You won't find a sauna here

Studios are competing on perks now. Here's where our effort actually goes instead.

I've been having a look at what Pilates studios are offering lately. Not just around here. Everywhere.

Infrared saunas. Tea stations. Retreats. Recovery lounges, towel service, a little shop by the door.

And look, I get it. Once everyone has reformers and a nice fit-out, perks are the easy way to stand out from the place down the road. Studios want to give you more.

But somewhere in all that "more", it gets easy to lose sight of the one thing you actually came for.

The Pilates. Whether it's any good. Whether your body is changing because of it.

Where my effort goes

Here's the honest answer to what I do with my time as the owner of three studios.

I learn. That's the job.

Nearly all of my effort goes into getting better at teaching this method, and then into making our teachers better at it too.

We now run instructor training every single week. One on one sessions. Group sessions. And my favourite, which we do regularly now: bringing in an outside expert to spend a day with us and go deep on one thing.

There are some incredibly passionate Pilates instructors in Australia. Sadly they can't all work for us. But I love paying them to come and teach us when they can.

On Friday 11 September, 15 of our instructors spent three hours at Diamond Creek with Ben Rashleigh, a highly regarded Pilates practitioner and master trainer. (Hey Ben!) We focused on footwork and ankles. That's it. Three hours on feet and ankles.

You can bet every student who walked into a class the following week got some new attention in that area.

Which is also why you won't see me on Instagram in matching activewear and a full face of makeup, smiling at the camera. Nothing against it. It's just that every hour spent on that is an hour not spent on the thing that actually makes your class better on Thursday morning. I'd rather be in the studio, hair up, watching someone's ribcage.

The thing you'd never see on a perks list

Here's what all that investment in our teachers actually produces.

They stay.

Staff turnover in this industry is brutal. Instructors burn out, get poached, drift off to the next studio opening up the road. It's almost expected. Ours don't, or hardly ever, and in this industry that's close to unheard of.

I don't think it's an accident. When people are getting better at their craft every month, the work stays interesting. When the work stays interesting, people stay.

And what that means for you is bigger than it sounds. The person who taught you last week is teaching you next week. They know your shoulder. They remember you were sore after the last one. They can build on where you were instead of starting from scratch with a stranger every time.

That does more for your results than any sauna I could put in the corner.

It never gets boring

I'll admit this bit is selfish.

Teaching Pilates is one of those jobs you can never finish learning. Years in, you can still watch someone move and see something you've never noticed before. There's always another layer.

And people trust us with how they move their bodies. That's not a small thing. A slightly wrong cue doesn't hurt anyone today. Repeated for a year, it might. So we keep learning. All of us. Not because a certificate needs renewing, but because the people on the mats deserve a teacher who's still getting better.

Does that mean never?

No. I'm not against nice things. A retreat sounds lovely.

And to be fair, we're not entirely tea-free. There's no tea station, but there's a kettle at each studio and you'll often catch our instructors with a cup in hand between classes. Half the time it's Melinda's. Melinda Watkins teaches yoga with us, she's a naturopath, and she has her own tea company, Audrey and the Teacup. Organic loose leaf blends she formulates herself and hand makes in Melbourne. The instructors are quietly obsessed. If you want the closest thing we have to a perk, that's it.

It's just not what gets my attention, or our teachers'. The moment the extras start pulling effort away from the Pilates and the people doing it, they're costing you something, even if it doesn't look that way from the foyer.

So here's what you get at Hurstbridge, Diamond Creek and Eltham instead of perks. A class of ten or twelve. No mirrors. A teacher who's trained properly, keeps training, and isn't going anywhere. Someone who's looking at you for the whole 45 minutes.

That's the perk. It's just harder to put on a poster.

If you've been shopping around

Compare the perks lists if you like. Then come and do a class.

Foundations is free, 45 minutes, at any of the three studios, no catch. You'll know within one class whether the teaching is any good. Honestly, that's the only thing worth comparing.

See you in class,

Mel

P.S. The tea station question comes up more than you'd think. I'm not ruling it out. I'm just not putting it ahead of a teacher's training budget. In the meantime, Melinda's Easeful Sleep blend is the one I'd start with.