Week 53 - “Work with what you’ve got”

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at."
-- Stephen Hawking

Hello Pilates People!!!!

It's going to be a sappy one...get ready.

And if you just thought, "Cassandra, what else is new?"

...fine. I don't like it but fine.

Before we get there, we have a few things to cover!

• Our birthday is this TUESDAY, March 23rd! PLEASE COME OUT AND MOVE WITH US! We'd love to see you!
  

• Our birthday giveaway closes TONIGHT!!! If you haven't already entered, GO NOW! The prize is worth over $400 - we want you to have it! So GO! DO IT NOW! We'll be picking a winner on Tuesday so stay tuned!
  

• Our next donation class is coming up this Sunday, March 28th 2021! We'll be raising money for The Family Center - an organization our friend (and PP member) Sarah Stone is very close to! PLEASE JOIN US! You can sign up here - just choose your "The Family Center" donation class in the amount you'd like to donate OR sign up with your current class package and we'll donate one class from that! Spread the word and we'll see you there!
  

• Pilates People member, and now our friend, Laura wrote us a poem for our birthday! We LOVE it and wanted to give you the chance to read it! Thank you again, Laura!!!
  

• And finally, we're looking to do some outdoor classes this spring/summer!!! Let us know if you're in the NYC area and are interested! We've got some ideas but would love to hear if you have any requests/thoughts yourself!

The reason I'm sitting here crying, again? I just went back to the first letter I wrote to you...and maybe you should do the same. Because we did it. I think we accomplished those lists, and as I wrote them I remember thinking we wouldn't, but I hoped that somehow we could.

To say I'm proud of all of us would be the biggest of understatements.

It's strange, thinking back to those first days/weeks/months. Jenni and I have been doing it a lot - both as business owners and as people who are still trying to process. It feels fuzzy and like I'm not quite sure how it happened.

I do remember feeling like I absolutely had nothing and was tasked with creating something out of that. The artist in me kicked in to high gear in that moment, remembering a friend from my college years who once said, "It may not be perfect, but there is always SOMETHING you can give, something they can offer and some way to make it work."

So I just reframed that, what could I give with what I had? And it helped to know that I wasn't alone - so many of us were in the same boat of desperation. So I just needed to go with that and make it work - setting the tone and example.

It absolutely wasn't easy, friends. I was so uncomfortable. It felt like I was performing a shitty 4th grade science project for absolutely no one. I was honestly unsure if anyone was still out there as I ran through the empty streets of Manhattan (no exaggeration - I spent months running straight up the middle of 5th avenue, not because it was blocked off, because there was NO ONE around).

And I'd like to say I remembered this, but I'd be lying...I have friends who are willing to help. They told me I could do it, and helped me on the way...

A friend in Australia was building my website - one I hadn't even asked for and kept insisting I wouldn't need.
Jenni was helping me reframe my teaching to a 2D world where I couldn't see or actually interact with my students.
Her husband was giving design advice and test running videos for me.
Friends from all moments in my life signed up and starting telling everyone they knew.
And all of our instructor friends were constantly on the phone with me talking strategy/pricing/how do we help each other and everyone else?
Things were happening 24/7 to move this forward.

Because I have friends. And they're what made this work. They made me feel like what I was doing mattered somehow, and that gave me the momentum I needed to keep pushing forward and figuring it out.

If you think back to the beginning of all of this, ordering workout equipment was as laughable as buying toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I had some props, but not enough and that was true for many of you. So okay, what do we have?
Books. Towels. Blankets. Cans. Done. We can make that work.

I didn't have a tripod or professional lighting equipment and there was absolutely no way I could afford that in the moment. So I built myself a tower out of my nightstand, hamper, books and a glass to put in my window and balance my phone on. In some of those early videos, you can hear and see Cat scaling the structure...I wish I had thought to take a photo of it for you all. It was truly absurd.
But it worked.

And a studio space? You're kidding, right? So, I spent a day rearranging my bedroom to create my "studio," and have since decided that's a thing for me now. Anywhere I live needs to have a designated "studio" space...and it seems to be that it will likely somehow always be in my bedroom.

The start of Pilates People was truly minimalism at its finest and it's cleared some things up for us. We can do this WHEREVER and HOWEVER because we don't actually NEED anything to do it! We proved that, which reminds us that sometimes restrictions, limitations and obstacles create opportunity for innovation, growth and exploration - something we can all probably remember more often.

Without the end of the world, we would not be here. That's a silver lining if I've ever heard one.

And it all just feeds right back in to our mission to tear down the old rules.
Pilates doesn't have to be perfect.
It doesn't have to be fancy.
It doesn't have to be whatever you thought it was.

It can really be about working with what you have to feel good about what you have - a brain, a body, the people in your life...those are the things that matter.

Who cares what cool outfit you're wearing or how heavy the spring is when you're showing off and doing your bicep curl? What if those things suddenly get taken away? What would be left for you to work with?

You. Let's keep working on that.

"And again, one more time, I want to ask - how are you? Really? There are no rules and no wrong answers here.

'I'm still here and so are you,' my friends. Today and for whatever comes next."

All my love, always,
Cassandra + Pilates People

P.S. - here's your video calendar Aligned Members :)