My name is Kathryn, I’m a pilates teacher and personal trainer based in Hassocks, Sussex. I’ve been teaching since 2005 and since 2016 I’ve been working almost exclusively with women.

I’m not the picture perfect pilates teacher/PT with washboard abs and bouncy hair. I’m a mum just like you, I have 2 kids and for the first 2 years of my 2nd child’s life I had undiagnosed post-natal depression which led to me masking the challenges I was having with exercise. I had been really enjoying Crossfit during my pregnancy and wanted to get back to it as soon as possible, however I trained poorly, I wasn’t thinking correctly regarding my body and really I was just hoping for the best and that I’d be back to how great I felt before as soon as possible.Once my body started shutting down on me in an attempt to warn me things were not right I finally realised I needed to do something drastic. I stopped all intense training, I sought the help of osteopaths, a nutritional therapist and a naturopath and over the next 2 years I slowly pieced myself back together.

Part of my knowledge growth in that time was learning to love moving again. Moving for the sake of feeling how awesome my body was, not because I “had” to lift heavier or go faster or prove I was still fit. I fell in love with exploring how it felt to use my muscles well, to improve how efficiently I could use them and how amazing it was when I asked my body to do something challenging and it could respond.

I’ve explored and challenged myself to now being able to run 10k trail races, swim long distance river events, stand-up paddle board, climb, mountain bike and surf with greater resilience than I had before I was pregnant. What I have learnt has helped me to help others by encouraging them to see how capable their bodies are, to help them move out of pain, to reduce those niggly feelings and to be able to trust their bodies more.

Your body is awesome, I want you to believe that.

Kathryn x

P.S As credentials are pretty important I thought I’d let you know what I’ve been up to in the last 18 years:

BEng in Biomedical Materials Science and Engineering Queen Mary University, London 1996-1999

MSc in Human and Applied Physiology, Kings College London 1999-2000

Sports Massage Therapist 2003

Personal Training Qualifications 2003-2005

Polestar Pilates Comprehensive Instructor training 2004

Various and many body and movement related courses far too many to detail 2005 to forever

Set up my home studio “The Movement Garage” in 2015: www.lovemovementsussex.com

Garuda Pilates Instructor Training 2013-ongoing

Burrell Education Postnatal Exercise Training

I’ve hosted my own podcast since early 2018 called “The Mother of All Movement”

250 Hour Intensive Education programme with Dr Sarah Duvall: Post-natal Corrective Exercise Specialist 2018 plus ongoing mentor group membership

Pregnancy and Postpartum Athlete Coaches Course 2019-2020

Empowered Performance Coaching Certification 2021 with Dr Katie St Clair, plus ongoing mentor group membership