Katrina Hawley CMA NPCP
Studio Owner, Polestar Pilates Educator
Katrina is from Wyoming where the untamed spirit of the West and majestic natural beauty open your mind and invigorate your senses to release your own inner freedom and sense of adventure. It’s also where she taught her first class. The students were stuffed animals.
When Katrina moved to the Five College area, she brought with her this sense of freedom and adventure, along with her compulsion to teach.
When she discovered Laban Movement Analysis, it gave her the language she needed to understand movement at a deeper level and a way to communicate with those who would become teachers themselves.
Katrina’s superpowers are movement, teaching, and collaboration. She has collaborated with other professionals to teach how movement integrates with healing, communication, self-esteem, and empowerment.
She believes that relationships come first, business comes second, and play is the best!
Katrina is a Certified Pilates Teacher by the Pilates Method Alliance and a graduate of the Polestar Pilates Rehabilitation Program. She studied Somatic Movement approaches under Janis Pforsich, Aliza Shapiro, Charlotte Wile, Irene Dowd and Martha Eddy.
From 2005-2010 Katrina was on the Board of Directors for the International Somatic Movement Education & Therapy Association (ISMETA) and now continues to be an ISMETA Registered Somatic Movement Educator (RSME).
Katrina teaches Laban Movement Analysis, Issues in Pedagogy, and Pilates at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School in the Dance Division. Previously, Katrina was the co-director of HawleyMartin Dance (2001-2006) and she holds her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Temple University.
Leave Katrina a Review!
This is the best place I can imagine to exercise. Everyone is welcoming and there is lots of pleasant chatter to distract you. All the teachers are spectacularly trained by Katrina Hawley and are able to adjust what you do according to your needs. I’ve been through a knee replacement with them and I’m about to have a hip replacement and feel very well prepared. And there are lots of old folks like me (I’m 72), all having a great time together anytime I’m there. Also, of course, young marathon runners and those sorts but you don’t feel out of place at all if you are old and feeble! You are welcomed and met just where you are.
I pulled something deep in my hip joint at the gym and over the next year pain developed in my knee. I had PT twice a week for three months and nothing changed. I came to the Pilates studio and after 1 session with Katrina the pain was much reduced, after 2 sessions i was pain free. I have continued to work with Katrina and in partnership with her have learned so much about how I move and use my body. She is so very smart and kind!
After 20 years of yoga I decided I needed core strengthening. I was apprehensive because childhood onset scoliosis caused me to be overly protective of my upper body. And then I heard about Katrina. She has made such a difference in my life. The extent of her knowledge and teaching skill is incredibly impressive. Katrina, Laurie and every one on the staff have created such a wonderful, welcoming atmosphere at the studio. I’ve been going there over three years now, private classes, then small groups and now that I know my exercises I’m doing independent sessions. I absolutely love the Pilates Studio!
Laurie and Katrina: Great job, ladies! You are both a source of inspiration.
