Cady Eddy is our Teacher of the Month. Primarily a Pilates teacher, Cady is known around the studio as a specialist in helping people with injuries regain strength and confidence, expanding their knowledge of their injuries, their bodies, and their holistic health. I caught up with her between classes.

Cady, I understand that you learned about Pilates as a rehabilitation tool. Can you tell me a little about that experience?

It was after college that I really discovered Pilates. My chronic injuries—back and neck problems, along with frequently sprained ankles—began in college and they weren’t helped by ongoing problems with anxiety (it only seemed to make my pain feel worse). In physical therapy, I started doing Pilates, and I felt such a difference in both my physical and emotional strength. I wasn’t fully pain free, though, until I began my teacher training program. That’s when I started to understand the biomechanics of how bodies (mine included!) can and do function. Pilates has made me feel more grounded and better able to meet the demands of daily life, and I still take classes often.

You have experience in bodywork from the standpoint of a highly trained dancer, an athlete recovering from injury, and a biomechanics and rehabilitative medicine student. How do those viewpoints figure into your approach as an instructor?

I view all movement as fluid and individually specific: we all have such different movement patterns and needs, and a dancer does not have the same physical needs as a CEO. Since there is a wide variety of bodies and needs in each class, I try to speak to several possible movement outcomes, while in private sessions, I can get very specific, working with what is happening within the client’s body on that particular day.

How do you go about working knowledge about how the body works into your classes, and how do you think our students can use that knowledge to support their practice?

I believe that part of my job in teaching Pilates is also teaching awareness of body and knowledge of body. Joseph Pilates wanted his practice to be called “controlology.” You can’t very well control something if you don’t know what it is or how it moves! I think that becoming aware of our bodies helps us all move in healthy ways and avoid injury. That sort of learning can be applied across classes, too. For example, if you focus on how to align your knee so that it’s tracking properly in a Pilates reformer class, you’ll be able to adjust and use that awareness in barre—you may be moving faster, but the same alignment principle holds true.

When you’re not teaching, what classes do you like to take ? What other fitness fun do you get up to?

I love taking all kinds of classes—I have been big into yoga lately, and I’m just starting to flirt with barre (I’m working on cardio). Every once in a while I’ll hit up a mat class, but my home base is reformer. There is just something about moving on that piece of equipment that really makes me feel centered, grounded, and strong.

Outside the studio, I love to hike, kayak, bike, and swim, and I’m about to try stand up paddle boarding, which is super exciting. I am also about to walk my second 5k with my mom.

Fitness isn’t all about what you do in a gym or on a trail. What are some other ways you support your overall wellness in daily life?

Actually, I am currently working on a 21-day mediation challenge. Because I always like to be moving, it really is a challenge to me! I think it’s good to practice things we aren’t awesome at. For instance, I’ve recently started building a ritual around journaling and creating art, too.

I also get regular acupuncture treatments and pay attention to what I eat by cooking nourishing meals for myself and exploring all the great local produce and restaurants in Minneapolis.