Listing of all our testimonials

When I was complaining to my mentor Rebekah Rotstein about having to travel to NYC to see her, she said, “But you have Karen Carlson in your own back yard in Philadelphia and she’s amazing!”

Since that first introduction with Karen in 2013, I began taking private lessons. Once I experienced a taste of her practiced eye and teaching style (along with her quick wit), I quickly came on board for her 2 year program. Karen has taken her teaching to the highest level and her passion continues to inspire me. Karen dedicates heart and soul to passing down all she has learned and truly considers it her life’s work. I have the greatest respect and admiration for Karen as an individual and as a teacher.

If you have the opportunity to study with Karen, I would hurry up and do it! All her knowledge just makes me want to learn more.

I can’t even begin to thank you enough for all the knowledge, patience, wisdom and love that you have shared with me over the last two years. I am definitely going to miss our weekend intensives together especially the jokes followed by tons of laughter. I very much look forward to growing as a practitioner and will always be grateful for all that you have shared with me.

Once again, thanks for the ‘Small Apparatus’ workshop. My head is still “disc-ing” by the amount of information presented. Your work is simply brilliant; immediately (for me) enticing and daunting. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to learn both from and with you.

Count me in! I am super charged from the last workshop…and the one before that…and the one before that. A great teacher gives you information to think about long after the lesson. That’s what Karen does. I’ll be the first to admit, I need Karen Carlson to be the best Pilates teacher that I can be. I’ve learned more from her [in the last year] than I have from others during the 11 years I’ve been certified.

Thanks for being my teacher! Karen Calson has a deep understanding and reverence for the Legacy of Joseph Pilates which she brings to the fore though a layered tapestry of imagery, anecdote, and hard core biomechanics. She references the specific contributions of key Pilates, dance, and movement practitioners and how an understanding of those contributions increases the efficiency and success inside the Pilates Method. Karen allowed me to step back and weave all the disparate elements of my movement training into one clear web. While other training programs offer the book, Karen offers the library.

My Work with Karen has brought an unanticipated depth to my teaching, creative process and articulation of the layered sensibilities in my own body/performance. This is not simply a way of training or moving or complementary exercise, it is a complex, comprehensive way of thinking; of seeing; of being. It is a thoughtful, beautifully clarified web of disciplines, overlapping the visceral and cerebral. This is the body as machine and spirit; action and expression – a rare blend of the scientific and empathetic. It is an unprecedented connection of the art and science of human movement and human potential to be, to know, to feel, to do … more. Karen possesses a unique depth of knowledge, wealth of history and breadth of experience that she is beyond generous in sharing through this program. Welcome to grad school.