We’ve expanded our CoreAlign schedule to include three levels, making it easier to find the right place to start—so you can keep progressing as you gain experience. Whether you’re completely new to CoreAlign or ready for more challenging work, there’s now a class for you.

Benefits of CoreAlign include upright/functional movement training, posture, balance, and gait improvement, and core stabilization.

COREALIGN LEVEL 1

CoreAlign is unlike most of the equipment in the Pilates studio—you’ll spend much of class upright, working with two independently moving carts that respond to how you shift your weight, step, push, and pull.

Level 1 gives you time to learn how the equipment works and become familiar with its foundational movements.

Expect coordinated stepping patterns, standing and floor work, and plenty of instruction as you learn to work with the moving carts and resistance.

Who this class is for: Anyone who wants to try CoreAlign. No previous Pilates or CoreAlign experience is required.

As with all of our group classes, you must be able to get down to and up from the floor independently and comfortably use stairs.

COREALIGN LEVEL 2

Once the basics of CoreAlign are familiar, Level 2 gives you more ways to use them.

You’ll work with longer sequences, more varied positions, and movements that ask you to coordinate the two moving carts while changing direction, shifting weight, and working against resistance.


Classes move at a steadier pace than Level 1, with less time spent introducing the equipment and foundational exercises.


Who this class is for: Clients with Reformer experience can begin here, even if CoreAlign is new to them. Clients without Reformer experience should first take Level 1 and progress with their teacher’s recommendation.

COREALIGN LEVEL 3

Level 3 takes familiar CoreAlign work and makes it more complex.

Expect longer combinations, quicker transitions, and exercises that ask more of your strength, balance, coordination, and ability to manage the moving carts independently.

There’s less time spent breaking down familiar movements, allowing the class to spend more time exploring advanced variations and more involved sequences.

Who this class is for: Clients who have been regularly attending Level 2 CoreAlign and are comfortable with the equipment, common exercises, and pace of class.

 CoreAlign class schedule

We hope and intend to add more later this year.

CoreAlign Level 1: Mondays at 4pm with Katrina

CoreAlign Level 2: Wednesdays at 9am with Libby and Fridays at 9am with Christine

CoreAlign Level 3: Wednesdays at 4pm with Audrey

We often offer POP UP CoreAlign Classes. Make sure you are opted into our News & Promo email list to be the first to know

I felt great after my first day on the Pilates Apparatus, but man, my abs were sore! I arrived a few minutes early to my appointment to a bustling studio. There were a few other people on the reformers, cracking jokes and working hard. Everyone was in good spirits because we’re experiencing the first week of real warm weather after a grueling winter. Cathy led me directly over to the reformer, and we got started with leg presses that shifted the position of my feet to warm up. Again, I was struck by how clearly I could feel the natural articulation of my spine against the part of the reformer I was laying flat on. It helped me move with intention, and I could feel my pelvis and sacrum getting more pliable. While I was doing the leg presses, I confessed to Cathy that I felt guilty having told her last week that I wasn’t going to do any homework exercises she offered me.

“Let’s go all in this week,” I said.

We moved onto bridges, a backbend done with shoulders still on the floor and feet in table-top position, which might be my favorite exercise because it’s something I do often in my yoga practice but Cathy guided me through a vertebrae by vertebrae articulation of the spine that was really enlight

Combo Chair - Pilates Apparatus
Combo chairs one piece of Pilates Apparatus

ening. I could feel my abs working harder, and got a sense of how my pelvis, feet, abs and spine might all work together once I am more integrated.

“This is definitely homework for you!” Cathy told me.

After the bridges, I did some arm butterflies using the reformer arm pullies and tried not to think about how little upper body strength I have. Then I did a really fun exercise called Eve’s lunge, which is sort of like a runner’s stretch but the back foot pushed against a part of the reformer that moved.  Cathy worked me hard, because then we moved onto the Combo chair which looks like this:

And is a totally amazing tool if you’re looking to gain ankle strength and stretch out tight calf muscles. I stood with one foot on the part of the chair that you can push down, and practiced some achilles pumps which hurt so good. I knew it was just what I needed. We did a few different feet positions on this, and then moved onto to some supine stretching on the spine corrector, which looks like this:

spine corrector - Pilates Apparatus
Pilates Spine corrector, another piece of Pilates Apparatus

This is where I really found my abs. I did a series of what looked like simple sit-up like movements, but the expectation was that I would lean back over the rounded part, careful to press every vertebrae against it, and then curl back up with my chin tucked and my abs deeply engaged. It was so hard I quivered, and realized, as Cathy cheered me on, that this is just the medicine I need.

We finished the session using the floor reformer to do a few side splits, while Cathy talked me through my homework: more bridges, some ankle stretches using a ledge or the stairs, and a seated side stretch with my legs in “Mermaid Position.” My childhood dreams of being like Ariel from The Little Mermaid were finally about to come true! Perhaps this isn’t true, but in all seriousness, these exercises felt like things I could manage to work into my daily routine, and I left feeling strong and optimistic about a living a life inside of a body that had more mobility and less pain. Bring on week three, I am a Pilates machine!

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