We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sierrah Dietz . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sierrah below.

Sierrah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?

I had just graduated from San Francisco State University with a BA in dance and was looking for a job that would allow me to have a flexible schedule so I could continue to pursue my passion in dance. One of my professors in school was a Pilates instructor and had introduced the method to me during my time at SFSU, I was drawn to It as a mover and my professor encouraged me to get my certification. Soon into my training I realized how homogenous the culture of pilates was, there was truly no diversity within the clients or other instructors. For me, at the time, I was 22 and newly out as queer I had tattoos and wasn’t thin, all of this made me stand out a bit. The first job I applied to I was hired but under the pretense that she was “taking a chance on me”. At the time I so grateful that despite all my short comings (that’s a joke cause they aren’t short comings they are things about who i am) she was willing to hire me for a position that I WAS qualified for. Now that im over twelve years into my career as a pilates instructor and an older more self assured human, I have had to unpack this a bit. What about me was such a risk? What about me made hiring me such a favor? This is an energy i am very passionate about shifting in the fitness world specifically in Pilates. That sentiment made me always feel like i was making up for something, making up for the way i look, how i live my life like somehow that makes me more or less able to do my job.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Sierrah Rose Dietz, i use she/her/they pronouns. I have a dog named Caryn and I love to play games, dance and laugh with the people i love. I have been a dancer since I was very young and the passion lead me to pilates fresh out of college but in 2017 I got hit by a car on my bike and broke my leg, That experience changed my love for my career completely. I went from being someone who believed in pilates to someone who had actually been changed by it. I had to retrain myself to walk and dance and move and pilates helped me immensely. That really made me dive deeper into this modality. I realized i wanted to be able to reach my friends and people in my community who may feel like pilates isn’t for them or they are not allowed. I wanted everyone to feel welcome to move
I am very much am the stereotype – white, female bodied, active – but in this industry because im queer and have tattoos and im not thin so i stood out. And this is true for most of the humans in my life. I realized quickly the best way for me to serve people was to become as knowledgeable as possible in modifications and adjusts to make pilates accessible to everyone. So i dove I in, I have been BASI certified in pilates since 2012 but I decided to get recertified through a classical school to understand the foundations of this practice i teach. Now i am working towards a second certification through Rebel Pilates Collective and am on the path to be faculty for them. I hope i can reach more people and rock the industry more from the inside and begin to pull the veil back on who gets access to what in this industry. I love what I do, I love my clients and im excited for the opportunities on the horizon as more and more people begin to discover Pilates

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think the most helpful thing for succeeding as a pilates instructor is the ability to listen. So much of this job is meeting people where they are at, on that day, in that moment, in the exercise you’re giving them to try. It can be so easy to get on autopilot as humans and just talk and instruct and teach and sometimes that works for people but i have found my ability to retain clients comes from my ability to listen. You are in charge on how deep the work goes but you have to be willing to hear what the individual wants to get out of the session and use your expertise to get them there.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I wrote about this in my previous answer but I broke my leg.

I have just spent a month at a dance residency outside of Berlin and was feeling extremely inspired and ready to move. I as biking home on Halloween night and was hit my a car in a hit-and-run, I sustained a concussion and two large fractures in my tibia, I hadn’t realized until then how much of my mental health was wrapped up in my physical health. I couldn’t walk at all for three weeks, I couldn’t walk without crutches for months. In an effort to stay moving however i could i decided to film myself dancing every day until i could walk. The first few videos i was just rolling around on the ground, sometimes crying sometimes just staying still. But as the weeks went by I started to make progress. I used my knowledge of the body to slowly start to retrain my muscles to support me. As my bones began to heal I started to lift out of the darkness and see a light, see that I would dance again and teach again and It also allowed me to bring that hope and solution based programming to my clients. There is always a way we just have to shift our expectations and allow for the unknown

Contact Info:

• Website: Piladietz.com
• Instagram: @piladietz

Image Credits
Dominique Prout