Pacific Northwest Pilates

We hear a lot about the benefits of stretching and increasing range of motion — and for many bodies, that's genuinely good advice.

But for people who are naturally hypermobile, their joints already move well past what's typical. So the thing that actually helps isn't more stretching. It's learning to control the movement they already have.

That distinction shapes how we teach. Rather than asking "how far can you move," we're asking "how well can you control it" — which leads to very different programming: stability work, body awareness, midrange movement, and knowing when to support a joint versus when to challenge it.

This is exactly what our Pilates for Hypermobility class is built around. It's a small-group Reformer class, grounded in STOTT PILATES® principles, that meets every Thursday from 4:00–5:00 PM. The pace is slower and more exploratory than a typical class — instructor Lisa Buchmiller works with students on releasing unwanted tension, using props for support, and building the kind of proprioception that helps you notice what your body needs in the moment.

It's a drop-in class, so there's no commitment required to try it.

Learn more and see the full class schedule: https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/client-group-classes/

We’re excited to be part of the STOTT PILATES® Academy community!

Join us online this September for a weekend of practical workshops designed to help you build your teaching skills and confidence.

Debra Hunt + Laura Hicks Foutz 💜

https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/continuing-education/

Join Debra Hunt online for two STOTT PILATES® workshops this September:

Friday, September 18
STOTT PILATES® Cueing & Modifications on the Reformer for a Client with Postural Issues

Learn to recognize common postural patterns and muscular imbalances, then explore exercise selection, cueing and Reformer modifications to improve safety and effectiveness for individual clients.

Saturday, September 19
STOTT PILATES® Intensifying Essential Matwork

Discover how to add variety, increase the pace and safely intensify Essential Matwork to challenge core stability and muscular endurance—without sacrificing control or movement quality.

Each workshop is $140 and provides .2 CECs.

👉 Learn more and register:
https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/continuing-education/

There's a version of this account where we tell you about our morning routine, our personal workouts, our individual take on wellness.

That's all fine, but that's probably not what you'll find a lot around

here.

Around here: Pilates is about you, not us. So we spend this space on education — the kind of thing we hope helps you in your own Pilates practice, or in your teaching if you're an instructor yourself.

If you're curious what that looks like in practice, we'd love to talk.

https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/book-a-free-chat/

🎁 LAST CHANCE! REGISTER BY AUGUST 15 AND RECEIVE A FREE BONUS!

Created by Melanie Byford-Young, physiotherapist and STOTT PILATES® Rehabilitation Master Instructor Trainer, Anatomy for Movement Professionals: Essential Foundations is our practical, movement-focused approach to learning anatomy—designed for Pilates instructors, yoga teachers, personal trainers, aspiring instructors, and other movement professionals.

📅 Live-streamed over two weekends: August 28–30 & September 12–13
💻 20 hours of interactive instruction
📖 Course workbook included
💰 $600

🎁 Enroll by August 15 and you’ll also receive lifetime access to our Self-Study Anatomy Video Library—a $225 value—FREE.

Also created by Melanie, the library includes 29 on-demand anatomy lessons and is a great way to review and reinforce what you learn in the live course.

👉 Link in bio to learn more and register
OR go to: https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/anatomy-immersion-classes/

Physical therapy is having a hard moment right now, and it's worth understanding why, because it's changing where a lot of people end up looking for help with their bodies.

Reimbursement keeps getting cut. Caseloads keep climbing. Across the U.S., a growing number of physical therapists are stepping away from traditional clinical paths, some to open independent practices, some to leave the field entirely. At the same time, demand for physical therapy is projected to keep outpacing the supply of providers for years to come. The result is a lot of people finishing treatment, or waiting weeks for an appointment, with real questions about how to keep moving safely in the meantime.

We want to be clear about something, though. Pilates instructors are not healthcare providers, and Pilates is not a substitute for physical therapy. That's not the story we're telling here.

The story is that this gap is creating real demand for something else: experienced, well-educated movement guidance that works alongside healthcare rather than in place of it. Instructors with significant education and ongoing mentorship, who understand injury and who communicate closely with physicians and physical therapists, can become part of a person's broader continuum of care. That is a very different thing from a certification earned in a single weekend. It takes years to be able to teach responsibly at that level, and it's a responsibility we take seriously in how we train our instructors.

There's also a more direct version of this same shift happening. STOTT PILATES® offers a Rehabilitation program that trains actual healthcare providers, physical therapists, physicians, and other clinicians to use Pilates within their own clinical practice. It's a different path than instructor training, but it points to the same underlying signal.

As healthcare stretches thinner, movement expertise is becoming more valuable, not less. That's been the foundation of our education programs at Pacific Northwest Pilates since long before Pilates trended anywhere, and it's the work we're continuing to invest in.

If you're an instructor, or a healthcare provider curious about this work, we'd love to talk.

Learn more about our education programs: https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com

This weekend in Toronto: Melanie, Leslie, Katherine, Debra, and Laura reconnecting with colleagues, learning from people who've been doing this as long as we have, and a lot of laughing. Today we make the shift from the IT Summit into the Global Partner Summit — more soon.

Also — some big news from the weekend. Melanie Byford-Young was elevated to the Global Leadership Council, one of only seven people worldwide. And Leslie Braverman, Katherine Brown, and Debra Hunt were all promoted to Master Instructor

One incredible weekend so far. 💜

Ready to try Reformer Pilates but don't know where to begin?

Our Quickstart Series was designed specifically for people who are brand new to Reformer Pilates.

Instead of jumping into a regular class and hoping you can keep up, you'll spend 4 weeks building a solid foundation in a supportive, small-group environment.

Over 8 classes you'll learn:

• The five STOTT PILATES® principles
• More than 30 foundational Reformer exercises
• How to set up and adjust the equipment safely
• Movement skills that prepare you for our regular beginner classes

With a maximum of 6 participants, you'll receive plenty of individual attention while learning alongside others who are just getting started.

Fall 2026 Series
📅 Tuesdays & Thursdays • 5:45–6:45 pm

Series 1
September 15 – October 8

Series 2
October 20 – November 12

Investment: $240 for the complete 8-class series.

If you've been thinking about starting Pilates, this is one of the best ways to begin—with confidence.

Learn more and register here:
https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/pilates-fitness/reformer-pilates-for-beginners-your-4-week-starting-point/

Reformer Pilates for Beginners | PNWP Quickstart Learn Pilates Reformer the right way. PNWP's 4-week Quickstart Series in Portland, Oregon builds confidence, strength, and skill.

Here's a muscle most instructors can name but few can really explain: the sartorius. It's the longest muscle in the body, and its job has nothing to do with power. It's a linking muscle, connecting the pelvis to the tibia across both the hip and the knee, without ever touching the femur in between.

That link shows up in more places than you'd think. It's part of why some bodies sit cross-legged with ease and others really struggle, since that position asks the hip to flex, externally rotate, and abduct while the knee internally rotates and flexes, all at once. And it's part of strength work too. Feet-in-straps Frog, for example, connects external rotation to a pulling action through that same chain.

When the link can't move through its full range, the body doesn't just stop, it compensates. A pelvic shift. A rotation through the low back. A knee or lower leg twisting to fake what the hip should be doing. Do that enough times in enough classes and the compensation becomes the pattern, and that's often when pain shows up near the inner knee, even though it rarely starts there.

Correcting it means training the hip and knee together rather than separately, and you'll actually learn the exercises for that (things like grasshopper, heel squeeze prone, and feet-in-straps hamstring curls on the long box) in courses like STOTT PILATES Intensive Mat Plus and the Reformer course. What those courses assume, though, is that you already understand why the exercise works and how to cue it for the person in front of you. That understanding doesn't come from the movement course itself. It comes from anatomy, working quietly in the background of every cue you give.

That's exactly the foundation we build in Anatomy for Movement Professionals, a live-streamed course designed to give you that background before you ever step into a movement course.

It's $600 and includes your workbook, taught across two weekends: August 28-30 and September 12-13. Register by August 15 and you'll get free lifetime access to our Self-Study Anatomy Video Library, a $225 value.

Learn more and register: https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/anatomy-immersion-classes/
Have questions first? Book a free chat with our Education Coordinator: https://pacificnorthwestpilates.com/book-a-free-chat/