ABOUT KRISTEN

Pilates Teacher. Educator. Lifelong Student of Movement

Some people find Pilates. I believe Pilates found me, and then kept finding me, at every stay of life when I needed it most.

I’m Kristen Matthews, a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher, Director of Education at Speir Pilates, and a movement educator with over 15,000 hours of teaching experience. My work lives at the intersection of classical Pilates methodology and the very real, very human bodies that show up to learn it. Whether that’s a new student finding their breath for the first time, or an apprentice teacher building the skills to guide others.

For more than two decades, I’ve been teaching, training, and budding curriculum that takes Pilates seriously, not just a trend, but as a transformative system of movement with the power to change how people live in their bodies.

PERSONAL STORY

My journey started the way a lot of people’s do: I was an athlete whose body had taken a beating. Years of sports and dance left me with chronic back pain and a body that needed more than I was giving it. Pilates was the thing that finally helped. And from that moment I connected with the mind-body principles at its core, I was hooked.

What I didn’t expect was how much the work would keep meeting me where I was.

A decade into teaching, I faced an intense health challenge - debilitating fatigue, digestive issues, and a mystery that took years to unravel. The answer turned out to be Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune thyroid condition that’s far more common than most people realize. Navigating that diagnosis made me a better teacher. It deepened my understanding of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t always cooperate, and it reinforced everything I believe about movement as medicine.

Then, in 2025, I received another piece of news I hadn’t anticipated: an osteoporosis diagnosis at 50. And once again, Pilates, along with resistance training and intentional nutrition, became a central to my response. I share this not for sympathy, but because I think it matters that your educator has actually been on the journey. I’m not teaching from a place of theory. I’m teaching from a place of lived experience.

This work has given me so much. Sharing it - whether in a session, a training, or a workshop - is the part I love the most. If you’re ready to move, learn, or both, I’d love to be part of that.

Professional Highlights and Associations