Meet Trailblazer Carolyn Geerling-Goryl

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolyn Geerling-Goryl.

Carolyn, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have always loved dance, movement, and fitness for as long as I can remember. I was in gymnastics as a kid. My grandpa made me a balance beam with carpet wrapped around it, so I could practice and I have a vivid memory of finally mastering a back walkover in the living room no longer needing someone to spot me. I danced (jazz and ballet) as a pre-teen and teenager. Then, fell in love with high impact as well as step aerobics in the ’80s when my mom brought me with her to a woman from church who taught the parishioners. That was followed by me working out to Jane Fonda’s aerobic’s tape so frequently that I stretch the VHS tape out and could not play it anymore. I began my ‘professional’ fitness journey in college getting my AFAA aerobic certification and teaching classes at a local gym while in school for Exercise Science. I taught an early 6 am ABS class, my last year of college and my friends would always give me grief because no matter how late we were out the night before, I would always wake up early and go to the gym.

After graduation, I worked in Michigan, then California doing a variety of fitness management and group fitness teaching jobs. I was unhappy in management and I was hurting myself teaching 12 plus high-intensity classes/week. I was introduced to Pilates from my friend, Annika whom I had met working at 24 Hour Fitness. I fell in love with it! It was challenging but low impact and gave me the corrective movement that my achy body needed.

When I moved back to Michigan, I found a wonderful licensed STOTT Pilates studio called Equilibrium to train and test for my full Pilates certification. Four years later, I moved to Arizona where I worked teaching group and private pilates at Troon Mountain Health and Fitness, Lifetime Fitness and The Pilates Body (now called P.A.C.E.). In 2014, it was time to have my own home-based Pilates studio where I could continue teaching but make it easier to be a mom of two busy kids and a husband who travels quite a bit for his work. Pilates with Care was officially named in 2016. My husband gets the credit for naming my business. It comes from a play on words from the ‘caring’ approach, I pride myself in taking with clients and the nickname that close friends and family call me.

Has it been a smooth road?
After being in the fitness industry for 22 years and specifically pilates for the past 14, I have had my ups and downs. It is definitely a business that has a lot of competition and not all of it equal. A lot of people call themselves fitness professionals or certified pilates instructors after taking only a few workshops or weekend training. Appearance rules the social media fitness market now. I have learned that you can have all the knowledge but can be upstaged by the ‘performance’ instructor that may be more dynamic in personality even if they deliver poor or worse, wrong information. That being said, social media also has many high level experienced fitness/pilates professionals, but you have to be careful what credentials and information they are putting out there. I think what has worked best for me is really figuring out what demographic I want to work in and be really good at that. For example, I work with a lot of active 40-plus-year-olds. Many of my clients have either a diagnosed injury or they have come back, shoulder, a hip issue that is made better by the work we do through pilates. I would also say that continuing to learn and be a student has been important in my career. Taking continuing education classes, other respected instructor’s classes and related conferences have been very helpful in my personal development and what I can bring to my clients.

One other thing that is not often mentioned or at least was not when I was getting started in my early 20’s is the income that you can expect to make in the fitness/pilates field. Being a profitable trainer that has longevity takes long hours and sometimes a year or two to build into. Especially in the Arizona (Scottsdale/Cave Creek) market, hot summer months slow down sometimes to half the clientele. Attrition is always a true problem in this industry and having a good referral source(s) to continue to feed clients into your schedule is important. I have seen many trainers fail because either they did not want to work that many hours or could not afford to continue teaching only in fitness because they could not make ends meet. Many instructors have other “real” jobs and they teach on the side. Or, like myself, they come from a double income household. I feel very blessed to own Pilates with Care after rebuilding from scratch my clientele as I moved between three states four different times due to my husband’s work transfers.

We’d love to hear more about Pilates with Care.
Even though I still do a small amount of personal training, I consider myself a pilates instructor. I am very proud of the Pilates with Care business I have started in North Scottsdale/Cave Creek. I take a personal and caring approach to pilates with my clients. All my studio sessions are private, most clients have some type of current, chronic or past injury they are working through. Pilates makes all of them feel better without exception. Each session is individualized and we progress as the client gets stronger, more connected to their body and has the ability to advance. I have been told that I am tough but in positive, empowering kind of way. I have many friends in the Pilates industry and I am proud to call them my friends and coexist in business with them. I am very ethical. There have been times when leaving one job for another, I have been asked by clients to take them with me. I have not because I truly believe there is enough business for all of us. I have respect for all of the former employers I have worked for and believe we do better when we support each other.

Do you feel like there was something about the experiences you had growing up that played an outsized role in setting you up for success later in life?
My mother played a large role in the path I have chosen for my career. She was and is a very active person and enjoyed dancing and liked dance/high impact aerobics. She took me with her when I was a teenager to an aerobics class at church. It was so much fun and when I found out that the instructor also got paid for teaching the class, I knew I would eventually become an ‘aerobics instructor’! My mom was also an English professor and worked in career planning for Spring Arbor college in MI. She really helped me navigate the correct major that set me up early into the right classes to obtain my BS in Exercise Science. Her and my dad have always supported me throughout my career as cheerleaders, counselors, accountants, editors, advisors, and cheerleaders! Yes, I said cheerleaders three times!

Pricing:

• Single Private Session $80
• Package of 5 $375
• Package of 10 $700
• Mat Group Session (8 classes) $160

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pilateswithcare.com
• Phone: 949-872-9519
• Email: geerlinggoryl@gmail.com
• Instagram: pilateswithcare

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