Merry Christmas to all the Bad Bs who celebrate! 🎄💜 cackling at my Christmas gifts this year because my whole family knows how much I love RPS - my gifts this year included wrapping paper with Santa doing Pilates, a Pilates Xmas tshirt, and a note from my partner that he’s going to pay for my annual subscription this year 😭 feeling grateful for both my family and RPS - thank you Ruth Brenza for keeping me moving all year this year (and looking forward to next year too!) 🥰

I completed the hard+soft challenge yesterday and I’m feeling so strong and proud of myself 🥳 not only did I complete the challenge, but I also made it my own taking additional rest and swapping classes when I needed/wanted to without guilt and this means just as much to me if not more than the fact that I completed it 🥹

I decided to treat my self to a bala beam for Black Friday because I’ve been wanting one for so long but have been holding off because realistically I couldn’t use weights that heavy - but for the first time I feel strong enough that I could actually use one which is blowing my mind 😭

As an additional anecdote - I was trying to decide which weight beam to buy and I mentioned it to my partner Ben. He’s super into weightlifting and has a whole home gym set up. We’ve worked out together before in the past, but with my hypermobility and other health issues RPS is just a better fit for me than the more rigid lifting programs he follows so we sort of do our own things now and it works for us. But he has a 15lb curl bar and brought it in fo me to try so I could see if the 15 or 25 lb bala beam would be better for me. He sort of tongue in cheek said “see how many curls you can do with this one, I’ll contribute $3 to your bala beam for every curl you get past ten” … yall I hit 20 which is insane (I used to not even be able to do one without elbow pain) and I got $30 off my bala beam plus the joy of realizing how much I’ve Improved from seeing the shock on his face 🤣🤣I believe his exact words were “holy sh*t you’ve gotten strong that’s amazing” and I almost cried on the spot I was so proud of myself 😅 I’ve decided to get the 25lb bar to grow into, because I have a bunch of lighter weights already and I really believe I can get there 🦋💜

Tapping in for recession pop beats! I’m still chugging along in the 30-day challenge; I’ve paused for some extra rest days, had the flu, switched the order of classes, today’s class isn’t even part of the challenge I just wanted to dance… I am following the schedule in the loosest manner of speaking 🤣 but I’m loving it because I’m making it my own and staying moving, which is all that really matters 💜🦋

Side note I am hardcore loving filling my calendar with stickers and have gone to my mat several times just because I wanted to fill out the calendar. Highly recommend. 🤣

Came back to the hard and soft challenge this morning after taking the weekend off. I came to my mat on Saturday and my body was craving rest. So I took it. Slept 10 hours both days this weekend and did a whole lot of nothing and I feel great today. Last time I did this challenge I stuck to the schedule so rigidly because I was afraid if I missed a day I wouldn’t come back. But this time I was able to pause with the confidence that it didn’t mean giving up. Honestly this is such a win for me as this has always been my biggest hurdle with exercise. With several chronic health conditions sometimes I just need a break, and it used to be so hard to take those without just giving up. RPS has truly helped me retrain my brain - actively choosing rest when it’s needed is productive too! And I feel better for it 🦋💜

FYI - there’s a bunch of Pilates items at Aldi this week if anyone’s interested! My Aldi had weighted rings, wrist weights, blocks, mats, etc! All super cute and relatively cheap. I bought the blocks and rings last time they were at Aldi (thanks to someone else in the community sharing 💜) and have loved them - bala style at a fraction of the cost for those of us on a budget 😅

Tapping in bright and early this morning for Diet Pepsi beats ☀️ this past month has been a hurdle for me - I don’t know if it’s my new medication or just general life stress but my emotions are driving the ship and they’ve lost the map 😅 I came to my mat this morning and laid down and cried for the first song of this class. But by song two I was sitting up and stretching to the music. By song three I was following along… I ended up pressing play on shake level waves beats afterwards because my body was craving more. It didn’t fix everything - but I feel strong, and proud, and grateful - and that’s a lot of positive things I wasn’t feeling before. Sending love to anyone else having a time of it, you got this bad b!! 💜

Tapping in for Y2K beats! If you’re having a bad day I beg you to go take this class, I swear it’s impossible not to be in high spirits with this soundtrack *dances around the house*

Tapping in for helping some friends move! We worked all day yesterday and are heading back today to finish it off. In the past I never would have been able to help with something like this 🥹 so grateful for all the RPS work that has made it possible to offer my help. And I’m getting a great workout too, so it’s a win-win all around - so many times yesterday I was like “wow I can’t believe I can lift this who am I” 😆

Tapping in for standing beats! I have been really struggling to show up recently, but this was so fun and just what I needed today. Freestyled probably over half the class 😅 but it was just what I needed to get moving 🥰

Hi everyone!! I have been so MIA here recently but I’m jumping back in with a win before I take class today. This year has been so busy for me at work, especially this past month; I’m carrying way more than my normal workload and the client I’m working for is up against a bunch of nonnegotiable deadlines so it has been a lot of working at top speed all week. As of yesterday, I am now 99% done with the major projects I’m carrying (yay!) and I’m just so proud of myself for getting through this busy time in a reasonably healthy way. I was suffering from severe burnout and depression for a long time after grad school and the loss of a close friend… I’m so grateful I had a great support system and the chance to step back and recover, but also it feels so good to be able to push myself and work hard again while still feeling good 🥹 RPS was truly a sizable portion of that support system; no one had ever told me exercising from bed was good enough and I cannot explain how much that changed things for me. Feeling sappy today I guess 😂 but I just hung up my merch card/stickers on the bulletin in my walk in closet turned Pilates studio and just felt so grateful I had to share. The new colors even match my previously purchased decorations, meant to be! Love you all 💜🦋💜