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05.02.04
Stacy Sims Reforms
Pendleton Pilates and Swimming Naked in Over-the-Rhine
By Ruth K Meyer, Artwhirled@iRhine.com
The chic fitness center, Pendleton Pilates, anchors one of the major gateways to Over-the-Rhine, the corner of Pendleton and Reading. This exercise Mecca has had to move three times due to its tremendous popularity, and another expansion just occurred when its owner Stacy Sims enlarged the services to yoga and massage. Stacy is an expert at retooling her life.
Originally a public relations director as well as an exhibition producer and graphic arts executive, she has accomplished another metamorphosis into the human locus of a holistic approach to fitness. As she approaches age 40, Sims has started a personal program of lifestyle change that includes returning from Cleveland to Cincinnati, making her exercise program into a career and publishing her first novel. Quite a series of changes that would leave most people exhausted, but has Sims exhilarated.
Recently Stacy Sims took time out from a fan filled schedule of bookstore promotions for her novel Swimming Naked and talked about what's been going on in her life for the last three years.
Sims said, "I always imagined I was going to be a writer and fancied myself as a writer even though I wasn't really writing a book. When in the course of the work that I did, I got to talk to authors, I would speak to them as though I understood exactly what they were doing. As I was getting close to 40 I had never attempted much more than business correspondence. So I set out to write some scenes based on a story I had been told by a woman whose mother had died and I began imagining what had happened before and after and I wrote those scenes and at a certain point I realized what I was doing wanted to be a novel. Then I went back to the beginning and started to organize the book as a story with a series of flashbacks."
Swimming Naked is the story told by Lucy Greene, a young woman who describes herself as a noted photography curator on leave of absence from a museum to care for her mother who is dying of cancer. Stacy Sims worked at the Contemporary Arts Center starting after the Mapplethorpe show had closed, stuck it out through the trial and then moved to Cleveland with Dennis Barrie when he became director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
They formed a company that organized touring art exhibitions and later she worked at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. Significantly, Sims acknowledges the influence of photography mentioning Diane Arbus as among her favorites. If you have any familiarity with notable contemporary photographers you will recognize the subjects and styles described in the story that Lucy/Stacy relates. The fun of pinning the name on the famous photograph is one of the many thrills that Swimming Naked offers the astute summer reader.
When she took up writing, Stacy Sims found out she needed, "to show up everyday." Continuing discipline wasn't one of Stacy's goals before she established an exercise routine that involved Pilates. Her higher level of fitness actually created the confidence and endurance Stacey needed to take on the task of sitting down daily and facing that most frightening of things--a blank page, and keep going.
Sims stayed in top shape to keep the creativity and work in shape. She began taking more classes and when after having given up her day job so as to write full-time she became a Pilates instructor for the more flexible schedule this offered. Then Sims decided to move back to Cincinnati and her goal was to open her own exercise studio. Over-the-Rhine was attractive because she knew Jim Verdin and admired his success in the historic Pendleton Square district. Not only did OTR offer easy access from the business district, but Stacy wanted to enjoy the delights of urban living, too. Always keeping her finger of the pulse of contemporary lifestyle, she has established an Oakley studio as well.
Concerning the benefits of exercising in a Pilates studio Sims says, "Pilates is incredibly democratic: 99% of the population can do and benefit hugely from Pilates whether you are rehabilitating from injury, if you are a top athlete, if you are pregnant. In terms of what it functionally does it creates mindfulness about how the body works. We demand a lot from our bodies everyday and most of us know more about our cars than we do about our bodies. It's a way of reactivating the muscles in the body that you need to support yourself in whatever it is that you do. Whether you are just getting up in the morning and walking around without falling down or you are Tiger Woods and you want to be a champion."
Pilates and yoga are two of the most popular exercise philosophies in 2004, many people even combine the two to make themselves limber in the Eastern and Western traditions. According to Sims, "Pilates should give you an even better sense of your body, of your strengths and limitations and sense of your own limitations in movement. I love yoga, but I needed Pilates first as a gateway into yoga because I couldn't be that still. I had to learn movement and breath work so that I could be still and have a meditative experience. With Pilates, you can get effects and transform the body more efficiently. If you don't understand what you are doing contracting and moving muscles the yogic call to 'move from the core' won't mean anything."
The difference between East and West shows up in the physical set-up of exercise as well. Yoga only requires a mat to practice with; Pilates uses special exercise equipment with a suitably Puritanical name, the Reformer. Sims describes it as looking no scarier than a rowing machine, but (wonderfully enough) the exercises can also be done on a mat, like yoga. The costs of Pilates are pretty much in line with most high-end exercise programs which take advantage of the most current ideas in fitness.
Sims says, "At our studio the initial consultation series is $150 and that's for four private lessons and then you can go into group classes. If you buy a monthly program for $450 it can cost as little as $15 to attend sessions several times a week. A good thing about Pilates is that you need to make an appointment because the machines must be scheduled and this enforces the discipline for many people. People make a commitment and they show up." This last is an incentive that Easterners and Westerners can fully appreciate.
Stacy Sims praises the initiatives of the many folks who are improving the business climate in Over-the-Rhine. She is here to stay and plans to keep her focus on her writing and Pilates. Since she is in the heart of the Arts District, there might have been a desire to open an art gallery, but Stacy has vigorously resisted that tack. She says, "In the same way that I enjoy going to yoga, because I don't have anything to do with it professionally, so I enjoy going to museums and art galleries knowing I had nothing to do with how it got there, what the politics were and I can strictly enjoy it. When I am writing I get more inspiration from films and art and photography than I do from books." Perhaps that is the real secret to Stacy's profound and happy metamorphosis, to catch inspiration on the flank.
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Pendleton Pilates is located at 500 Reading Road at the corner of Pendleton and Reading. There is limited private parking in front of the building and ample metered parking. The Oakley studio is at 4404 Brazee, at the corner of Brazee and Madison. For a full schedule of classes, call 513.333.0191 or visit PendletonPilates.com.
Pendleton Pilates is celebrating National Pilates Day and the opening of the second floor of Pendleton Pilates OTR studio by offer FREE mat classes Saturday, May 15th and Sunday, May 16th . Both classes will be held from 11:00 am to noon at the downtown studio.
Shine Yoga Center and Pendleton Pilates are excited to announce Shine Yoga Classes downtown at the Pendleton Pilates Studio! Beginning on May 13, 2004 we will be offering a beginner level Anusara yoga class on Thursday evenings from 6:00 - 7:30 pm and a mixed level Anusara yoga class on Saturday mornings from 10:00 - 11:30 am.
Anusara yoga is a heart-oriented practice based on biomechanical alignment principles that will be a great complement to the Pilates being taught at Pendleton. Students may use their Shine Yoga class passes for classes at Pendleton Pilates or may attend individual classes for $12.
For more information please log on to ShineYoga.com or call Shine at 513.533.YOGA or Pendleton Pilates at 513.333.0191.
About iRhine
iRhine is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that develops the focus of communication for the many diversified offerings in the historic Cincinnati neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine (OTR). Through the Web site, e-mails, educational meetings, events, and volunteering, iRhine has supported and encouraged socio-economic development for OTR and the Greater Cincinnati Region since 2000.
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Jul 31, 2010
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