We caught up with the owner of Calibrate Pilates, Jessica Pate recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jessica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

The most defining moment in my career was the glorious event known to the world as “The Pandemic”. Before March of 2020, I was teaching at multiple fitness facilities, as it is pretty challenging to work full time at just one in this industry (so I thought). I had been teaching at multiple locations for my entire career; driving around to different studios and gyms throughout the valley to teach a class or two, then onto the next. It becomes draining and as we all know ” time is money”. I spent a lot of my time driving…time that could have been used teaching inside of one location, or building a business/ brand for myself. In my head at the time, I had built up a following at each of these gyms in my group fitness classes, that I thought that if I stopped doing them, I wouldn’t be successful in my career. Then March 2020 happened. The entire world shut down. I had to rethink my ENTIRE industry (as many of us did). I could no longer drive to places to teach, especially not group fitness because people were so afraid to be in close proximity to each other due to covid guidelines. It was THEN that I decided I would create my own brand, so that if anything like this ever happened again, I could be prepared. I had spent my entire career helping to build up successful businesses, that I thought “As challenging as it may be, I can spend time building my own brand”…and Calibrate Pilates was born. As soon as I made that decision (and the world started to open up), I spent my time working from a studio in Scottsdale (which has been a huge blessing in my life) and building my brand…which is me. I had an influx of people come to me for private training and it hasn’t stopped since. Word of mouth has been my biggest marketing piece and I have been blessed to get some amazing clients out of it! I get to train some of the best athletes in the country and I get to work with some of the most amazing clients. Had I not made the decision of not going back to the “gym life”, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Pilates (formerly known as contrology) is basically “the study of control”. When working with clients, I am essentially teaching you how to move your body with control. Yes, it is exercise…but it’s SO MUCH more than that. Pilates is low impact, mid-intensity work that is creating stability of smaller muscles in the body to support the bigger ones. I help clients bring their bodies back to natural (or as close to natural) alignment. Natural alignment of the body will help it to function better, and hopefully help create less pain in movement.

I take pride in what I do. When working one-on-one with a client, I am really focused on where the placement of their body parts are in relation to others. I’m looking for slight misalignments that might seem like nothing but that slight change can honestly be life-altering (in a good way!). This is why I love working with my professional athletes. They are STRONG and have been working out their entire lives, yet when they come and experience Pilates with me, they are shaking and sweating profusely. I’m showing them how much more their bodies are capable of than they thought. I’m opening up the idea that they could be stronger, better, faster AND have more efficient movement patterns because of Pilates.

The ironic part is, this is also how I train my “non-athletes”…the exact same way. I’m showing people their own strength within themselves and am creating patterns for safer movement of the body, not only for the hour session they are with me, but for life outside of the studio. As my friend Dr. Sean Drake says “if you have a body, then you are an athlete”

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Staying consistent with who I am has helped build my reputation tremendously. It sounds so simple but that’s truly it. It’s easy to become someone you are not, especially in the Fitness Industry. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “if I turn into XYZ, maybe I’ll get more clients”. I have fought hard to keep my head clear and focused on what name I am creating for myself and my business. Anything or anyone that has gotten in the way of that is simply set aside. It might sound harsh, but I have made it. This is my life-goal, and I cannot have anything stand in my way of that. I have even lost some clients and job titles because I wouldn’t do “what everyone else is doing”. I’m not afraid to adapt and change, but not at the expense of my reputation.

Because I have remained true to myself, I believe others have become attracted to that. Word of mouth has been my biggest piece of advertising and I believe it is because I have remained the truest version of myself…and yes, I might be pretty good at teaching Pilates as well ;)

If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I’m really good at being ME.

 

 

 

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

This is a hard question for me, but my ultimate answer is yes. If I could go back, I would do A LOT differently, but all to lead me to teaching Pilates. I would have taken my dance/ballet career more seriously and tried to really apply the corrections I was given. I would have paid more attention to the patterns of my body and done more work to fix those. I’m finding it’s much harder to do the older I get. I would have taken college more seriously and studied harder to retain more knowledge. I would have shadowed more people and learned from a variety of instructors to take bits of knowledge and apply it to my teachings. I would have invested into a building or a business to make me money WHILE I built my brand and my clientele.

The nice thing about all of these things is that it’s not too late for me to do them all. I have taken more time for myself to invest, take continuing education courses, learn and apply pilates to my own body and continue to study what I already know.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.calibratepilatesaz.com
• Instagram: calibratepilates

Image Credits
Phil Chavelier Photography After Magic Boudoir Jen Griffith

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