About Shira

Hi, I’m Shira. Thank you for being here.

I found my way to Pilates through yoga. While my yoga background will always inform my teaching style, I was drawn to Pilates by how functional a modality it is — a way to support other forms of movement and acts of daily living.

I have years of experience working with a range of bodies (including perinatal), experience levels, and injuries. My love for teaching is rooted in the belief that human movement is boundless, and a movement practice has the capacity to heal and transform in profound ways.

My Pilates practice has helped me to develop healthier posture and habitual movement patterns, work through injury, and deepen neuromuscular connection while strength training, running, walking, sitting… really doing anything.

I hope to facilitate a practice in which you can cultivate all of the above and more — one where you can better understand and connect with yourself from a place of curiosity and openness.

Certifications

  • 500hr Comprehensive Pilates Instructor

  • 200hr Yoga Teacher

  • Personal Trainer

My Philosophy

My understanding of “health” is holistic and nuanced and constantly evolving. I believe movement is just one piece of the puzzle (albeit a major one).

The body is a complex system that responds to our physical environment, the foods we eat, the people we’re surrounded by, the media we consume… I could go on and on. So while I may not have all the answers when it comes to your body, I believe my role is to facilitate sensation and connection, to put you on a path of asking the right questions.

My style of teaching and cueing is clear and specific, intuitive and informed, nourishing while absolutely heat building. I strive to use inclusive language that allows for movement to be expansive and expressive, rather than a way of making ourselves smaller.

In sessions with me, we focus on building mind-body-breath connection and moving in ways that feel challenging in the moment, but enable more ease and comfort in everyday living.

I believe this work is about tuning into your individual body and its specific needs (which fluctuate day to day), more than perfectly following cues.

What if we shifted our focus to presence over perfection, sensation over aesthetics, cultivating energy over depleting ourselves?

Open Space is an intimate Pilates studio located in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, adjacent to Highland Park, Glassell Park, South Pasadena, and the rest of Northeast LA.

The studio offers semi-private classes (3 people max) on the reformer and other Pilates equipment, as well as private sessions.