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Pilates
Pilates is a system of deep-conditioning exercises that strengthen and stretch the body, focusing on developing core strength, creating spinal length, and achieving long, lean muscular lines. |
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Featured in
Best of Health 2006
Healthy Living NYC
Best Pilates Adaptation |
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  "Our recent favorite was the Pilates-based back body workout at Backbone and Wingspan. Even one session will have you sitting straighter and walking taller. Though a single session will raise awareness of your posture, it might take more than a few to wipe away those years spent hunched at a computer." Read the Entire Review |
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A Core Story
My obstetrician told me, “Forget about doing crunches, Pilates is the only way to get your stomach back". After having two babies in two years I came to Backbone and Wingspan to get back my pre-natal body. |
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It worked to my
utter amazement.
The work at the studio focuses on the muscles both below and above your navel, which is incorporated into building a tight midline. Twice a week for one hour of Pilates with Cathy Ferrara and Tim Driscoll made the fifty pounds gained and lost in each pregnancy go away almost effortlessly. I didn't have to waste time at the gym because all the cardio in the world would never have helped me find my core again. |
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In Six Months My Body Changed Back.
The inches lost are one thing, but miraculously the elasticity and firmness is back in my waistline skin. I am looking forward to bathing suit season. |
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 Using brand new beautiful equipment that enables you to stretch and strengthen easily you barely have to break a sweat. The studio space is an immaculately clean, light filled loft where you can really recharge and relax into the work. |
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I recommend Backbone and Wingspan highly.
10 out of 10. Finally I can get into the same skinny jeans I had given up on!
- Catherine Collins Mother/Producer/Filmmaker |
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A former gymnast, Joseph Pilates, thought to re-educate the body by building core strength instead of superficial muscle mass thereby allowing the body to function in an integrated manner. |
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Using spring resistance helps muscles strengthen and stretch at the same time. |
The process promotes freedom of movement and the connection between body and mind. |
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Tim, I really enjoyed and took a tremendous amount from the experience of our session today. I gained a great deal of perspective in regards to my mental/spiritual body in addition to my physical body. I thought it was very tasteful and not new-agey at all in its approach, and simply utilized logical connections between our body and environment which anyone willing to 'think' and participate would be able to appreciate. As you can probably tell, the mental workout that I have had has lasted far beyond the physical one of the actual session.
- Deepak Penesetti Producer/Filmmaker/Editor |
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“At this ‘principles of movement’ studio, Tim Driscoll and his trainers take their clients through back-related stretches and exercises, an oft-neglected muscle group. First-timers start by spreading their shoulder blades and stretching their arms so that they extend from the latissimus dorsi, thus creating a ‘wingspan.’ Since this technique focuses on specialized core stability, it can be beneficial to anyone on the fitness spectrum.”
Metro Sports New York
September 2006 |
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 My ongoing experience with Backbone and Wingspan is that it is a place to go for reconnecting with my own body and with my larger relationship to the earth.
It’s true: the work of Cathy Ferrara and Tim Driscoll is so deeply resonant with the core energy that reminds the cells of their relationship to each other, and reminds the organism of its inherent connection to all life.
I am shifted subtly but definitely into a place of centeredness, openness and strength to simple be present for what flows through my own being and what comes my way.
When I leave their Chelsea Pilates studio, I am in a state of remembering the energies again that I work with as an acupuncturist, and as a result, my patients benefit as well.
It is a great support and a sweet opportunity to work with people who are warm, acceptant, and intricately knowledgeable of the body, its spirit, and its possibilities of greatest ease and well being. Connecting with them is connecting to what I know to be the essence of being human.
~ Phyllis Bloom. Licensed Acupuncturist |
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“There is always a chance to go deeper into the exploration and awareness of one’s own body. It is exciting for me as a teacher to be a witness to this process and to help empower people with the initiative to go beyond their own limitations.”
- Cathy |
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