In 1990, sisters Amy Taylor Alpers and Rachel Taylor Segel founded The Pilates Center in Boulder, Colorado. They had studied Pilates exclusively under Joseph Pilates’ protégée and inheritor of his studio, Romana Kryzanowska, at The Pilates Studio in New York City. One year later, the Pilates Center Teacher Training Program was established with the guidance and support of Romana, who taught it in Boulder for the first few years.
Our mission for over 31 years has been to heal the world by empowering people to transform their health and “return to life.” In both our studio and school, we have striven to foster the legacy and tradition of Mr. Pilates’ method while bringing to it a Humanist philosophical approach to teaching – one of compassion and generosity that takes into account the uniqueness of each individual client, student, and teacher.
The Pilates Center has developed and maintained a worldwide reputation for the highest quality of Pilates client and teacher education possible. We have always been industry leaders, continually setting the standards by which the industry measures its professionalism. Ours was the first Pilates school to be state-licensed through the Colorado Division of Occupational Schools in the United States. Since its inception in 2001, both sisters have been continually active in the Pilates Method Alliance, our professional organization. They have worked on the PMA Board of Directors, as well as on the Certification Commission to develop the certification exam, the newer NPCP, and the original PSAP (now known as the International Teacher Training Accreditation for Pilates – ITTAP).
In addition, The Pilates Center spearheaded the use of online learning in 2014 by putting our program, iTPC, on an Internet-based platform. In this way, we have been able to involve any graduate anywhere, worldwide, to assist our students in any of our programs as teachers and advisors to our trainees. We also began Skyping and Zooming lessons and classes that year, reaching a worldwide audience with our teaching. Our staff of Licensed Teacher Trainers, in Colorado and around the world, many of whom have been teaching for decades now, share their passion, education, and experience avidly and generously. Many of these master teachers provide additional continuing education workshops throughout the year, all NPCP-approved for CEUs.
Our approach to creating Pilates teachers has led to multiple programs of various lengths, amounts of information, and levels of expertise, including a Master’s Program, an Advanced Studies Program to produce professional presentations, and the newest, a Mat-only program. Our reputation for producing the industry’s finest teachers has spread globally. We have been called “the Harvard” of Pilates Teacher Training schools. We have touched thousands of clients and students and they, in turn, are touching thousands more.
Rachel and Amy co-wrote The Everything Pilates Book, published in 2002; the first overview of what Pilates is, what it does, its historical roots, and what to look for in a Pilates teacher or school. The sisters also developed their own line of classically-configured Pilates equipment with Balanced Body, called CenterLine. To this day, we have worked constantly and fervently to change the world through giving the ultimate of Mr. Pilates’ goals of physical beauty, animal organization and grace, higher intelligence, and the strength and flexibility in body-mind-spirit to meet the challenges that face all of us in today’s world.
