is wider for longer limb students and it's longer for taller students of broader for wider bodies but there is nothing right or wrong in our industry it's just people embracing different voices it's people saying hey that isn't the pilates style i teach but that can be pilates as long as it follows the principles because human movement human movement i'm just telling you that and joseph wasn't a believer in having it specifically one way he wasn't that that happened after the fact he's on record and i've had people that have actually worked with him and they have said you know he was like that's not what i'm doing that's not what i taught you but good job look at you exploring movement but as movement explorers now are pariahs in our industry and like you said you mentioned a person prior had said that that that that type of Pilates that you're doing isn't Pilates.

12:52And I disagree. I think it's different. Different, okay. Now, if they're not applying principles, if they're not teaching, are they teaching the breath work and the control of movement and all that kind of stuff? Yeah. Because there are forms of exercises on the reformer that they don't do that. They just do bootcamp on the reformer. And that definitely is not Pilates.

13:11Matthew Januszek:Are you seeing men coming in to the Pilates industry from an instructor perspective? Like I've not aware of too many and I love the way that you're speaking and you're hooking me in with so many things you're saying that relate to me as a guy. And I'm just curious whether you are seeing, you know, whether it's still very dominant with women or whether you're actually seeing men that want to actually become Pilates instructors as well. Very little. But I have classes at my studio full of men. Okay. 90 % of my classes are men. now that's because i've given them that that world that they're comfortable with and i you know what a lost leader is you go you get somebody to buy something because you put something cheap flashy up there that they're familiar with so when they come in and i see a dude come in that's got muscles that's maybe fit maybe coming from olympic weightlifting that got injury i'm gonna say hey we're gonna go hug a tree and he's gonna be like what no i gotta speak his language and also too I'm not gonna have him do most of the Pilates exercises in the beginning because he's gonna be like what is this is too foreign I'm gonna give him things that he's familiar with I'm gonna do sitting rowing exercises I'm gonna do lunging exercises I'm gonna do abdominal exercises I'm gonna do it all with teaching the technique and the idea of what Pilates is that foundation is based on and then I'm gonna start sneaking in the other stuff that I think is important but i see what happens in our industry is we say no you must conform into this and that's why guys are not doing it because they don't realize you got it i mean give me another example if you can think of something that you would walk into and you like you if it's all pink and it's all freely and there's no clothes on the the retail wall that are shorts they're all bra tops and stuff what are you going to subliminally think there it's not for me correct that's our industry and i in my workshops i asked when the number one thing i teach change your language and look around your environment is it inclusive or not inclusive are your words inclusive and on are you forcing these men who cannot even do this exercise because they're so tight into these exercises because you actually don't want them there yeah i know i've actually had female students say I don't like men in the class because when I'm doing the bent over lift and side splits I'm like they're looking at my butt I'm like they're not looking at their butt they're focused on their practice now if you've got a pervert behind you just tell me and I'll make sure he's in front of you next time right I mean you know not really it's kind of tongue-in-cheek but I think a lot of women have gotten so used to that environment where now that us men are interested because the athletic athletes are showing us that it's beneficial then you know we just have to think in a broader scheme.

16:06And we also have to make sure that the exercises we do not only complement the Pilates method, but also address the students' needs in front of you. And I think a lot of those people that believe, as an example, that the program that you're doing isn't Pilates is because that company has figured out how to meet your needs. That's right. If that makes sense.

16:29Matthew Januszek:Today's episode of the Lyfts podcast is sponsored by eGym. eGym delivers smart strength solutions that help gyms and health clubs attract, engage, and retain members while improving health outcomes at scale. From intelligent equipment to AI-powered training programming and corporate wellness via WellPass, eGym is leading the way in smart fitness. Visit eGym.com to learn more. That's well also, I mean, their CEO is a man, Brian Myers, and who, like you, attracted me to say, like, Mo, come try this. And then I got hooked. I mean, it's close to my house and it's high energy. And I do it once a week.

17:11Matthew Januszek:Did I use, like, in terms of what we're talking about here with the language and things like... So I think, you know, that's without getting too much into a brand or instructors, but it is so coach-driven that you tend to know the coaches that you could relate to better. And when you're a brand with over 100 studios, it's really hard to have that kind of consistent quality. And it's no different than a soul cycle years ago when they started growing up. You know, there are good instructors. But I think in Pilates, instructors matter more than a cycle class because you could injure yourself. And it is more sophisticated and more technical than riding on a bike.

17:48Well, imagine going to a skiing instructor that they have a weekend certification on how to teach skiing. You get it? That's scary. And that's part of where you're talking about in our industry. It's grown so exponentially that you've got to fill butts in those positions. And so you cannot do what I did. And you have a thousand hour program that you've got to complete. That takes a couple of years. And then I saw years later, now they're 450 hours. Now they actually have a weekend certification. And it's because we need that. And so, you know, and it's not when I first started, I was just like that.

18:26I don't know what the hell I was doing. but we look at these people that are they're they're they're making their pilates program meet the needs of today's students and that's not right to them we start changing the the language that we're using to connect and that's not pilates you know what i'm saying so i think we're at this pivotal moment in the pilates industry where it's starting to shift and anytime there is a voice that is a majority starts to become a minority the first thing i'm going to do is say anything that isn't done in that lane that i've been taught isn't pilates and it's going to change i'm seeing it change i mean i just got done doing um a session and it was like oh my god my mind is blown i feel so free i can now do this i'm like yeah as long as you follow the principles Well, it's Pilates.

19:19Matthew Januszek:You know, anything is on these machines. Give us a bit about your background. Like, what are you doing? Like, tell us a bit about your studio. And give us a rough idea. Like, I think you've given us a general direction. But give us a rough idea about your philosophy that you teach. Well, it's kind of shifted a bit with 2020. We'll just say that year. But prior to, you know, I had a really bad skiing accident in 92. Left me in a wheelchair for a while. Messed me up. I had missing muscle attachments. Then I went through a holistic certification of Pilates, which is it's mind body. It's not just movement based like choreograph choreography and and and that.

20:01And then I had a weightlifting accident, herniated three discs doing that. And I'm not going to say anything, but that form of exercise where you snatch weights at 450 ,000 pounds as fast as you can competitively. Right. and there's 25 people to one coach. And I spoke to an Olympic weightlifting coach. He goes, never in the history of Olympic weightlifting have you ever seen one coach work with more than one student because it's dangerous. And so then we have this, no wonder I got injured. No wonder everybody gets injured because the juice is there. So after that, I'm like, I couldn't do half the classical Pilates stuff.

20:44and literally I couldn't do them because my hurt my back or I was healing and so what I had to do is I had to figure out okay what am I going to do here I can't go to the gym and do vertical loading I can't do that anymore I injured my shoulder so I couldn't do open chain movement if you know what I mean you know I could probably do a barbell where it's closed as long as I was really controlled and did lightweight but then I started you know experiencing experimenting myself in 2020 because I couldn't get to the gym. I'm like, what am I going to do? And I'm like, oh, I've got this horizontal version of a cable machine right here.

21:19I've got nine of them, in fact, right in one room. And I thought, okay, let me just experiment with stabilizing exercises, figuring out how I can do that seated row in strength without snapping the machine apart or having it slide across the room because I'm pulling on it. It's like, whoop, there it goes, right? So I had to experiment a lot of that and so that's kind of what I what has evolved for me is it started as rehab for me and then it came became a curiosity because I was a personal trainer for many years and I'm like I don't want to be a politics teacher I don't want but I want the knowledge the problem is once I gained the knowledge I went back to be a personal trainer after learning I'm like I can't do this anymore.

22:02I see the inefficiency in this old adage of harder is better. Intensity equals the results. No, intensity equals injury. You may not see it today, but what you're doing to the spine over time, and I had two interviews, and you guys would love to find an ex-Olympic weightlifting person who actually competed, and I did this, and I can't say names or anything, but they said if I would have known the 18 surgeries that I would have had when I hit 50 I would have never done all that but she said the juice was there and it was great and she was working out with everybody in the gym in Venice and she goes when everybody says you look great and you're doing you're winning all these competitions you don't care about your body and she goes I'm like why ask her why are you teaching this she goes because I can't actually do anything.

22:59I can't lift anything anymore. I can't do anything. And I'm like, then I had this moment like that is not sustainable. There's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way to merge Pilates and strength training, but still keep it aligned with what Joseph wanted. Joseph wanted healthy movement. Joseph wanted to make sure that you're doing everything to be kind to your body and also have your body, you know, we're not going to beat your body, put it into submission that's what we did when we were younger we're like i got to make this look a certain way right now the the belief system if i could get one person younger that's starting to lift weight and say think about this twice is this a sustainable approach and it's not but pilates is the one form of exercise no matter what modality of pilates you're doing that is pilates in my mind it's good for you long term you can do it i mean you can do it i have a client that's 97 still doing it well Well, that's what's interesting.

23:56And with the growth of strength, which kind of also grew from this other modality, which we're not mentioning here. But I think the next evolution, I spoke about it this morning on the panel, is really Pilates. And I think it's going to only help feed more people into it. Well, Sean, I feel like we need to get you back on for a longer episode.

24:15Matthew Januszek:Maybe another workout. Another workout as well. Where's your studio? Palm Springs, California. You were just there. Was that last week? Yeah. Yeah, eCore Fitness is the only studio to go. I'm kidding. E-C-O-R-E Fitness. You can bleep that out if you want to. No, we'll leave it in. We're coming. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thanks for talking, guys. Thanks. Tracy, we're excited to have you on our podcast. We are here at the Pilates Journal Conference. You are world-renowned in the Pilates world. You've been in the Pilates industry for decades. A long time. A long time.

24:51Why don't you give us some background in how you entered the industry? Well, I'm originally from England. A lot of people think I'm Australian. We talked about that earlier on, but no, I'm actually from England. And I was introduced to Pilates when I was at my dance college in London. Went to a dance conditioning class. It ended up being like my life, basically. Fell in love with it. It was not called Pilates. It's called dance conditioning. Half on the floor, half on the bar. There you go. And I was like, wow, this is great. And that was kind of my introduction. I moved to LA in 1996 and continued with my trainings.

25:26And how I got really into teaching Pilates was because I was a dancer, I loved to move. But I also loved fusion fitness. And at that time, no one was fusing different types of fitnesses together. You were either a Pilates instructor, a yoga instructor, or you were a fitness instructor. You couldn't be both. And if you were both, you kind of looked down upon. I was like, no, why not? I can do it all. I can be a Pilates instructor. I am a Pilates instructor. I can be, I can teach kickboxing. I can teach spinning. I can teach whatever I want and I can fuse it together. So I've always kind of, you know, push the boundaries.

26:00Um, I was teaching at a club in LA, moved here in 96, wanted to be a famous dancer. I wanted to be an actress, you know, come to LA, obviously that didn't go there, but I was in, I was teaching this class and somebody saw me literally and was like, Oh my God, she'd be perfect for the method show. like what's the method well the method is Pilates and so we I was one of three other girls and I was the fusion girl and at that time Pilates was not on video okay so this it was actually on Fox Fit TV and this was the first time actually they put Pilates on video it was the first time there was myself another lady named Lisa Elisa Wheeler and Jennifer Kreese I came on and was like Lisa Wheeler.

26:45Yes. Who's at Apple Fitness now. Yes. And used to be at Equinox. Yes. And Reebok. And Reebok, that's right. Yeah, she's a dear friend of me. And we started, well, she was actually, there was three of us. And who was the third person? And Jennifer Kreese. Yeah. And literally from teaching us a group exercise class in a chain, someone saw me teach and was like, oh, she'd be perfect for it. Because da-da-da-da. So I went for the audition, got the job. We were the first kind of people to put Pilates on TV. But actually I was the first one that really put fused things together. because we wasn't fusing fitness trends together, right?

27:17You kind of look down upon. I was like, no, I kind of want to push the boundaries here. So that was the start of my career. I was literally put in front of a camera that was beautiful. You got three cameras. You got the jib coming down at you. You're like, wow, this is so great. So you were LA actress there. Yeah, kind of, yeah. I mean, this was 96. And then the video at the time was Betamax and VHS. And we're like, which one did they go for? Well, they went for the VHS. and VHS. Yes. And then it was on the, on, you know, in Walmart and Target and there's me doing cardio kickboxing with Pilates.

27:52Whoa. That's kind of, you know, so I've kind of been the one that's, but coming from a Pilates background and a fitness background, I kind of always like melded the two, but I've always, always give respect to where Pilates comes from. So I am the Pilates instructor, but I am also the fitness instructor too. And over the years, that was the birth of fusion fitness with a Pilates base was that was the method show and um obviously Lisa was part of this and that was kind of like but catapulted me into the industry so for many many years I was like well are you a Pilates instructor or are you a fitness so I've had to come out of that whole like image of like what am I well why can't you be everything then that was really pushing the grain now we all we can that's why i say with pilates in the industry right now we've got we've got people entry points from all different we've got athletes coming in footballers soccer players football uh we've got we've got wolverhampton that's where i'm from we've got fitness people coming in we've got dancers coming in we've got all these different walks of life coming into pilates and it's okay and they can continue doing what they were doing before and still be respected it's taken me my lifetime honestly to be respected in being able to both and right now are you classical are you are you contemporary I'm like you know what I'm

29:18Matthew Januszek:right in the middle I think it's a good place to be you are obviously very successful with the video in in the really early days what what what once you became I guess recognized coming from Wolverhampton, Los Angeles getting recognized. What was that like? And were you getting people coming to you saying, Hey, can you do personal training with me? And can you tell us a little about that? Well, I opened this, I opened up studio, actually, I've had my own Pilates studio for 26 years with bar. And because I've always been at a bar with as a dancer, started my own studio. I became more popular when obviously first I was put onto video.

30:04There wasn't much social media then going on. There was really nothing. And we talked about that. There was really nothing going on. So it was just like video platforms, you know? So there was all that. Then social media started to build up. And I have to say when social media started where you could actually be yourself where they didn't perceive like how you look is how you are they realize oh wow there's there's she's got a brain or she's she's got a personality oh she's a humble person oh she's not what I expected her to be and then all of a sudden it helps people realize that we we're not always what people perceive us to be and I think that was the turning point in my career was for people to see that I'm a genuine person though I do care about people it's it this is a journey and I think that was what changed my my career around and and the reason why I've been able to being a Brit moving to LA I've always this is not my center point the world is my center point so I've always reached out to come back in does that make sense so I've always gone and taught at different areas of the world and it helped me give me validity that's the right word Validation Validation Validability Validation is a better word I like validability I know I make words up all the time It's because I'm from Wolverhampton Here Because sometimes You know America is a challenging place It's very saturated But at that time it wasn't But it's still saturated Trying to make a name for yourself So I just go out to the people So by going to the people Building a community One on one And then continuing that community On a video So that was the, does that make sense?

31:47It's a game changer. And you've also seen Pilates grow as well, gotten a lot more inclusive. When he started in the 90s, it was mostly for women. Yes. And now it's for like everyone. And that's what I love about Pilates is that realizing a lot of people didn't even know it was a man that invented it. So actually, which is why I love training men. I love it because a lot of times we tell them, you know, it was a man. It was Joseph Pilates. It was a man. And all of a sudden, there is pick up like, oh, I'm going to try it then. And I'm like, oh, funny about that then, right? It's not just for dancers.

32:20So there's more knowledge in where it comes from and who it's for now. It's just opened up that window, which I think is fantastic. I'm really so happy about that. Is there a fusion brand? One that comes to mind for me is, because I work with this brand, it's called Strong Pilates. Yes. I don't know if you know them or not. Yes. It does fuse the cardio element with Pilates, but a lot of people might not even think of them as Pilates in the traditional or even contemporary sense. What do you think about that? I think that if you can keep the principles of what Pilates, Pilates is a methodology.

32:59It has all the principles there. Then principles is not just exercise, it's way of life. It's mind-body. It's how you approach yourself to daily activities in your daily life, how it's going to improve your life. So taking those principles, the methodology of what Pilates is about actually threads in to anything you do. Weight training, running, whatever, you know, rock climbing, any kind of sports. All those principles can be attained in anything you work at. So with fusion, because I'm a huge fan of fusion, I also like to keep it where it is, but I also like to fuse. As long as the principles are there and there's that commitment for alignment, precision, flow, concentration, balance, all those fundamentals there, there is nothing wrong with that.

33:52However, there is one thing that I do believe in. What's happened with Pilates, for instance, I teach a lot of bar. I developed Booty Bar, which was a global brand. And we certified about 8 ,000 people like globally. But bar for me, Booty Bar was about standing Pilates. But I never called it Pilates. I called it standing bar fusion. it's Pilates based with the fusion never called it Pilates right however that's why I feel now because Pilates is trendy bar is not quite as trendy it's still up there all of a sudden you're seeing on social media people with weights and blocks and they go oh look at my Pilates class I'm like that's not Pilates that looks like bar fusion to me nothing wrong with it I love it I I teach it, but I call it what it is.

34:47And I think that's really important. You confuse as long as the principles are there, but you've got to be careful what you call it. You've had an interesting and I would say long career

35:00Matthew Januszek:and you've had a number of successes. And clearly it's not all been roses as you've gone through that journey. And as many of us have businesses, whether we're building, we're instructors that are building a community or whether we're people building a business. Tell us about some of the most difficult challenges of being a young girl in Wolverhampton and now becoming on the surface like very successful in this space that you're in at the moment. Tell us some of the challenging moments you've had and what were some of the things that you pulled upon to get you out of some of the holes that I'm sure you ended up in?

35:42I think one of the most challenging parts is then, not so much now, it's getting better, being a female in business and being looked upon and being a viable income that people would invest in you, basically. I think that was the challenging part and being able to scale with the right resources. Where do you put your resources into scale? Does that make sense? Like, where do I put my money into marketing? do I put it into marketing and product management project development so there's there's always that like where do I focus my energy and I think that's always been a challenging part for me like because I'm one of these people that I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket because I feel that in any business one business goes up one goes down and I suppose maybe it's the upbringing I've come from a hustler I pivot really fast really quick and I think that's been my biggest my biggest successes though I can pivot fast and quick.

36:40I've had lots of businesses however I've never lost a business. I have still have them. One is going to be bigger than the other but I've been managed to be able to pivot and be able to get back on my feet quickly like all we did after COVID. I mean I had booty bar it was globally there was teacher trainings going out and then all of a sudden boom went okay what do I do now okay oh good Pilates is booming we move on but I've still got bar going and I'm still building another brand Pilates next so and I still have an app I have Pilates bar on demand but it's it's it's how you manage your time and I also think it's having your team behind you I think the most successful people are the people that are behind you like you guys are businesses business owners you wouldn't be where you were if it wasn't for that success that great teamwork that you've got behind you and I think that is a good sign of someone as a CEO that can actually put that team behind them because they're your community they're the ones that are holding you up so I think the biggest thing would be building a community they've been able to support me on my endeavors I wouldn't be here without them but you have to be a strong lady in in in business and I'm so happy to see so many women entrepreneurs, a woman put this together, is out there and pushing it for us.