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.

I am on a diet. I am on the same diet that the singer Pink went on before a rock tour. Or before she got married. I can’t quite remember that detail from the article that inspired me to go on the diet. And while I got the diet from a celebrity news magazine (see link in “Stuff We Love”), I think the diet is a good one. It is heavy on fruit and fiber and designed to detox the system and drop a few pounds along the way; an eleven day commitment to see what it is like to actually eat something akin to what is recommended on the food pyramid rather than my usual diet of dairy, carbs and decaf skim lattes with a salad every few days to convince myself that I am, in fact, a healthy eater. But what I am really fascinated by is the process of making change. Once I cleaned up my act in my late 30s and up until I was about 42, whatever I was doing was working just fine for me in terms of how I felt in my skin. But over the last three years, the combination of hormones, aging, my Starbucks habit and too many carbs added on a few pounds. That isn’t such a big deal, I know. But what happened was that I was spending way too much time admiring the problem. I was mesmerized by the changing landscape of my body and came to spend more time thinking about my body than is good for me. When I am fixating on how my jeans are cutting into my flesh or how big my butt looks, I am plain old wasting time. I am wasting time thinking about myself in a completely non-productive way rather than being active in the solution so that I can spend my time trying to better serve Pendleton clients or teen girls in the True Body Project or trying to find the most truthful words to express myself in a poem or a novel. The minute I blended up my first juice drink on the first morning of my diet, I had already turned the corner. It was as though I had already lost the weight and detoxed myself. I was in action. And since then, I’ve been able to focus even more, with even more energy, on the really important tasks at hand. What is it that makes us move from inaction to action? I wish I could name it and bottle it. Maybe it has something to do with overcoming fear. My friend Bruce French (and former chef of Bistro on Vine) recently spoke at Princeton University about his experiences helping to rebuild a village in Sri Lanka after the tsunami hit. He ended his talk with Nelson Mandela’s words and I think they apply here. Are we afraid of being our best selves? Let’s work to liberate ourselves, together. Stacy Sims Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of god. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. —Nelson Mandela Hold onto your hats! We have so much news we might have to start a weekly newsletter. Schedule Yourself Online! It’s true. We are finally ready. After testing our new web-based system for a month, we invite you to visit www.pendletonpilates.com and go the Schedule and check out how you can manage your account on line. You will create a user name and password and begin to schedule yourself into classes, cancel out of a class (with 24 hours notice), buy packages online and more. Ever wonder if you can hop in a class at the last minute? Now you can see where there are open spaces in a class in real time and sign yourself in for more Pilates with less hassle. You’ll also begin receiving automatic emails to confirm package purchases, confirm you’ve cancelled or scheduled a class, to notify you when your package is low, and many more. All to make your Pilates life a little easier. It is an intuitive system so check it out and see how it works for you. One word of warning: DO NOT FREAK OUT IF YOU SEE A BIG NEGATIVE NUMBER! This is how we have manipulated the system to allow you to schedule a regular class beyond what you have paid for. As always, if you have questions or concerns, call Shannon at 513-478-3232. She is constantly monitoring the schedule and can continue to take care of your scheduling needs if that works best for you. We still offer the option of having a regular spot in class and to schedule classes in advance of bringing payment for packages. Because of this, you may see a large red negative number next to your name. Do not panic. This number simply represents the number of classes outside the scope of your current package you are scheduled for. This number decreases each time you purchase a new package. Conversely, it will increase the more you schedule. The system will also allow you to waitlist for a Group Reformer Class. Up to 3 clients can be added to a class waitlist. If you are waitlisted and another client cancels, the first on the list will be added to the class and you will receive an automatic email notifying you when you are off the waitlist and in the class. West Chester Studio! By mid-June Pendleton Pilates will have a West Chester studio! And it is Pendleton’s first licensed studio. It will be owned and operated by Pendleton-certified instructor Sonya McDonnell. You will enjoy all the same benefits of Pendleton and be taught by Pendleton teachers. So if you live in West Chester or have friends up there, come check it out! You can email Westchester@pendletonpilates.com or call the West Chester number at 513-240-7488. You will be able to access the West Chester schedule online at www.pendletonpilates.com once we open. Thanks to Jill Jepson and Joann and Ed Lewis for helping make this studio a reality. Thanks too to client Sarah Buehrle for her fabulous article in the Pulse Journal. You can read it here. Loveland Studio? Can it be? Two new studios at once? Stay tuned. We hope to make it impossible for you miss your weekly sessions at Pendleton Pilates. New Location for Yoga Classes Nancy Willman's yoga classes, presently taught at the Pendleton Pilates Downtown Studio on Thursday's at 10 am will be be moving to her new yoga studio, Main Street Yoga Studio, at 1201 Main Street. Classes start May 4th. Please call 513-561-2502 for schedules and times. Good luck to Nancy in her new OTR space! The More, The Merrier We have even more new clients to welcome into the Pendleton Pilates Community. Since our last newsletter, we’ve had the following people start at our studio: Krista Boyle, Margo Smith-Joseph, Pam Kirchner, Olivia Oldiges, Mel Gaskins, Katie Margolies, Patti Niehoff, Tom Groneck, Julie Templeton, Marci Sander, Jay Lowry, Sarah Buehrle, Angela Lucarelli, Loretta Lucarelli, Ursula McDonnell, Michael Roedig, Angela Davie, Karyn Kerns, Jean Olasov, Stephanie Galbreath, Leigh Doyle, Kimberlee Curtis, Angela Rutherford, Melissa McVay, Gini Martinez, Kara Cain, Corry Doyle, Sarah Bohn, Melissa Schroer, Britty Wiles, Casie Bowman, Katey Blood, Amanda Rassi, Elizabeth Godfrey, Julie Gast, Tommy Broderick, Fred Hecht, Christine Blonh, Ashley Kokaly, and Shelaina Brown. We love diets we can do to help jumpstart our health plan. Here is one. And we love Pilates Style magazine. And not just because they featured a column with Stacy in it in their latest issue. Check it out here and consider your own subscription! We also love the Pilates Method Alliance for Pilates Awareness Day! On May 6th, join Pilates fans around the world and make sure to book a session and spread the word. The PMA is working to create better standards so that studios and teachers uphold the essential components of Joseph Pilates’ work for their clients. So after you have had your healthy meal and read a healthy magazine and had your Pilates session, we think you should reward yourself by going to Essencha tea shop a few doors down from the Oakley studio. Awesome!! Then maybe you could swing by Denim and try on some hot jeans for your Pilates body before visiting Salon for your spring haircut. Cross Madison to visit the Phyllis J. Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery. If you hurry, you can catch Jimmy Baker’s amazing show. And don’t forget Boca. Try the Grilled Caesar Salad. Try anything. You cannot go wrong. And thanks too to Dale Lamson and Rondle West for making our Oakley home the hippest spot in town. From left to right: Sarah Eastlake, Caitlin Zivkovich, Kathleen Koller, Derek Mize, Anne Arnsperger and Rachel Mardis. Not pictured are Julie Isphording and Jess Magno. Congratulations to the Winter 2006 Class! Derek Mize, Annie Arnsperger, Julie Isphording, Jess Magno, Rachel Mardis, Kathleen Koller, and Kaitlyn Zivkovich all received Certification in the Pendleton Pilates teacher training program. And we are delighted to welcome them all to our teaching staff. Our next session begins May 6th and we have one spot left in the class. Been thinking about it? Just do it! Questions - call Shannon or Stacy at 513-478-3232. Sheila Cohen with Pendleton teachers. There are two bonuses to becoming a Pendleton teacher: you get to take free Pilates and enjoy our ongoing education program. Last month, client Sheila Cohen spent a Sunday afternoon with us, helping us understand the genesis of the Pilates method and how the work has changed and refocused over the last few decades. Sheila was one of the Pilates method’s early students when she worked with Pilates protégé Carola Trier in New York starting in the 1950s. She has been a dancer with the Lucas Hoving Dance Co., Princeton Ballet Co., and the Meredith Monk Dance Co. Sheila was also a student of Martha Graham, Alexandra Danilova (of the Ballet Russes), Henry Danton (of the Royal Ballet), the Joffrey Ballet School and more. She is currently on the faculty of the Princeton Ballet School, guest teacher for the school of the Cincinnati Ballet, and former head of dance department at SCPA for 22 years. She is also master teacher for national ballet conventions and choreographer for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. We are lucky to have her as our “Master Teacher” in residence! Next month! Jarvis from White Cloud comes to town to spend two days working with us on advanced Reformer and Mat work. Here’s the deal. We have got to get serious about taking care of teens. I was asked by one area school to help 7th and 8th grade girls cope with the pressure of being a teen rather than starving or cutting themselves. Because that is what they are doing to try and make sense of the anguish of not being quite “right.” Kathy Y. Wilson visits Covington True Body teens At another area school, there are 38 out of 130 pregnant 8th graders. Yes. I said 8th grade. And yes, this is here in the Cincinnati area. We working with Fitness Rocks! and the Covington Public Schools in an after school True Body program, doing events by request at area schools and gearing up for another intensive summer program for teen girls with ArtWorks. And don’t forget to visit www.artworkscincinnati.org if you have a teen who wants to apply. Interviews are May 6th and May 7th. We are working to create more programs for more teens and training sessions for adults who want to help with the work. That’s why the week of May 1st – 7th will be True Body Awareness Week at Pendleton Pilates. Some of our teachers will be donating teaching time to raise money for True Body Project teen girls and we will have information for you to take home to consider how you can help – either financially or otherwise. And your class fees will go to help fund a teen girl in our summer program. For further information, visit www.truebodyproject.org or call Stacy at 513-470-5548. It was suggested to me in March of 2005, that I should try Pilates as a way to strengthen my core muscles. This was said to me by my mother’s surgeon as he was checking on her before her back operation. Back problems run in my family and I am overweight. Both of these things were beginning to affect my lower back. I asked her surgeon what I should do to keep myself from ending up in the same situation my mother was in. He said there were no guarantees, but that I should lose weight, walk and strengthen my body core. Sounds simple enough, but it took me until December to do anything about it. I knew it made sense, but I was embarrassed as to how out of shape I had allowed my body to become. The pain in my lower back could no longer be ignored and I had not slept through the night in four months. It was time to try Pilates. I spoke with Shannon and she put my fears to rest. These are normal people, who are in these classes with me. I don’t feel judged or out of place because I don’t have a dancer’s figure. In fact, I feel strong and empowered by the Pilates, the instructors and the support for newcomers by the other people in the classes. Many wonderful things have come out of my experience with Pilates. The most amazing thing of all is that after the first three of my initial training sessions, the pain in my back was gone. I went to bed that evening and was amazed when I awoke the next morning, realizing I hadn’t had to get up all night. That was all I needed to hook me! Since that day, I have committed myself to two classes a week minimum, but usually get in three. It has also provided me with the energy and inspiration to start walking on a more regular basis. My favorite moves in class have to do with strengthening my arms, shoulders and back, which have provided me the best posture I have ever had. My mother was always on me about my posture growing up, now I see why. You feel better when everything lines up correctly! Jane Hughes