We recently connected with Amy Anderson and have shared our conversation below.

Amy, appreciate you joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

My parents both came from not-so-happy home lives. My mother lived in many different foster homes after being put in Catholic services due to her parents being alcoholics during the Depression. My father was also taken away from his parents due to alcoholism and was adopted. When they came to Denver, they were extremely young and had nothing. Despite everything, they somehow managed to raise five kids, (I was the youngest), my father was a motion picture photographer with his own business, and my mother worked as an office manager. They insisted that we all learn to play an instrument, play sports, and learn about the arts. My mother would take us on tours of the Denver Art Museum when she was a docent so we had a lot of exposure to the arts and consequently, most of my siblings and myself work in the arts for a living.

My parents were fearless and willing to take risks to obtain what they wanted from life. They instilled that in me. I knew that I wanted to be a dancer at 3 years old when I saw ballet for the first time on the public television station. Eventually, I got into ballet classes and never looked back. Many times I had to ride my bike or take the bus to ballet because that is what I wanted to do and nothing was going to stop me. My parents gave me the right amount of encouragement and support without doing everything for me and making it too easy. It helped me develop self-reliance, courage, and confidence that I could take care of myself but I never felt abandoned or unloved. I always felt supported by them to follow my heart even when I had to fight for it. My understanding of good parenting is not that these people give you everything you want, but let you figure out what you want and give you the skills to get it yourself.

My father passed away 7 years ago and my mother is doing well in an independent living community. They were as flawed as anyone and made many mistakes along the way but they really taught me to stay with things and keep going. I felt prepared for life because of them and when my dance career got derailed by an injury, I had the resourcefulness already built in from my upbringing which allowed me to start a new career as a Pilates rehabilitation therapist.

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 business was inspired by the fact that when I was injured, I did not have anyone who understood my injury and the emotional devastation from being at the peak of my dance career and having it destroyed so suddenly. I was not secure in the knowledge that I could come back and have a whole other career plus return to dancing professionally, which I did into my late 50’s. I feel that my place is not just to help heal dancers injuries and to keep them dancing but to help them understand that their career only ends when they want it to. I coach them on the process of healing and returning to dance and inform them of their options as they go along which includes dancing later into life and not having to stop just because someone else decides you are too old. This is the unique position my business takes up in the Pilates and dance world.

The dance community is normally bereft of medical practitioners who have any knowledge of the needs of dancers. Dancers often end up in a sports medicine rehab facility where there are treated like football players rather than athletic artists. This often results in the dancer becoming more injured by the rehabilitation than when they started. Because I was a professional dancer who sustained a “career-ending” injury which I rehabbed myself out of while working at a Physical Therapy Clinic, I had the unique experience of studying with the Physical Therapists while I did my Pilates training and worked for 13 years as the only Pilates instructor at the clinic. Through this time I was able to return to dance and perform professionally for 6 more years then later have a whole second career in Argentine tango. I gained a unique set of skills that are very useful in rehabilitating dancers (recreational, professional and pre-professional, in all styles). This experience and knowledge base has been what I have built my Pilates-based practice on. These same skills are helpful for the regular non-dance clients that I have as well. I know that dancers are a niche market, but the need is great now that competition dance is very popular and the dancer’s career is short. I provide a lot of injury prevention as part of my business so there is a huge preventative aspect to my work. Dancers who I have worked with over the years, after they end their careers and start dance schools, often contact me from out of state and want me to work with their students. I want to build on this especially since the pandemic has made remote appointments more common. I also choreograph and have a summer, outdoor, dance production every year so the community can engage with the dance community and share together and not be separated by the stage.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think the biggest pivot I ever made was when I decided to go out on my own and start a private practice. I had been working in Physical Therapy clinic for 17 years and in dance companies before and during that time. I had always been a team player and willing to support other people’s vision and find my place in it. I loved working at the clinic for this first 10 years but in the last three, the owners decided that they wanted a Pilates studio in conjunction with the clinic on the first floor of the building we were in.

I had worked briefly in a Pilates studio previously and knew that it was not for me. I loved the challenge of all the difficult cases we had at the clinic and the camaraderie with the Physical Therapists. There was constant learning and change that I did not get when I was at the studio where it became more routine for me quite quickly. I told the owners of the clinic that I would help get the studio off the ground but I wanted to work in the clinic and not in the Pilates studio once things got going. Three years went by with me managing the studio and the other instructors, working extra hours that I did not get paid for to keep things running and not working with the patients like I had always enjoyed. I felt removed from the P.T.s and felt desperately unhappy. Every time I met with the owners about my unhappiness, they reassured me that things would change soon and, of course, they never did.

Meanwhile, one of the clients approached me and asked me if I wanted their Reformer (an essential and expensive piece of Pilates equipment) and another friend had just built a wellness center and asked me if I wanted to be on board. At first, I offered the Reformer to the Pilates Studio and said “No” to my friend with the wellness center. About a week later, I realized what an opportunity that I was passing up and took the Refomer, quit the clinic, and started a private practice. This was in 2008, about 5 months before the financial crash. The funny thing is that over that year, people found me who used to see me at the clinic even though I was not allowed to give out information about my new location to any of my former patients. Over that year, I had a huge increase in clientele and got referrals from many dance studios. I was able to build my business and move into a larger space at the wellness center and eventually, start co-managing the center and buy into the building.

What I learned is that I am definitely someone who needs to work for themself. I cannot imagine working under anyone ever again now that I have my own business. Whenever I was working for someone else, I always had ideas on how to make things better. I was often disappointed when my ideas were shot down or only partway implemented. I realized that it was not anything wrong with the business owners because they needed to do their vision, not mine. When I finally made the leap to running things myself, I was able to try out anything I wanted and if it did not work, only I had to deal with it. If an idea I had was successful, I got to enjoy all the success. I did the same thing with dancing by starting my own dance production where I control the artistic side and get to create what I see and not rely on pleasing someone else. I feel a huge sense of accomplishment and am satisfied at the end of everyday that I built something on my own, sink or swim.

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

What I think helped me build and grow my business is my longevity. I have been in Denver most of my life, as well as in the dance community. I grew up dancing at Colorado Ballet and danced in many of the smaller dance organizations in the area. I choreographed for many of those same smaller dance companies, taught in several different dance schools, and performed in lecture demonstrations in the public schools, including a production of my own that I developed with my husband, Gregory Gonzales.

When I was began working at the first Physical Therapy clinic where I was just begin to learning Pilates, I was also tasked with developing a dance medicine program since I was so connected into the dance community. I wrote quarterly newsletters about dance injuries and treatments to all of the dance schools in the Denver area. I also offered injury prevention workshops as part of the dance medicine program. To this day, many dance schools still have me come to their summer intensives to give those same workshops. By spending every summer giving lectures all over the city, I gained clients and became known and trusted. It is so much easier to start your own business when you have already built your clientele over so many years. People come to recognize your expertise and feel confident referring others to you because they know you personally. I am essentially selling myself and not a product so it was important to get in front of people and let them know how I thought and what I do to help them.

Contact Info:

• Website: engagemovementarts.com
• Facebook: Engage Movement Arts
• Youtube: Amy Anderson Dance Medicine Pilates

Image Credits
Marie Dominique Verdier Edward DeCroce Kim Long