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 how I teach and relate to all beings, I was drawn to Pilates by how functional a modality it is — a way to support other forms of exercise and acts of daily living.

I have years of experience working with a range of bodies (including pre- and postnatal), 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 deepen my other movement practices, develop healthier posture and habitual movement patterns, work through injury, and cultivate stronger 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

I teach in a manner that is clear and specific, intuitive and informed, heat building yet deeply nourishing. I strive to use inclusive language that allows for our movement to be expansive and expressive, rather than a way of making ourselves smaller.

My classes may not always feel like strictly or classically “Pilates,” as I draw inspiration from the worlds of Pilates, yoga, functional mobility, and beyond. 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 daily), 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 small classes (3 people max) on the reformer and other Pilates equipment, as well as private sessions.