“I decided to do the training, not to become a teacher, but to be the best student,” she said. “When I got in the training, I just found this to be the most amazing way of moving your body and the benefits it offers, and I just said, ‘Other people need to know about this.’”
Another thing that was instrumental in her launching My Pilates Studio at 8100 Miller Farm Lane in Washington Twp. was something her mother, who was ill in 2005, shared with her at the time.
“She said to me, ‘You have got to stop chasing your dreams and start living them,’ and she died a few months before the studio opened,” Anderson said. “I feel like her spirit lives here.”
Throughout the years, the 3,000-square-foot business has faced its fair share of challenges, especially getting the studio’s name out there.
“There weren’t a lot of Pilates studios when I first opened, and so I spent a lot of time going to health fairs, speaking at different places,” she said. “I did a lot of advertising. I just spent as much time as I could ... sharing what we did, the benefits of Pilates and why everybody should do it.”
During the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, Anderson found ways to keep the studio open while prioritizing health and safety.
Pilates, she said, is a modality of exercise that focuses on the body as a whole while addressing individual imbalances to create balance, along with stability and strength.
Besides Pilates, the studio also offers massage therapy, workshops, barre classes and Gyrotonic training, she said.
Keeping classes small — six people in a group class — means being able to get to know clients well enough to know what modifications they require, Anderson said.
“Maybe they need different springs, different head props, or maybe there’s certain exercises that they can’t do,” she said. “You have to modify things to make sure that they’re safe and they’re getting the best results from the class.”
Anderson said there is a place for all of the Pilates businesses in town, “I just chose to create an environment that is more intimate.”
“We have very close connections with our clients and it just seems to work,” she said. Some My Pilates Studio clients have been with the business since the day it opened, Anderson said.
“It’s almost like a family feeling, where we know the clients, we know their names, we know what they do, we know what they’ve got going on in their bodies,” she said. “We know about their families, and we treat these people like family.”
With two decades in the community under its belt, My Pilates Studio continues to get referrals from doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists and other medical professionals, Anderson said.
“We’re kind of known as the next step after surgery or after PT because they know that the quality of the teachers that we have is wonderful,” she said.
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