Certified Teachers - USA

Amanda’s extensive Pilates education/certifications and teaching experience began in 1992. After years of continuous studies and teaching in health clubs, spas and Pilates studios, she discovered in 2000 the STOTT PILATES® Method a contemporary approach to the original works of Joseph Pilates. Always desiring to grow and seek new opportunities, Amanda completed her certifications at Merrithew™ in Toronto, becoming a Certified Instructor as well as a Certified Instructor Trainer. In the same year she opened BodyMind Design, a Pilates studio and LTC for STOTT PILATES. Amanda was qualified to offer certification courses, continuing education workshops, and mentoring trainees to become fully-certified Pilates instructors.

Having much gratitude for her years operating a successful LTC, Amanda has chosen to offer a more intimate studio for private and semi-private sessions. BodyMind Design now offers an integration of exercises from ZEN-GA Mindful Movement, Yoga, Hand and Foot Melt Method, Fascial Stretch Therapy (FST) Level 2, and Spatial Medicine/The Bridge to CPM Education.

In spring of 2014, Amanda attended Fascia-Wise, a workshop created by Karin Locher founder of Spatial Medicine/CPM affiliated with Tom Myers. Karin’s introduction of myofascial meridians within the Pilates Method was the beginning of an awakening in Amanda, sensing new possibilities with a renewal of spacial freedom. Curious, fascinated by the process and desiring of change, she felt committed to continue her studies with Karin.

Amanda earned her certification in April of 2016 with CPM/Spatial Medicine as a Bridge Programme graduate, followed by her FST Level 2 certification. Both programs are influenced by the Anatomy Trains myofascial continuities focusing on the body as a whole, rather than working isolated muscles as the focal point. Amanda’s aspiration and application with these methodologies gives her the awareness to recognize the bodies ability, to reorganize and reprogram old patterns, bringing new found energy and joy to movement expressions.

Cody, a well known former radio personality in Houston Texas, found Pilates at the recommendation of her chiropractor in 1999.  The journey has led her to comprehensive certification through PEAK Pilates and eventually studio ownership. She also completed Discover, Move, Inspire (DMI) - Master Pilates Teacher training.  While assisting on a DMI research paper she learned about Karin Locher and the Bridge to CPM.  That let to Bridge I, Anatomy Trains, and most recently completing Karin’s CPM Certification programme.

Cody is the Co-Owner of Performance Pilates in Sugar Land, Texas.  With a lifelong love of animals, equestrian sports and fitness, the potential of CPM education was easily recognized. This work will be hugely beneficial to riders, athletes, and participants of any sport or occupation, including “Life”.  Class schedules and Private session options at http://www.performance-pilates.com

Joyce was first introduced to Pilates at Houston Ballet where she danced professionally for 10 years, retiring in 1995. Pilates helped her rehabilitate from serious injury, allowing her to successfully return to the stage and extend her career. She began her study of the Pilates method in 1998, and has continued to deepen her understanding through workshops with first generation teachers, Pilates Method Alliance Certification (Gold Standard, 2003), as well as the Pilates Center of Boulder's Masters Program (2009). In constant search for more depth and greater possibility, Joyce is also a Yamuna Body Rolling practitioner with special focus on the foot and face, a Rossiter Coach, and an Anatomy Trains Associate Teacher.

In 2013, she serendipitously crossed paths with Karin Locher as they were both assisting an Anatomy Trains workshop. She found Karin's true embodiment of the myofascial meridians in their wholeness so mesmerizing that she invited her to introduce this work in the Houston area.

Over the course of the following two years, Joyce successfully completed Spatial Medicine's first Bridge to CPM held in the United States, and has continued on to join the international Faculty Team of Spatial Medicine. She shares her love of this work both at Pilates Treehouse, a fascial playground, and at Houston Ballet, using the inner spatial relationships of the body to heal and empower.

Kate has done bodywork and taught Pilates for over 15 years. 

Stott Pilates, Polestar, Zenga, Yoga practitioner, Massage Therapist, BodyTalk practitioner, and Anatomy Trains educated. Most recently completed Bridge program with CPM. 
Teaching from a fully equipped studio in Arlington TX. 

Maria Ayyat is the owner of The Fascial Movement Center of Houston. Her studio is a fascial movement mentoring center that offers Pilates, the GYROTONIC® Expansion System, and functional re-patterning. Maria's mission is to provide a safe and motivational space for clients to empower, explore and connect. Prior to her current studio, she owned Little Phoenix Movement for close to 4 years in Sugar Land, Texas. 

With 14 years of combined teaching, movement and dance performance experience, Maria is also a GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® Methodology instructor; she completed comprehensive certifications through both Peak Pilates and Power Pilates; and she is grateful for her recent certification with CPM Education | Spatial Medicine® as a Bridge Programme graduate, as well as a faculty teacher trainee. 

Maria is a Pilates Alumni Ambassador for Lululemon Athletica, a member of the Pilates Method Alliance, and Guest Faculty for the Houston Academy of Dance Summer Intensive since 2008. She was also a part of the Pilates team for the Houston Ballet Academy's Summer Intensive in 2015.

Maria's commitment to the Pilates Methodology and myofascial movement, under the tutelage of CPM Founder Karin Locher, has lead to her passion and belief in the tenets of Spatial Medicine®. She also feels fortunate to have studied or taken courses with many gifted and talented instructors in the somatic movement community. These experts have included Pilates Elders, Second-Generation Pilates Elders, Yoga Masters, and GYROTONIC® and GYROKINESIS® Master Trainers. Maria also participated in the Anatomy Trains Fascial Dissection Course in 2014, headed by Tom Myers and Todd Garcia. 

A native Houstonian, Maria initially grew up in movement through sports (track, tennis, volleyball). She later found dance, Pilates and yoga while she was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism. Maria additionally holds minor studies in dance, theater, Spanish and English. She performed professionally for the Houston Rockets Power Dancers, Planet Funk, and owned her own dance collective, Gruv Girlz. Her youth-centered, writing and arts passions have included the City of Austin, the Houston Independent School District, the Children's Prison Arts Project, and numerous multicultural and arts organizations. Maria is also an aerial dance enthusiast, performing and playing on both aerial fabric and pole apparatus since 2006.

She is an avid supporter of community outreach programs, such as: The Incarnation Children's Center, AIDS Foundation Houston, Child Advocates, and Houston Hospice. When Maria is not teaching clients or reaching out in the community, she enjoys training for local running events, reading, writing, yoga, and catching up on science-fiction films. Maria is happily married to her husband Ash and they live in the West Heights area of Houston.

With more than 25 years of experience in teaching and coaching internationally, Marita was a competitive dancer before transitioning to Peak Pilates in 2004.

She holds a comprehensive and professional certification from Peak Pilates, a leading international Pilates education company.

Marita is also a Pilates Method Alliance certified teacher.

Her most recent post grad work includes Thomas Myers:Anatomy Trains and Karin Locher's Bridge to CPM Certification program.

Adding the work with the Neurofascial Bridge Program which she completed this past year, has only deepened her understanding and she will now pass this depth of knowledge on to those who are curious enough to explore this work with her.

Houston TX (Heights),
Katy,TX

The first time I remember feeling good in my body was at the age of 17 when I found ballet and, unlike with sports, it seemed to listen when I asked it to do something. I felt like ‘one’ with my body as I experienced my whole self through movement, and quickly fell in love with my new awareness. However, an ankle injury from childhood eventually made me stop dancing, and so I found my way to yoga where I learned that when I connected with my body in order to feel good, versus perform well, I felt better in the rest of my life too. My curiosity about the mind/body connection and my desire to learn more led me through multiple trainings and schools of movement and meditation, but of those schools, Karin Locher and the faculty teachers at The Centre for Spatial Medicine were the most influential. Not only did they teach me to understand human anatomy and physical structure the way I always wanted to--but they offered me the tools to see the two way street between mind and body more clearly and continue learning from that connection--in 2018 I proudly joined The Centre for Spatial Medicine as a faculty teacher. When teaching, I’m most interested in what matters to each of my students and how I can help them along that path. I explain how and why so that they can understand their anatomy and how to think about it more clearly to create a change. I aim to help each student take that awareness with them so they can effectively integrate our work into their everyday lives.

Cassia Frade is a Physical Educator specialising in in Physiology and Exercise. She is an internationally certified instructor by Merrithew International from Canada in all its fields: Stott Pilates, Zenga, Core and Total Barre. PMA-CPT, Centre for Spatial Medicine and Fascial Fitness Trainer. She has been a classic and modern ballet dancer for 20 years. Owner of Companhia do Nado, a big gym in Belo Horizonte, Brasil, where she directs the Pilates Studio since 2009.

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Juliet was first introduced to Pilates at the University of Texas where she received her BFA in dance. After performing professionally in Houston for three years, Juliet co- founded WEAVE, an all-women modern dance company known for its athleticism in 1997. As Pilates became key to keeping her body in the condition demanded from the art she loved, Juliet pursued her own certification. A purist at heart, she traveled to Dallas for Colleen Glenn’s comprehensive training and certification in the traditional Pilates method.

While continuing to dance and choreograph, Juliet completed her Pilates certification in 2000 and began teaching the method at the Houstonian Club. In 2003, on a wing and lots of prayer, she opened her own Loveshack Studios: Pilates and Body Coaching for Men and Women. Blessed with a fantastic, loyal clientele, Juliet’s studio thrived for twelve years while she continued education with Peak Pilates and the PMA (Oh... and she hung up her dancing shoes, married Mike, the love of her life, and had two beautiful children, Fisher and Ruby, along the way!).

Seeking a fresh perspective, Juliet joined an old friend and colleague at a workshop presented by Karin Locher: The Neurofascial Body, The Key for Change in February, 2015. And CHANGE was an understatement! What the fascia?! Juliet’s personal web of connective tissue hung in rebellion for several months, but there was no turning back. Karin’s meticulous and painstaking work of layering Tom Myers’ Anatomy Trains myofascial meridians atop Joseph Pilates’ traditional repertoire is nothing short of brilliant.

Two and a half years later— after doing, undoing, unraveling all “knowing” of what came before, and completion of Karin’s Bridge to CPM with successful test out, Juliet proudly became a certified teacher for CPM Spatial Medicine in July, 2017. Her studio reorganized itself as well. Juliet put the Loveshack to bed and opened Holy Body: a Pilates-based fascial lab in the Houston Heights where she teaches privates by appointment only. As this journey continues, Juliet has great respect for the miraculous human body and its neuromyofascial system that can organize, stabilize, repair, renew, and heal itself... if we allow it to do so.

Houston Heights, Houston, TX

Originally certified through Polestar, Jill has been a Master Instructor for Balanced Body since 2007. Additionally she is a Centre for Spatial Medicine teacher and a Rossiter coach.

Along with training students to become teachers in the comprehensive Pilates method , Jill works with clients from those who are severely challenged in daily functioning to elite athletes and all those in between.

She opened the first Pilates studio in Kingwood, TX (Houston area) in 1999. Since then the journey has continued to unfold into a richly rewarding practice. Premium education in the field has and will always continue to drive her passion.

Kingwood, TX

For the last 20 years, I’ve sought out the best teachers to help me understand how yoga and pilates work and how I can effectively teach it to others. The journey continues.

Sharon honors and studies the traditional work and respects its unwavering wisdom. She seeks out modern teachers and researchers who are slowing figuring out the science and systems behind the work to help students understand and apply it in this contemporary existence.

Participants can take from the practice what they need in the moment, whether that’s physical relief from pain, mental rest from stress, or a spiritual outlet. Some may prefer the more physically focused pilates or Fascia Flow to start you on the journey. Others may prefer the emotionally grounding work of yoga.

We move without judgment, enjoy each other’s company and de-stress. Often students say I couldn’t do this movement or I couldn’t figure out how to do just what you were saying.

“Just keep coming,” I always say. The practice itself will help advance your understanding. We all go through the layers in our own time. At first you can't focus on everything. Over time, you'll understand more and be able to do more.

Sharon is certified in classical Vinyasa Krama yoga by Srivatsa Ramaswami. After years of studying with senior VK teacher, Pam Johnson, and doing various short trainings with Ramaswami, she went to Los Angeles to do his full teacher training at Loyola Marymount University. Ramaswami studied for 30 years with Sri T. Krishnamacharya, the father of modern yoga.

She is certified in Stott Pilates, a contemporary approach to Joseph Pilates’ method, which incorporates modern biomechanical knowledge into the method.

For years, she navigated of navigating the dialectic of feeling how well the traditional system worked, even when it conflicted with modern exercise principals. Sometimes they said opposite things, but both seemed to be true.

A workshop with Karin Locher, founder of Spatial Medicine, put her on the path to the missing link – fascia. The fibrous system throughout our body has been largely ignored through 500 years of anatomy, but it has transformed Sharon’s teaching and understanding of movement.

After training and certifying in Spatial Medicine, the understanding of the neuro-fascial network has added new dimensions to cueing, organization and basic understanding in Sharon’s classes.

Houston, TX

Michelle is a comprehensively certified instructor through Peak Pilates and is a nationally certified Pilates teacher through the National Pilates Certification Program.

She holds a Master's in Pilates Teaching and a certificate in pre- and post-natal Pilates and recently completed a neuro-myofascial study of Pilates through the Center for Spatial Medicine. Michelle holds a Master’s in International Education Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University.

Houston, TX 77098