Kristy Powell Pilates Instructor

Kristy is classically trained and comes to The Pilates Studio with over fifteen years of Pilates-teaching experience.

She began her instructor training while in her first year at the College of Charleston after returning from Budapest, Hungary, where she trained with the Hungarian National Ballet.

Kristy completed a rigorous two-year classical Pilates certification, rich in anatomy and bio-mechanical mindfulness, with Karen Sanzo of Pilates Unlimited in Dallas, Texas. 

Kristy enjoys teaching a wide variety of bodies, abilities, and life stages, including persons with acute or chronic injury, various physical limitations, athletes, pre- and post-partum persons, those with specific physical goals in mind, and those with a simple desire to move mindfully and sweat.

Since becoming a certified Pilates instructor, Kristy has facilitated multiple full-apparatus and Mat instructor certification programs, educating classical Pilates instructors who now teach both regionally around the northeast and internationally. Additionally, Kristy created a Pilates curriculum for asthmatics in partnership with researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine. She developed the professional instructional video that was used as the primary intervention method in this study. Kristy has also pursued various opportunities for continuing education to deepen her specialization in pelvic-floor rehabilitation and the post-partum body.

Kristy approaches every Pilates session she teaches open and curious about how her clients will arrive, settle, and develop over the shared hour. She holds a profound reverence for both the space she shares with her clients and her clients’ dedication and commitment to their personal wellness. Kristy especially appreciates the therapeutic aspects of Pilates (she holds a Master of Counseling). She knows Pilates to be physically transformational through her own rehabilitation after an ankle injury ended her professional ballet career. Having been an instructor of Pilates ever since this injury (and a practitioner of Pilates since she was 13), Kristy intimately knows the ways in which Pilates meets a body where it is at, always providing room for growth, healing, and transformation.