We were lucky to catch up with Meirav Cohen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Meirav, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Growing up, my relationship with my body wasn’t positive. I was mostly in my head and didn’t understand why I even had a body. I didn’t feed it enough and was always mad at it. The relationship we have with our body walks with us all the time. It affects how we treat the people around me, how we make decisions, and our overall well being. Through movement in general, and Pilates in particular, I worked, and still am working on that relationship. I learned to appreciate my body, to thank it everyday, I learned that it is a part of me. I learned to listen to it, because it holds a lot of knowledge. I learned to feed it and treat it with care. I want more people to have a positive relationship with their bodies and my mission is, through Pilates, to guide and support people as they go through this process.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Colorado transplant originally from Israel by way of Brooklyn, New York. I have been practicing Pilates since 2009 and teaching since 2012.

Not long after finding Pilates, I began to notice how my movement practice impacted the way I interact with the world. I felt stronger, more at ease, focused, and confident. I fell in love with Pilates and later with yoga, earning my yoga teaching certificate in 2019.

I think a lot of us hold an image of what a “Pilates body” looks like and how “bad” we would be in Pilates. Some of us think that we need to buy LuluLemon tights and crop tops to join a Pilates class, or have to be able to hold a plank for a minute. “I am out of shape” can be a thought that keeps us away, or the fact that we haven’t exercised since March 2020 due to the global pandemic. I think, really all you need to start your Pilates practice is your body, and curiosity.
You don’t have to wear fashionable gear, you don’t have to worry about your weight or how you feel about being at home for two years. You don’t have to be able to touch your toes when folding forward, or stand on one leg for 30 seconds. My Pilates studio is a judgment free zone. You will be accepted and respected as you are at this point in time, and guided through the practice to where you want to be.

My belief is that “you can’t be good or bad in Pilates, there are no grades or an end of the year performance. Pilates is a promise you make to yourself to take care of your body, a promise to your future self who wants to keep hiking and skiing until old age”.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I find that we all have stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. “I am the kind of person that…”, “I am not good at…” I had a story that I am not good at marketing. I kept hearing myself telling this story to people until one day a student told me: “I actually think you are really good at marketing”. I heard her, I allowed myself to actually listen to her. And I realized that it’s time to rethink this narrative. I sat with this thought for a while, and started rewriting this statement about myself.
I may have not been good at marketing in the past, I needed to learn about it, I needed to find my voice in marketing, and here I am, good at marketing.
Once I made that shift, once I changed my story, I started doing more marketing for my business, with more confidence and more joy.
What other stories am I telling myself about myself? What else can I rethink?
These are now the questions I have in the back of my head, so that I can keep growing and changing, and so that I can make sure I keep reflecting and rewriting my story.

I see students come to my studio with stories they tell themselves about their body, stories that might hold them back. I think it’s fascinating to see how through our body we can rewrite how we think of ourselves and how we interact with the people around us.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I am still in the process of building my reputation. When I teach, I try to be as present as possible in the here and now so that the service I am offering is aligned with the reputation I am hoping to build. So that if a student talked about me with a friend, they describe the teacher I hope to be. When I market myself, I make sure the images and words I use mirror back to me the teacher I want to be. I notice how my body feels when I look and read my marketing material, and recognize if it makes me uncomfortable, if I hesitate, if I feel my chest heavy. I seek to feel happy and confident with what I put out to my world about me and my studio. That way I know that the reputation I am building is aligned with my mission.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.movewithmeirav.com
• Instagram: move.with.meirav
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoveWithMeiravPilatesStudio
• Youtube: @movewithmeiravpilatesstudi3601
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/move-with-meirav-pilates-studio-boulder
• Other: Vimeo: https://movewithmeiravpilates.vhx.tv/