I am going to get on the level here…
When people ask me what I do, I say I teach Pilates. But that's not really it. Pilates is just the way I get there. What I'm actually doing — what I've been doing for over twenty years in Galway — is helping people feel proud of their bodies again.
That's the whole thing. That's the mission.
I want everyone in Galway to be proud of their body.
Not a smaller body. Not a fixed body. Not a body that performs better on a before-and-after comparison. A body you trust. A body you live inside with some degree of ease and confidence. A body that does what you need it to do, without fighting you every step of the way.
I think about this a lot. I think about the woman who stands at the edge of the beach and doesn't go in — not because she can't swim, but because she doesn't feel confident enough in her own skin to strip down and just be there. I recently went to Greece and for the first time I felt less than confident in the bikini - since meno delivered me a new body shape I have been grappling with my own body confidence. As a baby I had a congenital hip disorder and so I was not allowed to even try walking - I feel this early experience is what drove me to movement and I haven’t stopped since - both of these experience have made me dig deep and come to the conclusion its movement that the body loves and reacts to with joy. Confidence is an inside job - the pressure of social media, peers and family can really chip away at your confidence, not to mention pain, surgery, babies, hormones, the desk. I want the Pilatescene to fight against this pressure and be a safe haven for all the bodies that are doing their damn best to live their best lives.
I think about the mum of three who came to me not long after her youngest was born, who felt like her body had stopped belonging to her. She had pelvic floor dysfunction — this quietly life-altering thing that made her feel disconnected from herself, like something was fundamentally broken. She didn't want six-pack abs. She wanted to feel whole again. She was heading for surgery - 6 months later and alot of concentration and commitment she is off the surgery list.
I think about the plumber whose knees are in bits after decades of work, who can't afford to slow down because his livelihood depends on his body showing up. He didn't come to me for wellness. He came because he was afraid — afraid that his body was failing him, that the work he'd built his life around was slipping away. And he came to the right place, because classical Pilates, done properly, is one of the most effective things I know for restoring how a body functions under load. Prehab before surgery is so important for upping your statistics for success.
I think about the hairdresser who is on her feet for nine hours a day, her neck and shoulders carrying the weight of every client, every cut, every blow-dry. Chronic pain that just becomes the background noise of her life, until she stops even noticing it. Until it's just who she is.
And I think about the farmer whose body has worked a machine for decades — strong, capable, hard-working — and who now needs to move a bit more intentionally, and rebuild some of the ease that years of physical labour have gradually taken. Arthritis is endemic unfortunately with our damp climate. If you go to the mart on a Friday you will see some of the most twisted bodies - bodies adapted to pain.
None of these people came to me looking for Pilates. They came looking for relief. For confidence. For their lives back.
Why did I choose Michelle Obama as the epitomy of confidence - because she oozes it - not because she is skinny but because she is in her skin - one look and you know - we can all have that. I also love this quote.
"Your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude” Michelle Obama
That hits differently when you've been ignoring a body that's been hurting, or avoiding a body that's made you feel ashamed, or pushing a body so hard you've forgotten to listen to it.
What Pilates does — the real thing, the authentic method that goes back to Joe Pilates and Clara, through the Elders like Ron Fletcher and Eve Gentry — is re-establish that communication. It's slow, deliberate, intelligent movement. It's not about burning. It's not about music pumping you up so you don't notice what you're doing. There's no crazy moves in my classes. No performance. No comparing yourself to the person on the mat next to you.
It's just you and your body, learning to trust each other again.
I run small classes. Maximum nine or eleven people, at our studios in Clarinbridge and Briarhill. That's a deliberate choice, not a limitation. Because in a small class, I can actually see you. I can see how you're moving, where you're compensating, what your body is telling me that you might not even notice yourself. I've been doing this for twenty years — I've worked with people with Parkinson's, with osteoporosis, through pregnancies, through recoveries from surgeries and accidents and years of accumulated neglect. No two people are the same, and no two bodies are either.
The results I see aren't dramatic before-and-after photographs. They're quieter than that. They're the plumber who texts to say his knees haven't given him trouble all week. The mum who says she finally feels like herself again. The woman who went to the beach this summer and just got in the water. The hairdresser who drove home on Friday evening without her neck screaming at her.
That's the work. That's what twenty years of this feels like to me.
If any of this sounds like something your body needs, I'd love to have you in. People ring me and ask me will they get results - I say you’ll get something better - confidence.
We have an intro offer — three classes for €60 — which gives you a chance to come in, find your feet, and see whether the method works for you. No pressure. No long contracts. Just come and see.
Give me a ring on 086-313-7219, or have a look at what we have going at our studios in Clarinbridge and Briarhill. And if you're not sure whether Pilates is right for you given your particular situation, just call. That's what I'm here for.
Your body deserves to be trusted. Come and learn how.
— Suzie and Michelle
