About Lisa | pilateslisa

Lisa Schechter Pilates guru. Somatic Movement.

About Lisa Schechter

I am a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher and a a licensed Buff Bones® instructor. Buff Bones® is a movement program designed for bone health and full body strength and balance that is osteoporosis safe. I work with private clients and with patients at Goodman Physical Therapy in West Los Angeles. I also teach group and individual sessions virtually. I enjoy helping others find their own mind-body connections through movement.

I became intrigued by the Pilates method when I first tried it to help rehabilitate after an ankle injury. At the time, I felt I had lost some sense of organization in my body. I had spent a lot of time sedentary working as an attorney. Then I became more disorganized carrying around two babies. The first time I tried working on the Pilates reformer, I could immediately feel a sense of connection and a lengthening from foot to head. I had to admit that my mom, already a Pilates fan, was right, I should have started doing Pilates years earlier.

I grew up studying dance and still love it. The Pilates method's focus on organized posture and movement that is both precise and flowing particularly resonates with me. Through Pilates, we become more aware of our body and how it moves. We learn to strengthen the body safely and effectively, to organize our posture and movement.

I am interested particularly in finding ways to move more freely in daily life and in exercise, to avoid tensing up areas that don't need to work so hard, like neck and shoulders. I find that approaching Pilates and movement in a somatic way, seeking to deepen our awareness of the body and mind through sensory experience, to be very helpful in this journey.

I am a graduate of Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle's Passing the Torch teacher mentoring program. I use Wendy's 3Core® Connections in her teaching. This perspective teaches that moving with whole body coordination helps us move more efficiently and let go of unnecessary tension. We become aware of how our breathing can support us. We sense our relationships to gravity and space and explore how these relationships support our movement too. We learn to appreciate the body’s own intelligence. Our movement becomes energizing and joyful.

Along with teaching Pilates and Buff Bones®, I help my husband, David Schechter, MD run his medical practice and publication business, MindBody Medicine Publications. Dr. Schechter is a family practice and sports medicine physician and one of his areas of focus is mind/brain related pain.

For more information about Dr. Schechter's MindBody medicine focus and his book, Think Away Your Pain, go to www.mindbodymedicine.com and www.thinkawaypain.us.