We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Megan Ciccoline White. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Megan below.
Megan , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
The mission behind my business Movement Lab (TN), is to provide a safe inclusive space for client’s to move their bodies, restore health, and find community. We offer “exercise” modalities like Pilates and Yoga, but with the mindset of these modalities are simply the vehicle to a greater holistic concept to health. We encourage movement as a life style, not just as a hour or two a day. Our time in the Lab can be preventive, corrective, and restorative. The hope is when you have a greater awareness of your body and ability to be present, this mind body connection will trickle down into other areas of your life, creating a sense of peace and joy.
Megan , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Megan Ciccoline White and I have been a mover since birth! Raised with classical dance, yoga, and somatic practices, it is no surprise that I have made movement my career. I received my first formal Pilates training when I was 18 years old, and over the next two decades received a bachelor’s degree in dance and became both a yoga and Pilates teacher. My yoga training includes 200RYT, completing the Yoga Tune Up certification training, Yoga for Scoliosis with Elise Browning Miller, Roll Model Method, Angel Bear Yoga, Wobbel Yoga, and Relax and Renew with Judith Hansen Lasater. Despite all this yoga training, my main passion is Pilates. I am an advanced graduate from The Pilates Center of Boulder, as well as, a Host Advisor for TPC. All this to say, I have immersed myself into the world of movement and feel that it is my gifting to teach others.
Movement Lab (TN) started four years ago as part of a local collective. I used a shared studio space in exchange to scheduling the collective. I only had 1 Pilates reformer, no clients, and a passion to teach movement. I am grateful for that opportunity, because out of that space I was able to begin working with private clients and this is what inspired me to go back to Pilates school at The Pilates Center of Boulder. That experience at TPC was by far the most enriching/ nurturing experiences I have had as a student, and it was a life changer and game changer for me as a person and teacher.
From the collective, I decided to recoup some cost and teach clients out of my home, and this went well, until Covid hit in 2020. I immediately shifted virtual like so many other movement studios during covid. The opportunity to go online was a blessing during this time. Having a small group of clients that I would see over zoom a few days a week and move along side of kept me sane, my body moving, and I know was beneficial for my clients. It was sort of a life line!
Six months into the pandemic my family decided to sell our house and move into a RV full time. We didn’t know how long we would be traveling full time, but with all my client’s online and my husband losing his job.. we had nothing to lose! I would teach clients from the small living room floor of the RV or if it was nice weather the concrete patio outside our parking spot. The commitment of my clients to our practice once again was so important to my mental health during the pandemic. And I have heard from many of theme the feeling was mutual.
Fast forward 7 more months, we returned back to middle Tennessee and decided to stick around for a while, putting roots back down. I started teaching clients from their homes, and use that money to buy Pilates equipment that I needed to finish school and to one day in the future open a studio with.
We were back home about 3 months, when my dad got really sick and almost died. He had double pneumonia that turned sepsis and by the time he got the emergency room, no one thought he was going to survive. Much to our surprise, he did and after 30 days in the hospital and 70 more in specialty hospitals, he made a pretty significant recovery and returned home over 100 days later. During his time at the hospitals, I spent every day with him, which made working pretty impossible on top of raising my family. My client’s once again were committed to me, and during this season but bringing on a friend to help me continue to teach online classes was really significant in Movement Lab’s survival. Side note: the 100 days my dad was in the hospital he lost the ability to walk, had to relearn how to breathe, talk, and eat. It was an intense six months.
Fast forward to about 4 months into this horrible experience, a local trainer reached out to me to see if I would be interested in teaching Pilates out of his new studio space. I wasn’t really sure I had it in me, but I was open to the conversation. I met this trainer at his new studio space, which was a beautiful second floor space in the downtown area. A dreamy space indeed! By the end of our meeting, I knew that this space was meant to be my next step. Not only, did I agree to teaching Pilates in person again, but I became a subleaser of his space, to officially establish Movement Lab. This took a lot of faith that I wasn’t biting off more than I could chew, and that even though I was spending every day with my dad at the hospital when I signed the lease, it didn’t mean I would be doing that forever. This was such a great decision. We have been at this lovely space for about 16 months now, and the business has flourished and grown more than I could ever imagine. I now have a fully equipped Pilates Studio (purchasing all used equipment as it came up on marketplace), and we offer classes 6 days a week. I have 6 teachers, and have taken on my first Pilates trainee. Oh, and dad? He is doing good! With the help of his PT and OT, I worked with him multiple days a week to get back to moving his legs and eventually walking.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When I signed on to the 12 month Advanced Pilates Teacher Training at the Pilates Center of Boulder in December 2019, I had no idea what the next two years would hold. This intense program is already pretty challenging under normal life circumstances but during my “year long program” which took me 2 1/2 years to complete, I experienced a pandemic with a substantial quarantine time, sold my house and belonging to move into a RV full time and homeschool my 3 children, and then experienced the traumatic event of almost losing my dad and dedicating my time to his 100 day hospital stay and long recovery. There were multiple times through out this program, that I did not think I could finish. Luckily, because this program is mostly distance, I was able to continue through Covid without too many bumps, and honestly moving into a RV, allowed my the opportunity to travel the country finding different graduates of The Pilates Center to work with for short periods of time. In retrospect I can see how those two hiccups turned into blessings, but when my dad got sick, I just dropped everything. I was probably 3 months into his hospital stay when I just reached out to my advisor and said I don’t think I can finish. I not only felt over whelmed with the work load and finding the time to complete the program, but going through this traumatic event, my body did not even feel like it could complete the work required to graduate. Again looking back, being part of this program during this time, could possibly been the greatest gift. My teachers came around me and supported me during this time, they gave me time to grieve and heal, but also believed in me and literally held my hand as I finished this program. This is why I say, this program is by far the most nurturing education experience I have ever had. I think part of the approach of the Pilates method is meeting people where they are at. We are taught to “teach the body in front of us”, and having this intuitive training also extends itself to creating a more empathetic individual. I felt this outpouring of care and compassion from every single one of my teachers and for that I am so grateful. I believe that has been many times in my life I have been required to dig deep for resilience, but this experience will have a lasting impact on me and ultimately has given so much more meaning to the work I do as a movement educator.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Movement Lab is my 3rd official business. The first two I used credit for the initial capital, but was fairly thrifty in my overhead. I started a dance studio with the support of 75 students (this was key in the success of this business). I knew I had the students but I had to build out the studio spaces. I purchased dance floor, barres, mirrors all used, and found items around my house and from friends to decor the space. I spent a total of $11,000.00 on a credit card. My rent was fairly high, but because I had the committed students from the get go, I was able to create a successful business. I sold that business 5 years later.
My second business was just a small little boutique. I put $6,000 on a credit card and created my line of merchandise. This business lasted only about 6 months due the location not being busy enough to support retail, and so I sadly closed the business pretty much just breaking even.
So after having two business, started with credit and feeling the stress of having debt, I was not really interested in taking out a loan to start Movement Lab. I was inspired by the story of a local business in our community that paid for everything with cash, and they only grew as they could. I decided with my third business, this was the model I would challenge myself with. With Movement Lab, I had zero initial capital. I already owned some of the equipment I needed, and I have bought all of the rest of the equipment in about 12 months time with the cash I made in that first year. I understand this isn’t possible for all business models, but I will say the feeling of having everything paid for with cash versus having debt you have to pay each month feels great, and I highly recommend it.
Contact Info:
- Website: movementlabtn.com
- Instagram: movementlabtn
- Facebook: movementlabtn
Image Credits
the only picture that has credit is the one with the kids in the circle. Credit is SimplyMPhotography