Pilates Roanoke VA Virginia

Erin Garvin, Owner/Instructor

Looking for Quality, Authentic instruction to help you safely get a stronger core, better posture, more balanced and flexible? We value education & training to serve you.

• Featured in
• Featured in Pilates Style National Magazine April 2015
  
• Featured in National Magazine 2013
• Top 10 Finalist for the International Pilates Anytime Next Instructor Contest 2013
• Voted Best Pilates Instructor in the Roanoke Valley '11
• Voted Best Yoga Instructor (silver) in the Roanoke Valley '11
• Voted Best Fitness Instructor in the Roanoke Valley '05
• Voted Best Graduate Teacher of the Year in HPPE dept at VPI '95
• M.S. Exercise Science.; B.S. Kinesiology.
• Authorized Pilates Instructor Trainer for Balanced Body
• Certified Pilates Instructor: PMA (original program 500 hrs PMI)
• Registered Yoga Teacher ERYTA. 200 hours with kripalu and over 300 with other traditions.
• Intensive studies with Nora St. John, Marie Jose Blum, Jillian Hessel, Doug Keller & David Swenson.
• Thai Yoga Therapist (Lotus Palm)
• Reflexology Trained (54-hour program)
• Professional Reviewer of Exercise Courses for Desert Southwest Fitness
• First Woman to Bike Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride, 2, 500-mile trek from Canada to Mexico
• Competitive Mountain and Road Biker
• Featured in Conde Naste Women's Health & Fitness, Roanoke Times & World News, The Roanoker magazine, Bella, Business Valley Magazine

Cancellation Policies:

• A client who schedules a session and does not attend forfeits that session.
• Private Cancellation Policy: A client must cancel with at least 24 hours notice via email or the session will be charged full price. Monday appointments must be cancelled Friday by 5:00p.m.
  
• Duet Cancellation Policy: If a duet partner cancels 24 hours before an appointment, the other client may keep that time by purchasing a private session, or is responsible for finding another partner for the duet session, or the partner may early cancel. Duet partners should exchange contact information in order to communicate if one or the other is cancelling.

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Enjoy Better Posture, Strength, Balance & Flexibility.
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I sure have enjoyed the classes! I feel good and energized after class. Erin, you are a great teacher and fantastic encourager. J. D., Pilates student.

What Erin's been up to lately:

While fighting tick disease, the demands Erin could put on her body changed. Although she still bikes and does various other outdoor activities, she has pursued her interest in firearms and found Singe Action Shooting Society (SASS). She participates in numerous Cowboy Action Shooting Competitions where she is known for her "clean" shooting (hits everything she shoots at). Most recently she placed 2nd in cowgirl division at the Virginia state match, and is gearing up for more matches this fall.
She also shoots in International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) competitions where she focuses on using a firearm in real life self defense scenarios.
Erin credits her pilates practice for providing her with the core strength and balance she needs to effectively engage competition targets.

Erin's Story

The first time I heard of pilates I was working as an Exercise Supervisor at the Greenbrier Resort in WV. I read about this alignment-oriented exercise called Pilates that I didn't even know how to pronounce correctly. I had a good feeling to learn more. Since I'd recently completed a Master's Degree program where I worked as a Graduate Teaching assistant, taught classes at the gym & senior center, & cleaned houses to pay for schooling, I barely had any funds to spend on anything outside of the basics. Still, I booked a flight to CA (back then it was CA or NY) to train with 2nd generation Master Jillian Hessel and started my pilates journey in 1997, and the journey to follow my gut. People around me thought I was crazy and cautioned me that I was wasting time and money to follow a fad, a little known exercise trend. I loved it and slowly continued my education of pilates and yoga training mixed with biking cross-country a couple of times and backpacking in the mountains out West. I immediately felt the benefits of the postural exercises to complement the long hours bent over my handlebars during long bike rides. Later the equipment training became available in Virginia and I traveled to Charlottesville for a year to complete the comprehensive training. As I practiced the pilates and yoga, I noticed my normally bulky build (I was a stocky 160 pounds on my 5' 7" frame) transformed to a leaner, more graceful flowing body. My tight hips and inner knee discomfort that wouldn't allow me to squat in my early twenties went away and I can still squat effortlessly although in my forties now. While racing competitively, I contracted the Flu for the first time in my life, and it resulted in an idiopathic asthma for a year. *Nine years late, when I was rebitten by a tick, I learned that my odd symptoms were were Babesia, a tick disease that causes air hunger, and borrelia. Where I used to be able to climb a long mountain at a mid-180's bpm heart rate on a weekly basis, I found myself wheezing & struggling to breath just going up stairs. I used the pilates and yoga breath to calm my mind during those scary episodes of not being able to breath and to send the breath to the lower part of my diaphragm rather than the short and shallow, higher chest breaths that only seemed to exacerbate my restricted breathing. While trying to remedy my new lung situation, my pulmonary doctor discovered on X-Ray that my upper spine curved excessively inward thereby reducing my lung capacity 15-25%, just by my inherent structure. He said that whatever I'd been doing (yoga & pilates breathing exercises and bike training) had helped me max out every other physiological function since I should have never been strong.
Happy to spread the love of pilates and yoga, I worked with a few clients in my small home studio and traveled to people's homes and businesses all over Roanoke for years. I began noticing how clients enjoyed the passive stretching and relief of muscular tension, and added the Thai Yoga Therapy to better serve. I later became a Master Instructor to certify and instruct more authentic pilates teachers in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Now we have many trainers at EmPower to train you, teach you, and help you reach your goals. We know you are busy and want a safe strengthening, lengthening, and calming workout. You'll look and feel younger as you move more gracefully and your improving posture keeps you standing upright. When the body, mind, and breath share that strength and lightness, you feel and look more radiant, and others sense it. We love it when we hear how a spouse or children encourage our clients to keep coming because of the more peaceful YOU they receive after you've work with us. For all you do, You deserve an hour of strengthening, flexibility, and peace. We would be honored to serve you. Join EmPower now to start reclaiming your inner beautiful, strong, peaceful self!

Borrelia/LYME/ Tick Disease Help
I have Lyme (Borrelia) disease and suffer from the corresponding co-infections babesia, bartonella, and ehrlichia. Lyme is the most misdiagnosed disease in America. Lyme testing is only 65 percent sensitive in the normal population and less than 50% during the acute symptoms, and even less than that once you are on doxycycline. The average misdiagnosis in pediatric lymes is 7. Borrelia/Lyme never comes alone, and not all the co-infections are treated with Doxycycline.
Doxy is a suppressive medication in some individuals, so you may need to seek other treatment options. Furthermore, there is no study that proves four weeks eradicates lyme's and co-infections (Embers, et al.) When looking for doctors, make sure that the doctor is ilad.org affiliated, as tick disease is often a clinical diagnosis since testing is so sensitive. Don't wait or rely on standard anti-body test results. Bartonella is a more common infection than Borrelia (For more accurate testing, your doctor should send your blood on a Monday-Wednesday in a lavender top test tube to Igenyx Lab In Palo Alto where they include testing bands 31 and 34. The local labs do not include these bands. and most doctors don't know the meaning of other labs relate to tick disease.
Other markers that you should have tested to help indicate borrelia and co-infections include: CD 57 (a white cell that decreases with borrelia (Stricker, R.)), VEGF, TNF-Alpha, Interleukin 1B, Interleukin 6, ECP, MSH, white cell count, the presence of EBV, CMV, mycoplasma, mycoplasma pneumonia, and chlamydia.
You & your doctor should know that low WBC is indicative of lymes, that's a fever over 100 is lymes plus ehrlichia and/or babesia, that a low platelets is indicative of tick disease, that swollen lymph nodes and liver can indicate lymes, that a fever over 100 often indicates ehrlichia and/or babesia. I recommend reading Dr. James Schaller's Bartonella (more common than lymes) and babesia books to learn more about these common deadly and/or life altering co-infections. Other doctors who understand the complexity of tick testing include Dr Katherine Harbor in Lexington, Dr. Talty in Salem, Dr. Jemsek (specialty clinic, Dr Kenneth Singleton in MD, and dr Zhang in NY. Call many ILAD-associated lyme doctors to get an appointment since there is a waitlist.
WHAT TO DO:
Save the tick & have it tested
log Symptoms
Know your co-infections
take photos of any dermatological changes with a reference item like a quarter
note the severity of the symptom with a 1-10 scale

OTHER LABS you should test for tick disease:
CD-57
VEGF: high bartonella, but very low in the presence of babesia
TNF-alpha RESOURCES
DR James Schaller BARTONELLA and Babesia ; Updates in Babesia 2009
Checklists for Bartonella, Babesia, & Lyme Disease, 2012 (*excellent list of possible symptoms per body system for each co-infection.)
ILAD.ORG pages 25 and 26 of treatment guidelines is how I correctly self diagnosed babesia despite
Under our Skin documentary (you tube or DVD at library for free check-out)
Tick Borne Alliance: tbdalliance.org