This June is a milestone for local business owners Bonny-Lynn and Allan Russell.
It’s the five-year business anniversary benchmark for the expectant parents and proprietors of Canmore’s Embody Pilates Studio (830 8th St. #101).
The former Edmontonians started with a 10- by -12 foot room and now offer a clothing boutique, studio and internationally recognized school all in one 4,000 square foot space on Canmore’s Main Street.
“The business grew and it wasn’t until about three years ago when the opportunity came about for where our current location is and I admit there was a little bit of fear,” Bonny-Lynn said. “It was going to quadruple our overhead costs when we went from a thousand square feet space to over 4,000 square feet that we currently have – a thousand square foot boutique and a three thousand square foot studio upstairs.”
The upside for the quick growth has been being able to offer more services to the community and see clients thriving. “We have numerous success stories; we had a client named Roger Warren who was literally in the ER with back pain and within eight months of coming to pilates he had hiked up to the top of Three Sisters and said he owed it all to pilates. So that’s the part that we just love, the community kind of success stories,” Russell said.
What Russell is also proud of is Embody Pilates is now a licensed school of pilates, one of only two classical pilates schools in Canada. “It’s a pretty extensive program, an 850-hour, 12-month program and it really is teaching the full certification to become a classical teacher and what’s neat about that is we are attracting some international students to the Bow Valley to study,” Russell said.
“This is our second year since the school has been open and this is the first time we’ve had a girl from the U.S. and we get people from B.C., from the Yukon, from all over Alberta, and we’re already getting contacted by people from Spain and England for our program next year.”
In the last three years, since Embody Pilates has been able to offer a larger facility, they’ve been able to draw international attention on the master teacher level. World-renowned teachers with 30 years of experience have made the trip to Canmore to see firsthand what is taking place in Canmore.
“We have had three of those teachers visit our studio so far, and we’ve had a huge response drawing from the last one,” Russell said, “We had over 45 teachers from all over Canada come to Canmore for a four-day weekend to study with a master teacher and it was her first time teaching in Canada. She teaches in Paris, Dubai and all over the U.S. and Australia.”
Talent can be hard to attract, but Russell believes the blend of first-rate facilities, the draw of the mountains and Canmore and proximity to Calgary are beneficial towards business growth. “We can bring them here quite easily and we’re attracting these international master teachers such as Amy Taylor Elpers, which is really exciting,” Russell said.
Russell was first introduced to pilates from her background in dance and competitive figure skating, and wanted to learn more on classical pilates and its creator, Joseph Pilates.
“His main mission for pilates is it’s supposed to help return people back to life. That’s its main mission, so we’re offering self healing, strengthening the body from the inside out, but a lso unifying the body the mind and the spirit,” Russell said. “We have teens to people north of 70; there’s so many people that can benefit from it and one of our most popular programs is Pilates 101 and it’s exactly as it sounds, for absolute beginners and we run them every month.
“Half of the products we carry are designed and made in Canada; we even have a local photographer right now that does these really cool leggings with Mount Rundle and Three Sisters, so they’re literally a locally designed and manufactured product. The business is now three parts: boutique, studio and school and I’m super proud of it, and we love what we do.”
