Listing of all our testimonials

Below you will find a listing of just a selection of the testimonials our students have offered. Includes feedback and comments from clients, colleagues, professionals, trainees and graduates.

Lea Yeager

Colleagues and Professionals

I was certified through Karen Carlson’s program in 2004 and have since taken additional workshops and private lessons. It is abundantly clear that Karen Carlson has thoroughly investigated and mastered the innumerable forms, variations and complex anatomical underpinnings of the Pilates Method. Her expert ability to communicate this information through demonstration, anatomical explanation, poetic metaphor, and physical touch continues to impress and inspire me.

Karen is a generous, supportive, and exacting teacher who sets a high bar in both her approach to the material and to her teacher training program. Her dedication to clarifying and expanding the Pilates Method and her commitment to both her clients and the education of teachers make her a unique and valuable asset to the Pilates community. She is truly a rare gem.

Jeff Prall

Colleagues and Professionals

I was certified in Pilates before I took Karen Carlson’s teacher training program. To say that I learned vastly more under Karen is an understatement. Karen took the bare framework of what I had been taught and expanded upon it thoroughly, comprehensively, professionally and kindly. Karen was very willing to acknowledge my own and my fellow students and trainers studies in Pilates and anatomy during our many hours in workshops and private sessions. Her own knowledge of the subjects of anatomy and Pilates coupled together is unrivaled in anyone else I have ever met. In short, I felt her training to be highly valuable to me as a teacher, as a mover, and as a student of Pilates and I am quite happy to count myself a better teacher because of her efforts.

Jody Prall

Colleagues and Professionals

Thank you Karen! I have been extremely fortunate to have worked for and with Karen for over seven years. Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new. Karen’s unparalleled knowledge of the Pilates method, paired with her extensive understanding of the muscular-skeletal system, allows her to take a completely comprehensive and well organized approach to her teaching method.

Liz Werthan

Clients

Women’s Advocate, Social Worker

Had I not had the good fortune to meet Karen Carlson 15 years ago, when I was in my late 50’s, I know without question, that I would not feel as well or have as functional a body as I have today. When I began Pilates training with Karen, my neck and shoulders hurt much of the time; today, I rarely have that problem and it’s because my body has learned to relax, to come into alignment and to get those shoulders down! Each visit continues to feel like a time of learning, both intellectually and physically. Karen Carlson is a fabulous diagnostician and teacher.

Eleanor Wilner

Clients

Poet, Writer, Teacher

In the world of body work, so much depends on the practitioner: her knowledge, her skill, her intuition, her ability to impart what she knows, and, above all, the quality of her attention. By all these measures, Karen Carlson is as good as it gets. She probably has more refined knowledge of the body’s skeletal and muscular structure than most doctors, can locate the source of dysfunction, devise exercises to alleviate the strain and retrain the neurological pathways, and explain in images as well as technical terms exactly what she has devised, and why. She does nothing by rote, as each person’s situation is uniquely individual, and so is her approach.

I am in my 70s, have lousy posture and a writer’s too-many-hours at the desk. Without the individual instruction, focused attention and movement practice I have had from Karen, I would probably be no more mobile than a wrought-iron lawn dog. But as it is, I am doing fine; in fact, she has taught me how to move to maximize my body’s strength and rely on its structure. And I should add that my husband, who has worked with Karen for 15 years or more, is entirely free of the severe back pain that brought him to her door.

Wendy Born

Clients

Business Owner, Mentor

Karen Carlson trained with some of the seminal Pilates masters years before most people knew the discipline existed. Her keen understanding of human anatomy and her extensive background in movement provide a powerful basis for her training technique. The chronic back pain I had when I began working with Karen years ago has long since dissipated and what I have gained in terms of posture and balance is profound.