Episode Show Notes
Welcome to the seventh episode of this special short season of The Pilates Diaries Podcast created to support and promote the rebuilding of the business of industry colleague and long term Pilates teacher, Kimberley Garlick. Kimberley’s studio business, Northern Rivers Pilates in Lismore was completely submerged in the devastating floods that tore through the region in February and March earlier this year. In pursuit of getting their business back on its feet, Kimberley has reached out to her extensive industry network and along with studio manager and daughter, Madison have created the Teach to Preach Retreat that will run at their studio in Lismore, November 4th to 6th this year.
On this episode Kimberley welcomes her mother and fellow Pilates practitioner Heather Roudenko. With previous careers in management, sales, and marketing and nursing, Heather has been a lifelong health and fitness enthusiast. Heather is trained in Reiki, Gyrokinesis as well as Pilates and has been teaching since 1999. Heather, especially enjoys teaching the Pilates and pregnancy programs, including communicating with all walks of life and seeing that as an invaluable asset to teaching Pilates effectively. Heather is the mother of Kimberly Garlick the owner of Northern Rivers Pilates and they have been working together since 1999 in the Pilates world. Heather currently teaches on the Gold Coast, keeping herself busy with upwards of 10 classes a week, which is no mean feat for a 76 year old and Kimberly is happy to admit Heather still does a better teaser than her. Heather’s presentation at the Northern Rivers Pilates Teach to Preach Retreat in November this year is called Pilates for the 60 plus. Heather will take participants through a mat class designed specifically for this clientele group, with tools, tips, tricks, and light bulb moments to help the elderly get the most out of their Pilates on the mat. Enjoy
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Episode Transcript
Bruce Hildebrand: In the spirit of respect, The Pilates Diaries Podcast acknowledges the people and elders of the Bunurong people, members of the Kulin Nation, who have traditional connections and responsibilities for the land on which this podcast is produced.
Hi, I’m Bruce Hildebrand and this is The Pilates Diaries Podcast.
The mission of this podcast is to share the stories of the impact of Pilates. We’re inviting Pilates enthusiasts to share with us the notes they’ve taken down in their Pilates journey as we seek out the answers to the intrigue Pilates has been able to ignite inside millions all over the world. Our hope is that The Pilates Diaries Podcast goes some way to answering the question ” What is it that makes Pilates so special?”
Welcome to this special short season of The Pilates Diaries Podcast created to support and promote the rebuilding of the business of industry colleague and long term Pilates teacher, Kimberley Garlick. Kimberley’s studio business, Northern Rivers Pilates in Lismore was completely submerged in the devastating floods that tore through the region in February and March earlier this year. In pursuit of getting their business back on its feet, Kimberley has reached out to her extensive industry network and along with studio manager and daughter, Madison have created the Teach to Preach Retreat that will run at their studio in Lismore, November 4th to 6th this year.
Our presenter introduction on this episode is Heather Roudenko. With previous careers in management, sales, and marketing and nursing, Heather has been a lifelong health and fitness enthusiast. Heather is trained in Reiki, Gyrokinesis as well as Pilates and has been teaching since 1999. Heather, especially enjoys teaching the Pilates and pregnancy programs, including communicating with all walks of life and seeing that as an invaluable asset to teaching Pilates effectively. Heather is the mother of Kimberly Garlick the owner of Northern Rivers Pilates and they have been working together since 1999 in the Pilates world. Heather currently teaches on the Gold Coast, keeping herself busy with upwards of 10 classes a week, which is no mean feat for a 76 year old and Kimberly is happy to admit Heather still does a better teaser than her. Heather’s presentation at the Northern Rivers Pilates Teach to Preach Retreat in November this year is called Pilates for the 60 plus. Heather will take participants through a mat class designed specifically for this clientele group, with tools, tips, tricks, and light bulb moments to help the elderly get the most out of their Pilates on the mat.
Heather, welcome to the show.
Heather Roudenko: Hi, how are you?
Bruce Hildebrand: Great, thanks. A fairly obvious choice is for Kimberley to ask the questions of her mother on today’s call – Kimberley, over to you.
Kimberley Garlick: Thanks, Bruce- it’s exciting to interview my mom here on The Pilates Diaries Podcast with you and it’s even more exciting to be able to welcome her to our Retreat as one of our presenters. Obviously I’m very proud of the way my mom’s still represents Pilates- and her name’s Heather Roudenko. I should add that even though I’ll refer to her as mum through our podcast. So welcome to the show mum.
Heather Roudenko: Hi, how are you going?
Kimberley Garlick: Good. How about we start having a chat because it’s three generation now you’ve got yourself, me and Maddie as part of Pilates and we all often work together. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your background and how your relationship with Pilates started?
Heather Roudenko: Sure. My background consists of a few different types of work. Originally I was a nurse so that put me in that category of caring for people. I did go into management roles over the years not necessarily nursing, but I did have a change of career there. Then I thought I might like to become a fitness instructor. I remember this because you had already done that part of it and you’d already been to uni and you thought it was a good idea and I fancied myself running around in little pink car and being a fitness instructor changing my whole lifestyle. I did that fitness instructor course then all of a sudden Pilates was becoming really popular in Australia- it had already taken off all through the Americas.
Kimberley Garlick: Mum, we embarked on that journey together and you were the same age I am now- at 51, it’s very cool to think of how brave you were to go into a new direction of a new industry that was just developing and we embarked on that journey with Madison as a little baby, by our side on the course- do you remember that?
Heather Roudenko: I remember that very well- it was a bit scary, but we got through!
Kimberley Garlick: It was great and I’ve often spoken about the journey coming from 27 years ago the manuals that were available back then in comparison to now- do you remember writing all the little stick figures and having to do all our own notes- it was very minimal material for us!
Heather Roudenko: Yeah it was sort of just go out there and do it really wasn’t it?
Kimberley Garlick: And then 2003, you did the Polestar full Diploma course.
Heather Roudenko: Can we go back a little bit before that because you were already managing Fitness First and then you said to me- we need somebody your age to actually teach.
Kimberley Garlick: That’s a bit embarrassing because that’s my age now! I made you sound so old.
Heather Roudenko: And I had never used those headphones that you had to have, they were really big and there was 70 odd people in a class. Do you remember that? That was the Fitness First thing- and from there we started our own- we go out on our own.
Kimberley Garlick: We did!
Heather Roudenko: I went around and got all the halls- we had 20 odd halls going at one stage.
Kimberley Garlick: We had 20 odd classes, with about six different halls.
Heather Roudenko: It seemed like 20 halls and we were working like crazy- even in those classes, there would be 40 odd people turn up on the night starting a term- it was really good. Then you decided to open up a studio.
Kimberley Garlick: And you embarked on that journey with me as well.
Heather Roudenko: Because by then we’d done Polestar- that was quite funny too- remember we had to miss one and we had to go to Melbourne- and we had another baby by then!
Kimberley Garlick: Yes, we had Caitlin it was always a management process and I was very fortunate to have you by my side to do that with me.
Heather Roudenko: And you were feeding up the back while everybody was, it was hilarious- we had a lot of fun! There was some scary moments when they were talking about all sorts of things fortunately I did have that anatomy background, but it was a new world completely doing Polestar. That was that journey, and that just kept going for many years in Sydney.
Kimberley Garlick: And you were a big part of the Pilates Room education as well when I was doing my own certification for Mat Pilates then you started to come on board and were assisting me on educating as well. So you’ve been a big part of the whole journey. I wanted to ask you now, mum, where do you sit with Pilates?
Heather Roudenko: Well it’s still a huge part of my life I’ve been on the Gold Coast for 13 years now. When I came up here I started hiring halls and doing my own classes for quite a long time. Then I was working for you when you came up I’d come down to Lismore and teach down there in the studio. And now I run some community classes for over sixties and they say, Heather, it’s not over sixties anymore it’s over seventies because I’ve been teaching those people for so long as a community class, and it’s just a donation- it’s something I want to give back to the community- I love doing those! Now I also work for two young ladies up here- one of them is Polestar trained and I work in her studio and the other one has just four Reformers and we have quite a lot of small apparatus that we use and I work for her. So that’s what I’m doing still and I really don’t know what I do other than teach Pilates.
Kimberley Garlick: Retirement’s not part of the equation, is it?
Heather Roudenko: I have a joke with one of the gentlemen that I’ve been teaching for about, 10 years, he’s 87 now and the deal is that I’ll still be teaching him when he’s 90 odd and I’ll be 80.
Kimberley Garlick: That sounds like a good deal! Maddy and I call you the human crane when you are teaching, because you were teaching in one of the retirement villages and you have people that can’t get off the ground so you go around lifting all these people off the ground so we call you the human crane of Pilates!
Heather Roudenko: That has happened a couple of times with people that have had dementia and they’ve put them in the class when I’ve been at some very fancy retirement villages- they think that those people need to do something like that. And I haven’t known that they’ve had dementia and said, are you okay to get down on the floor? Yeah, sure- because that’s what they think and then they can’t get up.
Kimberley Garlick: When they start Pilates, they’re 21- when they finish they remember they’re 96! It’s amazing what you do!
Heather Roudenko: It is because people with dementia they don’t really know, you can have a conversation and you think everything’s fine until you get to know them and something like that happens, and you have to press the emergency button for nurses to come and get them because you can’t get them up
Kimberley Garlick: The great thing is mum, your cues never get old.
Heather Roudenko: Oh absolutely one lady yesterday she said ” I always get it so mixed up!” and I said ” Just do it, however it comes and then eventually it’ll all come together. It takes time because if people get mixed up with the breathing and the movements, and there’s so much to remember with Pilates that they don’t really enjoy the class, so just let them go enjoy it and then eventually it all comes together.
Kimberley Garlick: You’re presenting at the Teach to Preach Retreat, which is really exciting- can you tell us about what you will be teaching?
Heather Roudenko: I’ve chosen to do a Mat class that I teach regularly with my over seventies, sometimes eighties. It’s all about mobility , that will be the first part of it but then I teach people to get up- and then I teach them to actually get up, stand up, get down, get up, get down. So it’s making people very strong. I notice when I’m teaching in the studio at the moment and I’m actually covering for somebody else and they are ladies that are in their sixties I’ve done quite strong get up, get down classes in the last week and they find it very hard. The people that I’m teaching the 80 year olds, they can actually get up, get down and that’s the important part because when somebody has a fall and they can’t get up they’re in big problems! So that’s my main thing- I just want people to be able to be agile!
Kimberley Garlick: The thing is Pilates is all about creating functional movement outside of the Pilates studio and you are giving people confidence to live life to it’s fullest, no matter what age they’re at, because they’ll have confidence in their own body, their own balance, their own strength- it’s really commendable.
Heather Roudenko: And we also do weights I’ve introduced weights to them every second week and they’re getting stronger all the time- that particular group- I teach them twice a week. The other class that I teach them we do a lot of breathing exercises, stretching, and then relaxation, how to relax. That’ll be the sort of class that I’ll do. But remembering that not all 60 year olds are incapacitated either- like 60 is the new 70!
Kimberley Garlick: You are a very good example of that.
Heather Roudenko: Thank you.
Kimberley Garlick: And for the practitioners that are attending, what is it that you’re hoping they’re going to gain from doing that class with you, what do you want them to walk away with?
Heather Roudenko: I’d like them to walk away with respect for older people- that just because you’ve got grey hair doesn’t mean to say that you are not capable of learning new things and how to get strong because I think that’s really important! If you get somebody that comes into your studio and you think, oh, they’re not going to be as bright as, 40 year old, for instance, just have the respect!
Kimberley Garlick: That’s awesome!
Bruce Hildebrand: It’s so inspiring to hear you say that Heather and I love the fact that you’re still wildly active in the process of teaching Pilates and being an amazing role model to all these peers and contemporaries that you are teaching classes to on a weekly basis- well done!
Heather Roudenko: Thank you. I actually think I should pay them because- you know, they give me a reason to go out every day and work.
Kimberley Garlick: Something you’ve said to me before mum and I say this on so many courses that I teach- how many people your age are given a blessing every single day! Every day someone says, thank you- someone shows appreciation and someone shows gratitude for what you have done. In a way I feel that’s why you have so much youthfulness to you because you receive like a bounty of gratitude because of what you do.
Heather Roudenko: Oh, absolutely- that’s why I say I should pay them because , you know, I get thanked all the time and my job- if you want to call it a job it’s a blessing because I just have lovely people around me all the time and I make them happy. So what a great job! I do recommend to any young people that want to take up this type of career- I mean, what an amazing thing to do! What’s a job where you can make people feel good but also you have your own time as well. You don’t have a boss standing over you and you’re not stuck in an office. I feel empathy for people that come to, you know, I’m talking about the younger people now that I teach- they’re sitting at a desk all day, and they’re so stiff and, they’re just stuck there, they don’t get out!
Kimberley Garlick: I think it’s important to understand as well that even though you are 76, you still have people gravitating to you who are children, young adults, middle aged and the over seventies and nineties, et cetera. So it’s not just because of your age, you are only teaching that age group- you still create amazing workouts for a broad spectrum of people from ballet dancers, doctors, right through to people who are in nursing homes. I think that again is a credit to your training and your effort to be staying focused on continually improving your education about Pilates.
Heather Roudenko: I might just say too here- the biggest thank you ever for the Polestar education and what they’re doing at the moment- I’ve got one podcast to listen to this week- they have free podcasts every week and I just learn so much because I have done some courses on feet, but there was one about feet a couple of weeks ago. So then I started doing those exercises in the classes, and even when you’re adopting those type of movements on the Reformer with your footwork and getting lots more ankle movement for people- it’s just amazing! I’m still learning all the time- education- you can’t get enough of it!
Bruce Hildebrand: Heather, we’re certainly looking forward to seeing you at Teach to Preach at the Northern Rivers Pilates Studio in Lismore in November. Perhaps we can finish with a quick insight from you- you’re obviously speaking very passionately about Pilates! What’s the feeling for you seeing the joy in both your daughter and your grandchildren heavily involved in Pilates and their long term participation and teaching?
Heather Roudenko: Well, I couldn’t be more proud! There’s no doubt about that and it definitely gives you something to brag about! I’m extremely proud of Kimberley and her journey and if it weren’t for Kimberley there’s no way I would’ve been connected with Pilates really- she threw me in at the deep end so I’ve got a lot to be thankful for her doing that! Giving me the nudge and continuing with the nudge and she still keeps throwing me in at the deep end so I’m extremely proud of Kimberley and now Madison such an amazing instructor, manager, a beautiful person and then all of Kimberley’s family, Caitlin, Bridget, Adam, they all participate in Pilates and they’re just amazing!
Bruce Hildebrand: Spoken like a gorgeous grandmother and mother! Thanks Heather- we certainly look forward to seeing you at the Teach to Preach Retreat in November up at Lismore. Thanks for your time on the podcast today and thanks for your time as always Kimberley!
Kimberley Garlick: Thanks very much Bruce
Heather Roudenko: Thank you.
Bruce Hildebrand: We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Pilates Diaries Podcast. Drop us a comment online at the links in the show notes, and be sure to subscribe and rate the podcast to keep updated with episode releases and hear more stories from our guests’ Pilates Diaries. This podcast is made possible by the following sponsors- keep an ear out for exclusive Pilates Diaries Podcast listener discount codes. Thanks for listening. The Pilates Diaries Podcast is a proud partner with TRIMIO. TRIMIO is a much needed space and time utilization booking system for the Pilates industry. With TRIMIO you can return your focus to delivering the highest value to your customers. No longer be lost to the encumbrances of inefficient interactions and experience a new level of working freedom with the power of technology automation doing what it should. Maximize your profitability by optimizing the utilization of your time and physical space with TRIMIO. Find out more at www.TRIMIO.app.
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