How becoming a Pilates instructor changed my life...

Thursday 17th July 2025 marked 4 years of teaching Pilates as Move With Mollie, and it's true what they say: Time flies when you're having fun.

Former Dancer Turned Barista by day, Aspiring Pilates Instructor by night.

When I made the difficult decision to let go of my lifelong dream of being a performer, naturally I had a huge identity crisis. Almost twenty years of tunnel-vision clarity of what I thought I wanted to do with my life was totally stripped away as my mental health pulled the rug from under me and sent everything spiralling. I walked away from my first professional contract navigating a cocktail of health concerns, immense grief and depression. I moved back home, started working at my local coffee shop where I had my first job at sixteen years old, and then, five days later: Lockdown.

Feeling totally lost, furloughed from making flat whites, and with a lot of time on my hands, I turned to exercise to pass the time and quiet my noisy little noggin.

In the past, I'd only ever worked out as a way to either a) look a certain way, or b) burn a bunch of calories. It hadn't even crossed my mind that exercise could actually feel good, or be used for anything other than making yourself smaller?! This is when I stumbled across a Pilates video on YouTube and everything changed.

I had flashbacks of doing Pilates as part of my earlier dance training at thirteen, where it was mainly used to perfect our ballet technique and keep ourselves physically strong. And now, here I was: a twenty-something former dancer turned barista, mid-pandemic, doing a shoulder bridge in my teenage bedroom and feeling more calm and connected than I had in months. Something clicked. I knew this was special.

So, once the world began to open up again, I started studying and training to become a mat-based Pilates instructor between shifts at the café. A year later, on 17th July 2021, I passed my final assessment and the world was my oyster.

I had no idea where Pilates teaching would take me. All I knew is that I wanted to share the magic of mindful movement with as many people as possible, and help them feel as good in their bodies and minds as it had made me feel!

The never-ending loop of teaching, learning and growing.

Once qualified, I slowly started to build up some classes in local leisure centres and community halls, fitting them around my cafe work. In those early days I was in a constant state of learning, experimenting and finding my voice as an instructor.

If I'd programmed a particularly challenging class, I would spend the whole session apologising to the group. "Sorry, sorry, I know it's hard, so sorry" as if they'd all come for me at the end of class for making them do Pilates... the very thing they'd signed up for!!! It's something that we laugh about now though, as I make them hold and pulse a side-kick for an incredibly slooow count of ten hehe.

Of course, I was new, and nervous, and just wanted everyone to have a good time in my classes, but it made me realise I was teaching in People-Pleasing-Mode. Sure, I wanted everyone to feel included, but I could feel I was dampening my knowledge and abilities to be more likeable and palatable to everyone in the room.

Eventually, I connected the dots; This wasn't just something I was only doing on the mat, but in my day-to-day too. Looking back on my years of dance training, I realised I’d spent so long trying to fit into specific moulds that I’m not sure I’d ever fully felt like me. As I was learning and refining my craft with every class, I was also growing as a person, and for the first time in a long time, I could show up as myself, and share what I loved the way that I wanted to with people who truly got it.

A lesson I learned quickly that I come back to time and time again: You won't be for everyone, but if you show up as authentically and unapologetically you, your people will find you.

Taking the leap and trusting your gut.

After 18 months of juggling full time coffee making with part time Pilates teaching, it was clear that I couldn't continue giving all my energy to both at the same time. Working 8am-3pm and then teaching 6pm-9pm most weekdays was burning me out. So I took the big girl step of going fully self-employed as a Pilates instructor which, of course, came with a healthy dose of anxiety and imposter syndrome. That first Monday morning, I woke up with nowhere to be but on my mat and planning classes. It's all I'd wanted, but I just felt lost and totally on edge. I kept thinking...

...Shouldn't I be doing more? Have I done the right thing? Who am I to be running a business?

These thoughts rushed through my mind constantly, and I had to actively bat them away, reminding myself; I am qualified. People like what I do. I can do this.

Change isn't something that comes easy to me, and I never understood the phrase 'trust your gut' or 'follow your instincts' but eventually, the cogs started to turn. I remember the feeling after our first Pilates & Coffee Club social in 2023, an idea I'd had to bring people together on and off the mat, a chance to grow our budding community. Honestly, I didn't think anyone would turn up, and then on the day almost 20 people came along!! I spent the whole day beaming with gratitude. After we'd finished our flow, polished off the cakes and everyone had rolled up their mats and gone home, I stayed in the space a little while, sitting on my mat with this incredible feeling...

"This is it... This is where I'm supposed to be."

The ripple effect that follows when you find your thing.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine who I went through dance college with said that I'd changed since teaching Pilates. I knew that for myself in some ways, but I met her remark with a "How so?" This is one of my closest friends who's seen and known so many versions of me, and I wanted to know what she meant.

She relayed that I was far more positive these days, and a lot lighter.

On reflection, I guess I had become a pretty negative and insecure person during the later years of my dancing and performing. It will always be my first love, but I didn’t love the person I was becoming through it. In an industry that demands the thickest of skin, my skin was, and always will be, beautifully and wonderfully thin;

But for a long time, I saw that as something that needed fixing. I built up stubborn walls to protect that softness. Put on the makeup, squeezed into the costumes, played the part of who I thought I should be. But taking down those protective layers helped me see myself for who I really was out of the sparkles and stage lights.

And that inner change didn’t stop there. One of the biggest personal journeys I've been on in the last four years has been slowly and gently healing the relationship with my body. It's a work-in-progress, as food and body image is something I've wrestled with quite fiercely in the past, but I'm no longer moving my body to fit a criteria or look a certain way. I'm moving my body because I want to feel good in my mind. I'm moving my body to stay healthy and mobile as I get older. I'm moving my body because I CAN, and oh my, what a privilege that is!!

That shift has also changed how I see others too. Among all the lessons Pilates has taught me, this one takes first place: “Healthy” looks different on everyone. And as a teacher, I get a front-row seat to that truth every single day, watching people show up for themselves in all kinds of bodies, with different needs, intentions, and reasons for moving. When we meet ourselves where we’re at, with compassion instead of criticism, that’s where the magic of mindful movement happens. It builds self-awareness, shapes how we move through the world, and how we treat others too. That’s the ripple effect.

How becoming a Pilates instructor changed my life...

Four years on, I’m still learning. Still reminding myself to trust my gut, take up space, and move with intention. Sometimes I think back to 2020 Mollie, sitting in her old bedroom, looking out the window at a locked-down world, wondering "what now?"  Nothing could have prepared her for how this all-consuming (in the best way), life-affirming job would shape her.

Because of Pilates, I am lighter. I am more positive. I’m more patient. I’m kinder to myself, and to others. And the thing that keeps me coming back to the mat? Connection. With the present moment, with others and with myself.

It's true what they say: Time really does fly when you're finding your way back to yourself.