Ready to Rise and Recharge?

New Year’s is synonymous with fitness resolutions and a global pandemic doesn’t change that. To ring in 2021, Pilates Anytime is hosting “Rise and Recharge,” a live-streaming virtual Pilates event that will run five days a week all month long. Each week in January, one of four dynamic Pilates instructors will teach a class Monday through Friday, for a total of 20 classes. Class starts at 11 a.m. Eastern Time/8 a.m. Pacific Time. Expect a fun, supportive virtual community that recreates the vibe of a fitness studio, complete with opportunities for engagement with the instructors and your fellow exercisers. If you miss a live class, don’t worry. Each session will be recorded and made available in Pilates Anytime’s library the following day. You can sign up here.

Why A Live Event?

For the past three years, Pilates Anytime has hosted a January "Challenge" event. These Challenges have been ten days of classes with a single instructor and a unifying theme (think Return to You, Ready, Set, Glow! and Kick it Up!). This year, they’ve changed things up. “2020’s been enough of a challenge for all of us,” says Gia Calhoun of Pilates Anytime, who hand-picked the superstar team for the Rise and Recharge series. “The event is meant to help us rise above the disruption and drama of 2020 and recharge our batteries for a resilient 2021,” she adds.

When the pandemic struck in March 2020, Pilates Anytime was able to pivot from taping new classes in their seaside Santa Barbara studio to live-streaming classes via Zoom from instructors’ living rooms and home studios, anywhere in the world. As the technology improved, they’ve been able to offer more seamless live-streaming options right from their app or website as well as roll out new opportunities for interaction in real-time. Some of those new features will make their debut during the Rise and Recharge Live Event.

“Our live-streamed classes fill a need during quarantine by giving people a reason to show up at a particular time of day and get moving. We’re excited about new technology that will help foster a sense of community by allowing us to connect to one another in a virtual space, through functions like chat and a question-and-answer feature,” says Gia. Teachers will arrive in the virtual space ten minutes before the start of class in order to answer questions, introduce themselves, and interact with students as they log on.

What to Expect

Rise and Recharge features a diverse group of teachers with a variety of movement backgrounds and Pilates lineages. With each instructor leading five workouts, participants will have a chance to immerse themselves in a particular theme or style of Pilates each week. Over the course of the event, participants will also discover how different styles (or schools) of Pilates and other movement disciplines relate to one another, as well as to the original Mat work of Joseph Pilates as described in “Return to Life Through Contrology.” Not only is it a much-needed physical and mental reset after a challenging year, but it’s also a wide-ranging, all-you-can-eat buffet of Pilates styles.

Kicking off the event on January 4th is Maria Leone, founder of Bodyline Pilates in Beverly Hills, California, and a regular presence on Pilates Anytime. Her series for Rise and Recharge is called “Find Your Flow.” "My passion is movement. I am a dancer, martial artist, and yogi in addition to a Pilates instructor,” Maria says. “For the first time, I am putting it all together. Expect fresh, exciting flows that will feel familiar but will take you to your edge."

Week Two, starting January 11, brings Viktor Uygan back to Pilates Anytime. Viktor is the founder and co-owner of Konnect Pilates in Mission Viejo, California. A former professional ballet dancer, Viktor will teach “Evolution to Your Resolution.” This five-day “journey of movement” will take exercisers from the floor to all-fours to standing and beyond, mirroring the journey of an infant learning to crawl, walk, and jump. “I’ll lead you through a unique layering of movement sequences to build up your foundations,” says Viktor. “Explore pathways of movement with me and find reinvigorated creativity for the new year.”

Next up on January 18 is Danica Kalemdaroglu, who is making her Pilates Anytime debut. Danica is the founder and owner of Pilates 804 in Glen Allen, Virginia, as well as dancer and choreographer. She was certified by the Pilates Center. in Boulder. Danica’s series, “Recharge Your Practice,” will use the fundamental principles of Pilates as a springboard to make movement more accessible and inspire you to go deeper with the work.

The week of January 25, Saul Choza closes out the virtual event with “Return to Life,” a series of workouts based on the book of the same name by Joseph Pilates. Saul is a Pilates Anytime veteran and the owner of Winsor Choza Pilates in Los Angeles, California.“Many teachers have asked, what would Joseph Pilates’ work look like if he was still around? In my opinion, his work today would look similar to what’s known as primal flow movement,” says Saul. His five-class series will use primal flow to spice up the traditional mat work and help students catapult their Pilates practice to their next level. “Be ready to move and flow. The original exercises can be intimidating, but with a little creativity, you can find pleasure and inspiration in them,” he adds.

After the year we’ve all had, who couldn’t use a little more pleasure and inspiration? We hope you’ll join PilatesAnytime’s “Rise and Recharge” live event. We look forward to interacting with you on the Mat.