A Family Built This Pilates Studio—Here’s How It All Started

In 2001, my mum did something most people wouldn’t dare to do in their fifties—she started over. She didn’t have a big financial safety net, a business background, or a five-year plan. What she had was a deep belief in movement, a relentless work ethic, and a quiet but unshakable determination.

At 52, she retrained as a teacher with Body Control Pilates and built a Pilates studio from the ground up.

Not a flashy, corporate gym. Not a business designed for quick profits. A place where people—real people—could move, heal, and feel at home in their bodies. A place where community mattered just as much as core strength.

From Loss to Movement

My mum has always been strong. But not just in the physical sense—the kind of strength that comes from enduring, from adapting, from holding everything together even when life throws the unimaginable at you.

She lost her father when I was a baby and my sister was a toddler. A time when she was already balancing the chaos of raising two small children, juggling work, and trying to make sense of a world that had suddenly shifted beneath her feet.

Grief has a way of leaving you untethered, searching for something to hold onto. For my mum, that anchor became movement. She found yoga, not as a fitness trend but as a way to breathe again, to process, to heal.

Yoga led her to Pilates, and Pilates? That led her here.

To the realization that movement isn’t just about fitness—it’s about feeling. It’s about finding strength when you feel weak, grounding when you feel lost, and a sense of control when life feels anything but predictable.

Learning People Before Pilates

Long before she ever stepped onto a mat, my mum spent years working with people in an entirely different way—behind a hairdressing chair.

As a mobile hairdresser, she built her career on more than just cutting hair. She learned how to listen—really listen. She understood people’s stories, their struggles, their joys. She knew how to read a person before they even spoke, how to hold space for them in a way that made them feel safe, seen, and valued.

Looking back now, it’s clear—she wasn’t just learning a trade; she was unknowingly preparing for something much bigger.

Because when you spend years helping people feel better about themselves, whether it’s through a fresh haircut or a heartfelt conversation, you develop a skill that no certification can teach. You learn how to care.

Building More Than a Business

When she opened EQ, she did it the only way she knew how: with love, with grit, and with a refusal to cut corners. She invested in the best equipment she could afford (even when it meant taking almost no profit for herself). She trained endlessly, never settling for “good enough.” She remembered every client’s name, their injuries, their milestones, their grandkids' names.

And slowly, something remarkable happened.

People didn’t just come to her studio for Pilates. They came for the way she made them feel. Safe. Supported. Important.

Some of those people are still with us today, 24 years later.

The Man Behind the Woman

But there’s something else you should know about my mum’s story.

Behind every new piece of equipment, every renovation, every last-minute “We need to go pick up a reformer from God knows where” trip, there’s been one person who never once hesitated.

My dad.

He’s the quiet force behind every studio transformation, every fresh coat of paint, every fix-it job when something wobbles or squeaks. He’s the man who has spent countless weekends loading, unloading, assembling, and problem-solving, making sure my mum’s vision could keep growing.

He didn’t sign up for this, not really. But he’s been there anyway. Every single time.

It’s easy to look at the studio and see my mum’s heart poured into every inch of it. But what you might not see is the steady, unwavering presence of the man who has stood beside her every step of the way, never asking for credit, just making sure she could keep going.

Strength That Goes Beyond Pilates

It takes strength to start a business at 52. The kind of strength no reformer can teach you. The kind of strength that doesn’t waver when classes are empty, when the bills pile up, when self-doubt creeps in.

It takes resilience to keep showing up, year after year, for your clients, for your community, for yourself.

And it takes a special kind of person to create a space where people feel like they belong—not just for an hour-long class but in life.

My mum is that person.

And my dad? He’s the person who made sure she never had to do it alone.

Still Standing, Still Growing

Today, our studio isn’t just a business—it’s a home. And it’s still growing, still evolving, because of the foundation they built all those years ago.

People walk through our doors every day, many of them unaware of the story behind the space. They don’t know about the late nights, the sacrifices, the sheer willpower it took to make this place what it is.

But they do feel it.

They feel it in the warmth of the welcome, in the care we put into every class, in the way we celebrate their progress like it’s our own.

Because that’s what my mum built—a studio that’s more than just Pilates. A studio that’s about people.

And at 52, she proved that it’s never too late to start something extraordinary.

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I’d love to hear from you—have you ever made a big life change later than you thought you "should"? Or found something unexpected in a moment of loss? Drop a comment below. Let’s talk.