05/12/2026
You can do Pilates on ANY equipment and even with no equipment.
And, as we all learned during Covid, even household items like skateboards and rolled up towels can convert into Pilates equipment. It ain’t that deep!
But it’s still soooo hard, especially for bridgers, to take that leap.🙋🏼♀️🙈 We LOVE our contemporary training and equipment! 😭 Plus…
➡️ “What will my clients think?” (…clients care about results, not comfort.)
➡️ “How can I afford it? (…you sell-buy piece by piece.)
➡️ “But I LOVE my equipment!” (…so keep it. MANY people do classical on contemporary and vice versa.)
HOWEVER. The fact is, classical Pilates equipment was designed for classical Pilates and contemporary Pilates equipment was designed for contemporary Pilates.
You can’t do those big Feet-In-Straps Leg Circles on a reformer without risers. In fact, they aren’t even a thing in the classical system. Sure, the classical system has frogs and circles, but they’re not for mobility alone… for that, you’d build using the system: ballet stretches on the Ladder Barrel or Cadillac, perhaps?
And that locked footbar on a contemporary reformer is KEY for safety in reformer Pilates classes… but it ain’t gonna let you transition swiftly from footwork into the hundred in the classical sequence. 🤷🏼♀️❌
“So I’ll just put classical springs on my contemporary reformer,” you say. Wrong.
But here’s a thing… that classical “feel” is not just about spring tension. It’s the whole package. In fact, (love her) recently did an experiment where she tested the tension of Gratz and Balanced Body springs and found the classical spring was most similar to a red Balanced Body spring…
“Impossible!” you say. “It FEELS so much heavier!”
Well, yes. B/c it’s not just about the springs. It’s the whole shebang: the wheels, the weight, the foot bar, the friction, the dimensions, the leather… it all contributes!!!
If you want the feel of the classical equipment, honestly, just take the leap.
That’s my advice. What do you guys think?