Katie Atkins-Castillo
Choreographer/Dancer/Certified Pilates trainer. A native of Arizona, Katie’s career began on the West Coast. She danced professionally in San Francisco before she graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of performing arts with her MFA in 2000. While at Tisch, Katie studied with Pilates Elder Kathleen Stanford Grant. In October of 2001 Katie moved to Boulder CO. to be the artistic Director of Bolder Moves Dance Center. While running Bolder Moves she also received her Pilates teacher certification from the most rigorous training program in the nation, The Pilates Center, Boulder. With over 980 hours of required training the Pilates Center Boulder is considered the Harvard of Pilates teacher training schools.
Katie opened Life Pilates in 2008. Life Pilates is a full service Pilates studio specializing in traditional Pilates for everyone from extreme athletes to those in need of injury rehabilitation. Life Pilates gives Katie the opportunity to use her deep knowledge of the body. This comes from many years of dance performance, over 25 years of accredited training, and her love of teaching. Katie’s students learn to live without unnecessary pain by being empowered to know, love, and ultimately respect their body’s unique challenges and gifts.
Katie completed the Heritage training with Cara Reeser in 2020. Bringing the full body of Kathleen Stanford Grants’ work into the fold. This graduate level training enriches and refines Katies’ ability to apply Bio mechanics and structural understanding. Allowing her to even more deeply understand the fundamentals of healthy movement and applying this knowledge to facilitate the practice of Pilates.
Katie and Lydia regularly expand their knowledge base by continuing their education through Cara Reeser and Jeremy Laverdure in the Movement Science made Simple continuing education platform for Pilates professionals.
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Lydia Lunsford
Lydia was first introduced to Pilates in 2005 at a small studio on the Central Coast of California, not long after completing her undergraduate degree from UC San Diego. She instantly fell in love with the practice as the movements, combining both flexibility and strength, felt like a perfect fit for her body.
In 2006, Lydia was certified in Mat and Standing Pilates through the PhysicalMind Institute while apprenticing with a mentor on all apparatuses. In 2014, she completed a 750 hour Comprehensive Pilates Teacher Training program with internationally recognized Polestar Pilates, which has deep roots in foundational body mechanics, body pathologies, and programming systems to address your specific body’s needs and personal goals. Lydia soon became a certified member of the Pilates Method Alliance (PMA), a third party certifying agency that requires yearly Continuing Education Courses (CECs) to stay updated on the latest research, information, and inspiration in the Pilates world. In 2016, she completed the BASI (Body Arts and Science) bridge program with Rael Isacowitz to add to her Pilates repertoire and personal practice.
Lydia continues to attend CECs, where she is able to learn to use Pilates to treat populations with specific pathologies, such as people with osteoporosis, scoliosis, joint replacements, back pain, and neurological disorders. Along with ailments, Lydia loves the challenge of enhancing sports activities through all seasons in the PNW, and creating movement experiences within the Pilates repertoire that leave you feeling inspired, invigorated, and supported.
To compliment and add variety to the essential Pilates foundations, in 2016, Lydia began earning certificates for and teaching the very popular Barre fitness classes, including BarreConnect, BootyBarre (Sculpt and Flex and Flow), and Pure Barre (Foundations, Classic, Empower, and Reform), which can be experienced in a handful of classes listed on the current class schedule.
In 2018, Lydia and her family moved from the Central Coast of California to the Pacific Northwest, where she was lucky enough to have found Katie at Life Pilates, Vancouver. Katie’s skills as a Pilates teacher, her vision for her company, and her generous heart made for an easy decision to partner in business and future endeavors. In 2022, the Life Pilates partnership was made official. In order to keep instruction cohesive and to continue to honor the roots of Life Pilates and the Pilates elder, Kathy Grant, Lydia completed the Heritage Training Program, led by Kathy Grant’s protege, Cara Reeser.
Today, Katie and Lydia’s newest challenge is leading their own Teacher Training Program to pass the torch with their breadth of knowledge gleaned from a combined 40 years in the industry. They are so excited to influence future generations of Pilates Instructors and to create a family of qualified teachers to support the growth, vision, community, and love of Pilates.