Special Offer Do you know we offer full time students a 10% discount on all our services and classes? Anyone with a student I.D. is welcome to enjoy our services at a great price! Also, please remember to let us know if you refer someone to our studio. Earn free classes and/or our fabulous “Look Better Naked” merchandise! Call us at 513-478-2332 or send us an email for more information.

In February, I experienced two really cool things within the same week. First, I went to the Cincinnati Observatory with my dad and stepmom. We got to see Saturn and the moon and learned about the vastness of the cosmos. It was fascinating and, frankly, a little unsettling. Infinity is hard to fathom and it makes the human experience seem tiny and inconsequential. Luckily, I followed that up with a Qi Gong workshop. Alan Hundley, a local Tai Chi teacher, Watsu practitioner and all around great guy brought in Richard Leirer from Cleveland. The Chinese term Qi Gong means mastery of energy and Richard Leirer was one of the first Americans to study Qi Gong healing. At one point, during our day-long session of movement and meditation, Richard said to us, “So you see, you ARE the center of the universe.” For a brief moment, I was jazzed; reaffirmed as important and central in the vast galaxy of the unknown. “I am the center of the universe. I knew it!” I thought. But then I did the math. “Hey wait, if I’m the center of the universe and that guy is the center of the universe and that woman is too, well how does that work?” We continued to move and breathe with each other. And I started to feel it. Our moves and gestures were independent AND connected. Our meditations were personal AND universal. And I suppose then, that we as humans are both tiny and inconsequential AND huge and powerful. I was reminded that we are all part of a gigantic, wonderful, magical system of energy and light and other miraculous things I can’t even begin to understand. And that the best way to find our way on this planet, on this earth, in this galaxy, in this lifetime is to connect with our bodies and our breath each day so then we can truly connect with each other; whether for a brief moment or a lifetime. Stacy Sims New System For Scheduling – Coming Soon! We are working on a new web-based system that will allow us to track your packages, classes and appointments online and in real time. And as soon as we work out the kinks and understand the bugs, we hope to allow you to be able to schedule and cancel online, pay for packages and to be able to look to see where there might be space in a class if you wish to try to drop in or schedule at the last minute! We are very excited about all of this but it does make for a bit of a strain on the eyes and the nerves as we try to take care of you today AND create this new database and system for the future. So please be patient over the next few weeks as we begin to go live with this. More soon on how you can create and view your own schedule! Policies, Revisited Our policies will not change with the new system although they will be more rigorously enforced. So please remember the following: - We require 24 hour cancellation notice for Reformer sessions (group or private). If you don’t cancel in advance, you will be charged for the session. We hate to charge you for classes you aren’t taking, but there are people waiting to get in classes that, on paper, are filled. Same goes for Unlimited. There is a no-show fee. So call and leave message or email if you need to cancel. And soon, you’ll be able to take care of it online. - Also, if a client habitually misses class without giving us 24 hour notice, we reserve the right to remove that client from his/her regularly scheduled class. Again, we want to be able to accommodate your personal needs as well as to serve all the people in the universe of our system. Bottom line, if you can’t get to class let us know so we don’t have to charge you and so that we have time to allow someone else to get in that class! New Reformers! New Classes! We will be getting one new Reformer for the Oakley studio and may soon add a Reformer to the Downtown Group class so that we can accommodate 7 people per class. If you have been trying to get in a particular class that is booked up, we hope this might help you out. Also, look for new Reformer Classes coming in March! There is so much going on at the studio that we may be sending you some interim emails before the next newsletter arrives. And if you haven’t told Shannon about the class we are missing that would perfectly suit your schedule, now is the time to register your vote. As always, contact Shannon at 513-478-3232 or at info@pendletonpilates.com. We are thrilled to have introduced so many new people to Pendleton Pilates. Since our last newsletter (through the end of February) we welcome the following people to our studios: Gina Tesnar, Lisa Sacolick, Beth Robinson, Rebecca Podore, Clark Sarver, Judy Cirillo, Gretchen Gogesch, Dodd Harrison, Alexis Schrimpf, Pat Capannari, Julie Brown, Jean Gould, Lisa Thal, Jason Bechtel, Jen Acerra, Sandra Small, Krista Wiseman, Melissa Howard, Manisha Gupta, Jenny Mueller, Peter Mueller, Victoria Daly, Karen Owens, Jennifer Verville, Deb Schaefer, Susan Bishop, Gina Huffman, Stephanie Bitano, Christian Shalay, Christine Hogan, Dave Zahniser, Rachel Zahniser, Christina Bugitzedes, Jesse Combs, Sara Geroulis, Yelena Kanevsky, Stacey Schorsch, Danielle Baker, Andrea Dunlap, Amber Henley, Sally Warner, Tom Warner, Selene Lum, Vallie Brant, Amy Donges, Shana Elgabri, Elisabeth Davis, Jennifer Verkamp, Jamie Ashcraft-Stenz, Shirley Fledderjohn, Jan Jahnke, Raffie Zuroff, Kristina Schappell, Nan Forti, R ick Forti, Michelle Pipitone, Alexandra Overhoff, Dawn Herrins, Nancy Minson, Kristene Templeton, Jassamine Haughton, Nicole Wasson, Nancy Woodburn, Lynne Reckman and Rachel Robinson. It isn’t easy to grow a small business, especially if you are downtown and/or off the beaten path. Here are a few downtown businesses who are doing a great job and deserve our support! Coffee Emporium in the Emery on Central at Walnut … best coffee in town and the best looking staff, not to mention awesome food and service. Poppies on Elm at 9th Street … a wonderful deli/café open for breakfast and lunch on weekdays. Fantastic daily specials, salads and soups. And here is the sweetest deal of all … the Marathon Station on Central Parkway PUMPS YOUR GAS just like the old days and for the same price as if you do-it-yourself. These guys are awesome. Go visit them. And if you got gas but your car won’t run, check out Jim Stephen’s Auto Service across from City Hall. Ask for Danny. Client Betsy Hodges say they are the best. Don’t forget to support Arnold’s on Eighth Street. You can go there for a $4.25 lunch on the days you don’t go to Poppies! The True Body Project documentary film was accepted into the prestigious Cleveland International Film Festival! As part of the 2005 pilot program for the True Body Project, filmmakers Selena Burks and April Martin directed a 22 minute documentary film about 13 Cincinnati-area teenage girls as they learned about issues concerning gender, identity and artistic voice. And client Anne Chambers and her company RED donated our camera, film and all the post production. (Thanks to all our sponsors and funders – see the list at www.truebodyproject.org!) It was one of 96 films out of some nearly 700 entries for the Cleveland International Film Festival. It will screen prior to the feature film Songbirds at the Cleveland Film Fest at 12:30 pm on Friday March 24th and at 10:00 pm on Saturday, March 25th. If you can’t make it to Cleveland, we will have our third local screening on U.C.'s campus on Wednesday evening, April 26th from 7-9 pm at the Tangeman Center. We will screen film, the girls will read their literary work, and then we will have questions and answers. Save the date and check back at www.truebodyproject.org. On March 21st we commence an after-school version of the True Body Project with Covington Independent Schools and their Fitness Rocks! program. This summer we will do another intensive program in partnership with ArtWorks, hiring 20 girls to work as apprentice artists and bringing in a visual artist from California to work with Aralee Strange, myself and various other area artists and writers. We will be creating a performance and exhibit for the Contemporary Arts Center and another book that documents the girls' work. Visit www.artworkscincinnati.org for information on applying to be hired as a teen apprentice for True Body 2006! Finally, client Deni Tato is hosting an event at 6 pm on April 4th for people who wish to learn more and/or help out with the True Body Project. Of course, we need funds to do this work but there are other ways to support us, perhaps in the mentor program or via product donations. Please contact Stacy at stacy@truebodyproject.org if you wish to learn more or attend this event. Okay, really finally – buy the book! The True Body Project is an incredible book and your $20 donation will help us do more programs for girls. Available at Pendleton Pilates and at Joseph Beth Booksellers. Having been a swimmer through college and now a competitive triathlete, I have always maintained cardiovascular fitness and a muscular physique. However, after a year of increased running and biking, I found my feet, knees, and hips not allowing me to reach the distances and times I had set goals to achieve. A friend of mine suggested that he used mat and reformer Pilates to cope with the poundings his body took as part of his job with Cirque de Soleil. Soon, I too found myself lying awkwardly on a machine delicately bound by straps, springs, and handles. The biggest challenge I faced when engaging the Pilates method was to minimize my movements, to breathe slowly, and to engage those small muscles beyond the power muscles which had been driving my athletic body through a lot of tough races. The payoff was nearly immediate and overwhelming! Soon, I was running without shooting pains running the length of my lower leg. My swimmer’s back and shoulders slimmed down and made my profile more efficient (and a lot easier to dress!). Most of all, though, I now have a vocabulary for understanding and repairing my body. Men often work so diligently on their biceps, triceps, quads, chest, and back that we forget the muscles connecting all of those to our feet, wrists, shoulders, and abdominal core. Learning to engage large muscle groups while working with the interconnectedness of the body allows one to not breakdown their workout into separate parts of lifting for mass and abdominal work for definition. Learning the Pilates method allows one to move twenty pounds down the weight rack and get a six pack while doing bicep curls. Since staring my work at Pendleton Pilates, I have traveled to many Pilates studios in the U.S. and Europe and can attest that the teachers and staff at Pendleton are not only fully engaged in their work but are also the very best curators of a community that fosters holistic health and personal development. At every session, I work with a room full of individuals all from different walks of life each heading towards their own goals of fitness, self-image, and just a good simple time in touch with their body. To anyone considering Pilates, I would invite them to consider their practice not an obligatory muscle-banging workout, but instead a daily conversation with one’s own body and self. Like all good conversations, you emerge at the end not realizing the time gone by yet knowing that great things were truly accomplished. Derek Mize Derek is currently taking part in Pendleton’s Teacher Training program. To learn more about the program, visit www.pendletonpilates.com. New session begins in May.