Summit Studio
teaching authentic pilates
Enhance your posture, and find your internal powerhouse!
Stretch Strengthen Control
Why Pilates??
Pilates is truly one of the most beneficial ways to exercise your mind and body together. I’ve been doing Pilates for 25 years and it’s still challenging in all the right places. The unique, spring-loaded apparatus may look a bit medieval, but it’s ingenious. You’ll have constant resistance which allows your body to elongate and engage the core muscles with every movement. The movements help create opposition in your body which allows you to lengthen, strengthen, stabilize, and have more control. Each exercise builds on the last to provide a sweaty workout for all levels.
Who can do Pilates?
Anyone can do Pilates! I’ve trained Olympic athletes and people with chronic illness; kids and couples; retirees and busy parents; people who are overweight, frail, or amputees. I’ve had it all! Working with all those different kinds of bodies is what makes teaching so fun.
What we offer
PRIVATE SESSIONS allow the instructor to develop a customized system of exercises to address your goals, and previous injuries. More advanced clients benefit from private instruction to improve precision, add new exercises to their Pilates workout, focus on a specific issue or rehabilitate from injury. Privates are highly recommended at any level.
60 min single session: $85
90 min single session: $130
SEMI-PRIVATE SESSIONS allow two clients to work together with an instructor. These sessions are lively and motivating, and when done 2-3 times each week, they deliver visible and lasting results. Many clients take a mix of semi-private and private sessions.
If interested in starting as a group, all participants must be comparable in their physical abilities.
60 min: $55 per person (2 participants) $50 per person (3 participants)
WALL UNIT CLASSES consist of the wall unit-specific system of exercise (springs, bars, resistance training) and matwork to give you a full body workout that delivers visible and lasting results. You’ll work through the whole repertoire of the wall unit system in this rigorous workout, and get the benefits of Authentic Pilates training in a small group setting.
$45 per person (3 in a class) Please note that these classes are not drop-in; sessions must be scheduled and organized.
If you are a resident of Hood River/White Salmon area please call or email for local pricing options.
In Their Words
After struggling to recover from a back injury that halted my normal life for years, I went to April in search of a new way to gain core strength that didn’t leave me in more pain. I had no previous Pilates experience, and April helped me develop a base of strength to allow me to learn the work safely. Her attention to form and body response has been my magic ticket! 18 months later, I’m now addicted to Pilates and back to enjoying all of my favorite sports and activities - with more strength and endurance than I had in my twenties! I can honestly say that regular practice with April is the best investment I’ve ever made in myself.
-CHRISTINE BARTHMUS
Pilates? That’s like yoga right? Wrong. I was thoroughly surprised when I first started working with April on how challenging it was and also how badly my body needed it. April is serious about her craft and is always pushing me to be my best. However, that still doesn’t mean we don’t laugh and have a good time together the whole way through. Staying strong and safe while riding motocross at age 55 was what inspired me to give Pilates a try, and thanks to April, I hope to have plenty more years of riding ahead of me.
-TERRY MCDOWELL
April's enthusiasm, warmth and vibrant personality combined with her depth of pilates knowledge makes her a truly special instructor. She has a real understanding of the human body and her experience shows through when she can continue to make an exercise challenging for me even after 10 years as a client. Pilates has been the perfect complement to horseback riding with its focus on using the core as the foundation for all other movements and exercises. It has helped with posture and kept my body strong yet agile. Unlike other exercise trends that come and I go, Pilates feels natural and its principles intuitive.
- EVELYN BIAN
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I originally showed up to Pilates for just a new type of workout but quickly realized it was going to be something much more than that. Sometimes someone is just born with that natural, effortless intuition for something, and I believe April has that for body mechanics and the ability to identify imbalances. Working a desk job, being blind in one eye, and having nerve damage to my abdominal muscles, it’s no surprise that my body needed some work, but I’m still always surprised at the amount that I learn during a session on both the strengths and weaknesses in my posture and movements. There’s never an easy day if April knows you can handle it, but I always leave feeling accomplished, inspired, and a little stronger than last time.
-RYDER MCDOWELL
Pilates has definitely been life changing for me, with chronic back pain from being a hair stylist for many years, I found Pilates and April! April is an expert in teaching classic Pilates and determining what best modifications to help with all body types, restrictive movements and postures. With her years of experience, she is in tune with your proper body alignment to improve core strength and flexibility, while making it a super fun workout! Pilates has been so positive in my life, that I am currently training with April to receive my Pilates certification, at Metropolitan.
Investing in Pilates is a smart investment for an active, healthy lifestyle… you might even grow a little taller!
-LORA ASHLEY
I cannot find enough great words to describe what I have gained from working out with April and her team. From the get go, April has been so very welcoming and encouraging. While I had no idea early on of all the improvements that lay ahead, April guided me through workouts that, to this day eight years later, continue to improve my strength, flexibility AND appreciation of my body. I am constantly amazed at the huge repertoire of workouts and knowledge stored in April’s mind. Never have I been bored nor hurt; she pays very close attention to how my body responds to each workout. April hires teachers who have amazing skills and experience as well. Even living with scoliosis and chronic pain, I am at the top of my game. At almost 70 (!!!), I feel better and know more about how my body works than 20 years ago. I am eternally grateful for April’s ongoing dedication to Pilates and her clients. She truly loves her work which shines on all of us.
-CARMEN SCHLEIGER
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