This Mat & Chat was hosted on on Instagram Live on Wednesday, August 26th. The chat followed a 25 minute mat workout.
Victoria: Alycea is joining us today from Tribeca, right?
Alycea: Yes, I am here in the basement!
Victoria: So, since you’re there, I wanted to- well, we have a lot of questions for you. I always ask people if they have questions to please DM them, and I got quite a few. But I want to start- since we’re there- with asking how you, as business owner, have handled the pandemic, and what it looks like to reopen, since that’s imminent- next week! So talk us through a very abbreviated: “What went on through your mind and how you dealt when Coronavirus came to Manhattan.”
Alycea: Yes, well we were kind of early to close. The whole thing was kind of terrifying. I am a born New Yorker, I was born on 59th street. Even though I was raised outside of New York City proper, I went to school here, and I have grown up in the city, so it was something I had watched, and when I realized: “Oh, we’re going to succumb to this virus,” I was like: “Okay, gotta go. Gotta shut it down.”
Victoria: I refused to believe it. I was like: “Alycea, it’s not going to happen.”
Alycea: I totally remember that discussion. I was like: “Okay, I’m going to go…” *laughs* But, I really didn’t pause- for me, I only function In motion, period. I kind of only have one tempo, which is go directly. So I went directly from “we’re shutting down” to “we’re opening up.” Like, we’re opening up online, or we’re getting ready to reopen in person- we’re always getting ready to do something.
Victoria: Yeah, there’s no down time.
Alycea: I think for me, the abbreviated version of everything is that you make a decision that either you’re going to, or you’re not going to, and for me- I knew, we will open. We will open at some point. And there will be teachers and there will be clients, and those are the only two things I know. I don’t know who, what, when, or where, but at least with that mindset, there was never any doubt about “Do I need to order wipes? Do I order a lot of wipes?” It was a foregone conclusion, so I feel like being at peace with “we’re going to try to reopen, we’re going to do the best that we can, we’re going to invite everybody back to our space and do what we love to do” made all of the rest of the decisions less emotional.
We’ve done everything that everyone is doing. We’ve tried to stay within the guidelines of New York State, we’re readying for what will be an inspection, we’ve reorganized all of the studio spaces. I feel like we actually have 3 studios now, because the basement in our Tribeca space is fully operational on its own, it has reformers and everything in it, so you never have to go to another floor to do anything. I don’t know, it’s exciting! I feel like it’s new again- and maybe that’s crazy, but I love new! I’m an Aries, I want it to be new! I feel like: “I got a new studio!”
Victoria: Yeah, no it’s great! I’m excited! So Real Pilates in NYC reopens to the public next week, September 2nd, correct?
Alycea: Yup, Wednesday.
Victoria: I won’t be there until after Labor Day, but I’m so excited to come back and see people who I’ve only seen virtually, or just whatever! I’m just excited to be back on the apparatus, even though I think I could teach a mat class with the best of them now, it’s been so long. So along those lines, this wasn’t really a question, although I think she really wanted to ask you a question, but Erica Walters had so many things to say but at the end she wanted me to relay to you that she wants you to know “how much your tenacity and preparedness is appreciated from not only your clients, but your staff, and your host studios.” So we will get into more of that later.
Now that we’ve kind of caught up to where we’re at now, I want to take it back, back, back in time. Most of us who are watching probably know, but in case you don’t, Alycea was certified with Romana in New York City, so in order for me to get to the next question someone has for you, we need a little background here. So let’s talk about when you started your teacher training with Romana, and then we’ll move forward. I’m sure the question will present itself.
Alycea: Okay. There’s a lot of history. I started Pilates in New York City when I was fourteen, and I was not at Romana’s. I was at Anderson-Kasakove - which is actually Brenda Anderson and that studio was from Carola Trier’s lineage, so not Romana’s at all, and that was my first exposure to Pilates. And then I went to study with Steve Giordano, who at the time, was at another space that he shared, called Synergy Fitness Systems- and he sent me to Romana’s when he knew I wanted to teach. That was by the time I was like 18, when I was studying with Steve. I went back and forth to him for a while, and then he sent me to Romana’s. I think that I finally went up there and sat on Drago’s couch to ask Romana- I met her at 1pm when she got off- that was the rule if you wanted to be interviewed to teach. She came out to meet me. That was 1992. I got my certificate and I remember it took forever for them to give it to me, and that was in the beginning of ’93. So it might have been ’91 I think? I have to check my notes.
For me, once I went there, I was kind of like: “Oh, this everything” right? This is everything. But training at that time did not involve training like we think of it now. There were not really manuals when you first started, and the schedule that Romana gave me was that you show up at 7 and you’re with her every day until 1. I paid Drago $45 a day, that was the fee for training. That’s how I started my training. A certain way into my training- it had to be hundreds of hours already- she changed the training protocol, having gone into business with the Pilates studio, and I got sort of walked around through a few different versions of it. In the original stet up, my training was with her, every day, for $45.
Victoria: $45 dollars- that’s it! That’s not bad. That’s cheaper than a private.
Alycea: Although in 1990, that wasn’t cheap, you know? That was kind of a lot of money every day.
Victoria: Especially if you’re however-years-old.
Alycea: Or a struggling dancer!
Victoria: Right. So how was Romana? What are your biggest take-aways from spending so much time with her? 7 to 1!
Alycea: 7 to 1! You know, the thing about her teaching that I tried to hone-in on very early was that here was this little woman who could wrangle any human being into their most extreme potential at any given moment. She could just climb on top of someone, or use her words, or leverage her body in a way that was physical. It wasn’t just mental and all of those things. It was a very physical workout. I started to pay really close attention to- and even now when I look back at my notes- they’re very much rooted in where to stand. Where did she put her foot? How did she get these big guys, these stiff people, to be in the optimal position for every exercise? That’s the thing that I took away the most from her teaching. There’s a way to use your body, as a teacher, to pull your client out to their greatest potential. I think that that was not paid enough attention to. She was very uptight about people on the floor, taking notes. She was like: “Get up! Do it! You’re not going to learn it by taking notes.” But the stuff that I found myself writing all the time, or on the train when I left the studio (in those days) were little stick figures. Where did she stand? She was here- or she was there. Or, I’d turn around in my session and be like: “Where are you?! What are you doing back there!” Because you’re so wrapped up in your workout, you don’t always pay attention to what the teacher is doing, which is always a shock- as you know through your teacher training. You’re like: “I had no idea what was going on behind me that whole time.” For me, that was the most impactful, I think.
Victoria: I had Nina Narejko on here a week or two ago, and something that I took away from her experience with Romana- when Romana was at her studio, the Pilates Studio of the Midwest I think, in Chicago, Nina was not an instructor. She was 16, and she worked at the front desk. So most of her time with Romana was just observing when she came for teacher trainings. She said a phrase that Romana always asked her clients or apprentices at the end of the workout was: “What did you learn today?” And you know, here at Real Pilates we ask clients at the end of their session: “Did you get a good workout?” And I love asking that and checking in with my clients. But: “What did you learn today”- I loved that. I think it’s so powerful and I tried it- I asked one of my clients: “What did you learn today?” After one of our sessions last week, and the answers had me like: “I taught you that?!” I was like: “Whoa, cool!”
Alycea: It’s very affirming. You may not remember, but in teacher training, we always say, “If you learned one thing today, it was a good day.” It’s what I took from Romana- she may have evolved it over time. It is true, that when you have those questions- whatever you’re asking your client at the end of a session- it holds you accountable as a teacher. I want the clients to say- did they learn something? Did they not? Because if they didn’t, I need to work harder, and if they did-what’s working. Right? What’s working?
Victoria: Yeah, and Nina did say that Romana said that you should be learning one thing a day. That was her way of approaching that. There are a lot of Romana-isms out there, and I love hearing all about them from different people because it creates such a complete image of who she was, for me- since I obviously didn’t have the chance to work with Romana or meet her.
Moving forward, I’m segueing into the next question, which I know we’re getting into. I know that after you trained with- or maybe while you trained with Romana- at some point you went to college and were teaching Pilates from your apartment, correct? You had a home studio. So how did that happen?
Alycea: Yes. Okay. So. I taught at a ton of places. I taught at Romana’s the summer after I finished my program. I taught at the Pilates Studio, I taught in the Village at a place called the Hundred. I taught all around the city, from Chelsea Piers to New York Sports Club, and then finally I was like: “It’s time to park downtown.” I lived in Tribeca before opening a studio here, and we had a lot of space. I had enough space to get a reformer. I got a reformer in the apartment in 1996. Later that year, I was like- I had always wanted to go to PT school- but I didn’t go because I was dancing professionally. Pilates was something I could do when I was dancing. I could go, I could take off, and then come back and always be able to dance and teach Pilates. Once I wasn’t going to be traveling anymore, it was time to buckle down and go back to school. I hadn’t gone to college so I wanted to do that.
I built my business in my apartment while I was in school. It was a little crazy to manage, but it got to the point where I had all of these clients and I couldn’t do the full-time program at NYU. So I had to make the choice whether or not to open a space and get some friends who were Pilates teachers, or shut it all down in my apartment. But it was very cool- I did get the reformer and I put some of the eye-hooks in the beams in my apartment and hooked up springs. I had a mat rolled-out, then I got a chair- and that was a really big deal. I had a Cadillac that got lost in a field somewhere in Italy- but when I bought that first reformer, I put my head in my hands and was like: “What am I doing?” It was like $2500, and I couldn’t afford a Gratz, and I just was like: “This is crazy!” I think my husband for however many years after would walk through the living room and say: “Did that thing pay for itself yet?” And sessions were $35. So.
Victoria: Oh my God. That’s less than what you were paying to teach!
Alycea: Yup. $35 for a session, and you had to walk up my 6 flights.
Victoria: Oh my God! How did you get a Cadillac up 6 flights?!
Alycea: Well we had a freight elevator, but we couldn’t let people use it. It was just for deliveries.
Victoria: Got it.
Alycea: Now of course, we have a real elevator. But they all did it! They all walked up the six flights- it was crazy.
Victoria: I mean if you’re going to work out, can you really make an excuse? Like, oh I can’t walk up the 6 flights to get to my workout? It’s your warm-up. It’s your footwork.
Alycea: Exactly.
Victoria: Okay. So that was the question! Nicole had asked how you got your start from the home studio to the first studio location on 137 Duane. So you kind of just described how you were busy with school and you needed help with all of these clients. How did you find that location? I think it was such a unique little “old Tribeca” spot.
Alycea: Oh yeah. The first spot that we had was at 310½ Greenwich Street, and it might have been storage! I don’t even know what it was doing there. It was in an alleyway between the supermarket and the park, and it overlooked the street. It was about 800 square feet, and I got it for $1000/month. I still wish I had it- it was amazing. It was tiny- it had little cinderblock walls, and we put a little carpet down and some mirrors and opened with a schedule book. Things were different then- there was no social media. You just didn’t need a lot then. We had clients, and we had equipment! So people came. I built that while I was in the program at NYU, working from 10-6 every day. So I would go to the studio at 7am, open up, the teachers kind of ran things all day, I’d go back at night, and then by the end of the program in ’98, I was like: “We’re packed.” We had like 200 people a week in this tiny space, and we found the space down the block at 177 Duane, where we were for 20 years until two years ago and then we finally moved here to 137 Duane. But if you go back and walk down Duane, you will walk smack into 310½. We’ve been on one road the whole way.
Victoria: Got it. Cool! I need to do that, because I’m curious now where 310½ is.
Alycea: I’ll show you.
Victoria: Great. Okay, so Real Pilates at either 310½, or 177, or 137 has been open now for how many years? 20-something?
Alycea: Yeah, 1996 was the commercial space. 1995 was my apartment.
Victoria: So 25, 26 years. That’s a long time!
Alycea: That’s crazy!
Victoria: Yeah! But it’s amazing. You’ve built a business, you’ve built a brand. And from the emails you’ve sent to us- your employees- you’ve described surviving September 11th, you’ve survived the financial crisis, so the pandemic is definitely a bump in the road, but it’s not something we can’t come back from- as far as reopening next week –yay!
So we know that the teacher training program is a huge part of Real Pilates now. At least it was pre-pandemic, but obviously we’re coming back to it. How many cycles do we have now per year at Real Pilates? Two, three? It depends.
Alycea: Yeah, we usually do a winter, a fall, and then a summer intensive. So that’s going to be subject to what the market will bear now, so we’ll look at that. So normally it’s two and a summer intensive. In New York City.
Victoria: Erica Walters had said that comment to you earlier, so we know that Real Pilates has host studios and sister studios throughout the country and world. How many states are we in? Do you know off the top of your head?
Alycea: There are 13- including us, I think. Johnny would correct me. There are 13 host studios or Real Pilates training locations everywhere. That includes Montreal, Guadalajara, Mexico, Berlin, Germany, and then all the rest are domestic. From Florida, to Los Altos, California, to Dallas, to New Jersey-
Victoria: What about Hong Kong?
Alycea: Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so bad. Yes, Hong Kong is amazing. They have a beautiful, beautiful setup there, and it’s quite international. So even by itself, it’s quite a hub for Real Pilates teaching training.
Victoria: Yeah, it’s so exciting! I trained with Alycea at Real Pilates in 2016, and I think it was maybe only the third or fourth cycle- it was pretty early on in the Real Pilates teacher training world. It’s very exciting to be involved with Real Pilates- whether it’s through teacher training or just to teach there. Speaking of teacher training, Juan Estrada had a question for you, and he’s one of the Lead Teacher Trainers at Real Pilates. This one is kind of funny, I think it kind of relates to the attitude that I sometimes take towards my approach to Pilates. He wanted to ask you if you have any strategic phrases planned for any upcoming Pilates t-shirts? The example he gave was: “That’s not a thing.”
Alycea: *laughs* That’s really funny. I always say when I’m teaching seminar, there’s like a whole bevy of t-shirts phrases that come out. Like: “Oh, put it on a t-shirt. Somebody should be taking notes.” They are so organic; they literally come out when you’re teaching. He’s funny- “That’s not a thing” is very cute, and I love all of that stuff and I think its snarky, but I also want to be really supportive of when a client comes in and they have a practice that I’m not familiar with, I’m just like: “Oh, what are you doing that for?” and then try to kind of redirect the into something else. Or say: “This is what we do here for that” or “I’d like to try something else” or “There’s something else I’d like to see you do.” I think we’d do better at redirecting. I have a whole list of things coming up. I wanted to do a spring one that said: “Distance equals resistance” or some kind of fun play on the springs. I don’t have anything funny off the top of my head, I’m sorry.
Victoria: Aside from teacher training, the studio is busy! First of all, up until March, we had three locations. So a lot of my clients are always like: “Who’s Alycea? Who is she!?” A lot of people think you’re the Oz behind the curtain. When you’re there, you’re usually in the back. And my clients will be like: “Let me know when Alycea is here.” And I’ll be like: “That’s Alycea walking in.” And they’ll start looking really good on the reformer- they just want to look good and impress her. Since you are omnipresent, how do you do it? How do you do teacher training? How can you be in three places at once? How do you do all of these things that make Real Pilates what it is and still live a live?
Alycea: There’s a lot there. *laughs*. I feel a little embarrassed like: “Ooh, she’s walking through!”
Victoria: Always!! No, I am not the only one. I’m sure we’ll have a meeting of the minds later with other instructors, but every time your’e in the studio, my clients are like: “Is that Alycea?!” And I’m like: “Yeah!”
Alycea: But that makes me feel terrible if there are clients that I don’t know well. So it’s still kind of personal to me, but how to keep it all up? It’s just the team- there’s no way for me to manage it all myself. The systems that we kind of have in place right now are to allow me to keep my finger on the pulse of everything. I make sure that I get a “Close-Out Report” every day that has any kind of issue that might be happening with a teacher, with a client, with equipment, so that I can always be in the other studio if I’m one of them. Everybody here knows- they all have my cell phone number- they can text me, email me, call me, any time- I’m always on it. I make myself as available as I can be.
The one thing about eh pandemic that has been kind of cool is that I’ve been able to connect to more clients in a face-to-face way, or a virtual way, doing TeleHealth, offering to assess people who have issues or injuries, or just connecting with people who can’t get in touch with their regular teachers. In that way, that’s been one of the silver linings of the pandemic- like: “Oh, maybe there’s stuff that we can do with technology that we haven’t been using it for.” So it may be possible for all studio owners to be a better studio version of their Oz and be front-facing even more, even without having to be on the floor. It is hard to work on the business-end in the business no mater what. There are only so many hours I can physically teach and still manage the business. But without the team killing themselves- and I mean, hat’s off- within 14 hours of closing in March, they were online. They were online, they were booking, and they were adept- and the speed! All of the staff, all of the teachers, everyone was just like: “Okay, this is what we’re doing now.” It was crazy.
Victoria: It was seamless- to me it was very seamless. I have a client who is a little bit older, and before we made the decision to close, she made the decision that she didn’t want to come in any more because of her age- and that was totally fine. So I think I was one of the first people- remember? I was one of the first people to use the App! I was walking down the street and you were like: “Can I call you!?” Because I was one of the first people who would be using the App.
Alycea: Yes!
Victoria: I was on my way to dinner. That’s how oblivious we all were. I was like: “Okay, we’ll figure this out tomorrow.” And then flash-forward, and it was the fastest zero to sixty ever, where we went from being open to being like: “Oh, it’s here, and we’re closed now.” But, now that studios are reopening, we’ve found that online works. So, the plan for Real Pilates is to keep the online as well as offer in-person, right?
Alycea: Yeah, and there’s a million ways that could work, and I’m sure some we haven’t discovered yet. But for now, I would like to see our classes happen in-studio- a teacher with one client, and then a big TV where we can watch everyone. We have all of that set up, and we’ll see how it goes. I think it’s a better opportunity as well for teacher to be in the space teaching, as opposed to having to do it in your living room, which is also very lovely, but-
Victoria: No, it’s a struggle. As you know, I’ve been out in Montauk, and before the studio opened in Montauk- our house is the size of my bedroom! We have a murphy bed! It was like: “Boyfriend- leave! Murphy bed- up!” Trying to teach classes!? It was kind of challenging, so it will be nice- even if we’re not teaching clients in-person- to have a space you can go to teach them. It will be really useful.
Well Alycea, do you have any other thoughts you would like to share before we move forward into our speed round?
Alycea: I think what’s been so interesting about this time is being able to work out with teachers from all over the world- of course, I will always want our people to come home to us- but what a crazy time for teachers too- to be able to get with other instructors that would never have been available. And that’s been a big gift. I hope that some of those instructor connections will remain.
I also feel like, what a time for a community to have come together and support each other. I’m part of Facebook groups like: “New York State Studio Owners” or “National Studio Owners” and all we are doing is supporting each other. “Hey, do you have a form for this?” or “Hey do you have a location for this” or “Where can I get Clorox wipes?!” People are really fighting to help each other for the industry and all of that is just coming home to take care of our clients. If we take care of each other, take care of other studios, then collectively we can all take care of the clients. So I think, you know, it’s not a bad idea for studios and owners and teachers everywhere to reach out to a studio or teacher you don’t normally work out with and see if you can be of any help. Even here, we got applications from a lot of people who want to rent. And we don’t rent, but I know a lot of studios who are hurting right now and that could really be make-or-break for them. So I started sending resumes and sharing their info with other studios, because we’re really going to have to get through this and it’s a good time for us to come together and embrace that.
Alycea’s Speed Round
City or beach
Sweet or savory?
Cat or dog?
Adventure or comfort?
Books or movies?
Nights in or nights out? Until I had children
Summer or winter?
Tea or coffee?
Early bird or night owl?
Pizza or pasta?
Europe or Asia?
Spring or fall?
Breakfast or dinner?