"What are you doing?"
"Drinking wine, you?"
"Whitening my teeth and then joining in on the wine drinking. Immediate reversal of effort."
"Haha, ya. Or it's balance."

An actual text exchange between Cassandra and Jenni

Hello Pilates People!!

Welcome to where we want to go this week - into the world of balance.

It's about way more than the ability to stand on one toe or stomach your kale shake every day. It's about taking the good with the bad, holding space for both the light and the dark and continually adjusting to find yourself somewhere in the in between.

Because this isn't an all or nothing world and it's not possible to always be one thing OR the other.

Every day, we wake up in new bodies and new worlds full of new possibilities and challenges to navigate.

Our theory is: the only reliable way to do that and give our experience in these moments justice is to treat balance as the practice of maintaining and stabilizing while in constant motion. So while it looks like that person who "stuck their handstand" is perfectly poised and still, the reality is an inner world of constant shifts and micro adjustments to maintain the appearance of balance.

Yes, we are fitness professionals who lead very "healthy" and "balanced" lifestyles to the outside eye, but let's look at that a little closer:
- Cassandra must eat a giant cookie every day. It's become something of a rule and the few times she's skipped her cookie in the past, her friends noticed and were worried something was wrong.
- Every Friday for a year, we have had happy hours with (or without) our friends that have actually lasted  H O U R S and involved so much wine.
- We both need constant reminders to breathe and slow down because our instincts and kinetic natures keep us moving constantly and we're both secretly terrified of what happens if we're faced with a quiet moment.
- And while we're both very skilled at helping others listen to their bodies and what they need, we're actually pretty bad at doing that for ourselves. That's why we have each other - someone to constantly check in and remind us that it's okay to be human sometimes.

See, even for the pros, balance is a constant negotiation of gaining and releasing control. We're all just here trying to figure out the wild yo-yo of the ying and yang of things together.

So, go ahead. Fall. We absolutely will and want you to join in! And afterwards, we want you to get right back up and take a moment to figure out what you need in order to balance this time. Is it more support? Less control? Less thinking? More trusting? Less choosing? More doing? What was the missing piece last time?

Whatever it is, give yourself the time, space, permission and opportunity to find it. And don't be afraid to get it wrong! Go ahead, fall again! And again, and again, and again, and again - keep on falling, because that's the only way you're ever going to get to the bottom of it (and in a world that's constantly shifting, in a body that's constantly evolving...we actually think there may never be a bottom to it which is SO COOL!).

Know that we are right here with you, constantly asking the same questions, coming up against the same imbalances and taking it one day at a time.

And with that, friends, we have a few exciting invitations for YOU!

Our Friday happy hours have continued on through these past few months and we would LOVE to have you join! We're planning to hold Pilates People happy hours through Zoom on the first Friday of every month from 5-7pm (EST)! So come drink with us (or don't) and say hi! This is such a beautiful community of movers and doers and we want to start opening up the door for you to get to know us, our friends and each other! Stay for 5 minutes or 2 hours! We welcome any and all of it :)

To sign up for this FREE event on Friday June 5th, please click here. 

We're EVEN MORE EXCITED to announce that we'll be starting some weekend "Workshops" and "Life Style" events too!!!

Our first weekend event will be Sunday, June 14th at 12pm (EST). Please join us and our friend Lucy Wild of Wildly Nutritious for a Sunday brunch cooking class! We'll be making lemon poppyseed pancakes with a blueberry compote (Lucy swears it's easier than it sounds) and having a Q+A/hangout as we dig in together! It's just $25 to learn and enjoy with us!

To read more about Lucy, Wildly Nutritious and our Sunday Brunch please click here and sign up!

Let's head into this week grateful for the sun during the day, the moon at night and the clouds in the sky waiting to show us one, the other, or sometimes a little of both.

We're still here and so are you.
All our love,
Cassandra + Jenni

(5/31/20)