Is Pilates Culture Toxic or Truly For Everyone? The Day I Quit Reddit

Photo Credit: (https://redditmetis.com/user/GraduatePilates on June 26, 2025)

Yesterday was the day I chose to quit the Pilates subreddits. No one asked me to leave, but for the first time, I felt what many people describe feeling when they get from the Pilates Community–unwelcoming and elitist. A group of individuals in the Pilates Subreddit decided to respond to a post I made with comments like, "weird energy at best," " I can’t imagine giving all this professional advice when I’d been teaching for only 5 years. It’s wild," and "No shade, but 5 years is not a long time in this industry," before encouraging others to downvote my contributions to the forum.

So what did I do to them to make them react this way?

I spent hours every week answering people’s questions on Reddit about Pilates with intention and joy. I was not on the forum being offensive, argumentative, judgemental, or factually inaccurate. I did not undermine or criticize others.

Each person who posted a question was a stranger to me--an avatar and a screen name with what I always treated as a genuine curiosity for whatever they were asking as it related to Pilates and if I had knowledge to provide, I aimed to objectively help. They didn't know anything about me, and all I know about them is what they have posted in their original post. It made sense to me to introduce myself with my response–let them know who I am and why I am qualified to answer the question. Perhaps give them a chance to decide that they want someone with more experience or from a different background. And so I provided that with every answer to a new stranger online.

I did not hide my opinions or views on Pilates behind an avatar and anonymous screen name. I am proud of my background and knowledge and I genuinely enjoy answering people’s questions when I can. There are even times where if I was unsure about an answer, I did additional research of my own to answer a question for someone else. All for free.

And, I would provide a little disclaimer at the end so that if there was something they didn’t disclose that would have changed my answer, that my business was covered legally in the event that someone on the internet wanted to get litigious. I wanted to ensure that people were safe if I provided a tip on how to do a roll up but they didn’t disclose they had a bulging disc. I wanted people to understand that I was not a lawyer if I was providing resources to point them towards employment law, as another example.

Someone chimed in a few days ago asking why I do this, and I explained to them what I just explained here and then I moved on. In an effort to show that I was not that person’s competition, and that I was willing to exist in the same space respectfully together, I even chimed in to one of her posts stating that I agreed with her opinion on a particular matter. I wanted to be a positive influence in the community. I did not come to this community to argue or debate, I came to this community to educate, help people, and feel a sense of personal satisfaction in the work that I do.

But they did not like that. I was only welcome in their space, conditionally.

Yesterday, another individual decided to respond to one of my comments telling me I should edit and change the way in which I respond to posts because, “most people in the sub are probably downvoting you,” and “it’s annoying to scroll through [and see it] because you are active here and over on club Pilates sub too,” and that “it comes off as forced advertising at worst and a weird energy at best.” (If you are reading on mobile, keep scrolling--due to formatting limitations, there will be a gap in text after these photos.)

Screenshots from Reddit June 26, 2025. The thread went on for some time as they doubled down despite me explaining my reasons and expressing that I am here to be a positive influence and cause no harm.

But also, let's be factual for a moment...

I’m all about objectivity and taking a look at the data-- so here are some stats as of June 25, 2025.

I have commented on 407 posts to date. 3 of those interactions (0.007%), resulted in a DM where individuals have had follow up questions and I’ve engaged in giving thoughtful and robust follow up answers (for free) up until a particular threshold where I have then invited them to book a paid 30-60 meeting to dive deeper into their situation. I was never hard selling anyone publicly or telling people to pay me to answer their posts. I provided very thorough responses to put water in the well. I also host a website with free information on it to self-educate. While offering services for sale can be frowned upon on Reddit, it is not against terms of service and I only offered services if a person was engaged and needed to dive deeper into their personal challenges. I never did this publicly and kept it to DMs to be respectful of the sub.

Additionally, I had overwhelming positive Reddit stats up until this point. One post many weeks ago got downvoted because I suggested someone use ChatGPT to read the fine print of an agreement they sign to see what their individual rights were. This did not surprise me, the sub has overwhelmingly rejected mentions of ChatGPT in the past. I suspected it was because people are afraid AI will devalue the work we do, instead of being a resource to improve the work we do, and they are fair to be skeptical. I didn’t think much of it, really. I even checked my stats today as the flood of negative energy followed in thread. And I was still right–my reddit profile showed positive stats–her assumption that I was already getting downvoted was not rooted in the reality of the data. Of 407 comments, I have 2,100 karma points–hardly an indicator that I was getting downvoted before this interaction. You can see this depicted in the graph at the top of this post.

And what happened when I responded politely to their distain for me?

I responded politely with an explanation, and expressed that it made me feel sad at the idea that people would downvote me just because I introduce myself and take my job (and assets) seriously enough to protect myself if someone decided to come for me. I kept my comments about myself, my behavior, and nothing about her or anyone else in the sub.

Then the Pilates Police came charging in and I did start seeing a flood of downvotes I had never seen before--it was all in response to me responding directly to their criticism that I wished to exist as I am since I am not hurting anyone and contributing in a respectful and professional way. The person responded to me, “the community is showing their response” [to me.] Two more people chimed in with comments like “I can’t imagine giving all this professional advice when I’d been teaching for only 5 years. It’s wild. I’m at 30 years…I just can’t with these very new teachers acting like seasoned experts. It’s too much,” and another who said she’s been in it for 13 years adding, “She’s at the beginning of her career. No shade, but 5 years is not a long time in this industry.”

Again a few more facts and stats and hypotheticals...

I never once said 5 years was a long time in the industry. I just stated that I have been teaching since 2020. I allow the reader to decide if that is enough experience to trust my answer or work with me. They also fail to understand that I am 39 years old, and I have a background in business and leadership outside of “Pilates,” and all those skillsets apply to the advice that I had given. Many times, I would answer questions about leading teams, running a business, and sometimes I was just lifting people up when they felt defeated. I have not once even asserted that my opinion on the practice of Pilates was better than anyone else’s.

While having more years under your belt can lead to becoming a seasoned expert, it doesn’t automatically make you more of an expert than someone who has been doing it for less years. Hypothetically, a teacher who teaches 25 hours a week for 5 years has the same amount of experience (6,500 hours) as someone who has 30 but teaches 4 hours a week or someone with 13 that teaches 10 hours a week. And what do those hours even mean--sure practice can lead to improvement, but only if you remain flexible to the idea there could be a better way to do what you are doing. And from the likes of these comments, I am not convinced they are adaptable or all that open-minded.

In elitist assumptions by these individuals, they boiled me down to a silly young person who thinks she knows what she is talking about, but surely can't know what she's talking about. These individuals did not reach out to me to ask me more about my background. And, how would they know otherwise? They don’t even want me to proactively introduce myself and give my baseline credentials for being qualified to answer a question asked, let alone reach out to me to ask me more about my background, my values, my mission, etc.

So what did I do?

And so after trying to reason with them for short period of time, I chose to leave, because I do not want to spend time in a place where in order to not be “weird” or “annoying” I must edit myself when nothing that I am doing is disrespectful or hurting anyone else.

I felt very bad today after this interaction. I think about the ways in which I was bullied as a kid and how female friendship often crumbled and turn under competition. I felt bad that as a grown adult, another adult could make me feel this way. I felt bad that there are so many people who think that Pilates is a space where only certain people are welcome and that there is an elitist mentality to it. I aim every day to have a space that does not feel like that and try convince people that isn’t true. And today, I lived an experience where that was true. Today Pilates was not for everybody... and there were so many other posts and comments within that subreddit that also proved they they did not believe it was for everybody. It was only for the people that thought and acted like they wanted them to think and act.

It's true--no one asked me to leave and no one said I wasn't allowed to be there, but they did state that in order to be welcomed in the community (aka not downvoted) that I would need to change something about myself that was not hurting anyone else.

And so I chose to leave to protect my own peace, and stand on the principle that I don’t need to change for those people. I do not need to prove to those people that I belong. I felt very bad yesterday, and I would be lying if I said that I hope they don’t feel bad for their limiting mindset as well, but I am going to choose not to worry about whether they do or don’t, and be motivated to press forward and create spaces that people do feel welcome so long as they are not being disrespectful or harming others.

Graduate Pilates is that space. Please join me in this effort. Please join my email list. Please subscribe to my YouTube Channel, and follow me on whatever social media platforms you prefer. I never sought out to be an influencer, and I don’t really want to think of myself as an influencer—but I do want to influence people to be better to each other.

I am not perfect, but I try really hard. So, let’s say this. I want to be a leader. I want to be a mentor. I want to be an educator. I want to be a helper. I want to be a positive person. And I am all of those things. Please join me.

I have some big ideas brewing in my brain and I hope you want to hear about them and give opinions and help me help others. I won’t have all the answers, I will need my community, too.

So here is my current answer to the question: Is Pilates for everybody?

Pilates can be for everybody, but the way this community is acting, it's not for everybody today. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing group of teachers when I first started that made me believe it was for me and I've also marked that as one of my primary motivator to become a teacher. I lived in a bubble where Pilates was for everyone and I am so thankful for that. If you feel like Pilates is not for you today, find that bubble. It is out there. And if you are part of this community making others feel less than, and you believe it's for everybody, start acting like it is for everyone and not just certain people acting certain ways, doing things the way you like them to do them.