Sticky Notes

Starting from Scratch: Building a Pilates Business (Ep. 1)

• Honeycomb Studios • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Ever wondered what it's actually like to build a fitness business from the ground up? Meet Rosie and Leila, two Classical Pilates instructors who crossed paths at a London studio and discovered a shared vision that was too powerful to ignore.

In this first episode, we pull back the curtain on our backgrounds and the serendipitous journeys that brought us together. Despite coming from opposite corners of the world—Leila from Saudi Arabia with Lebanese roots, and Rosie from Michigan with British citizenship—we both landed in London during the pandemic in 2020. The universe wasn't subtle with its synchronicity.

Under our umbrella company, Honeycomb & Co Collective, we're creating Hex: An innovative approach to fitness that honours classical Pilates while pairing it with HIIT training, and Honeycomb Studios: A global community for students and teachers of Classical Pilates. The name "Honeycomb" stems from Rosie's childhood affinity for bumblebees, while "Hex" emerged organically from our conversations—later discovering the bee holds special significance for Leila as well, adding another layer of meaning to our partnership.

This podcast—Sticky Notes—is our real-time chronicle of building something from nothing. We're relatively new teachers stepping into entrepreneurship, balancing Rosie's big-picture dreaming with Leila's pragmatic planning. We're challenging fitness industry norms, particularly the narrow concept of a "Pilates body," and creating spaces where everyone feels welcome regardless of how they look.

Join us weekly as we document every decision, meeting, and milestone. Whether you're interested in Pilates, entrepreneurship, or simply enjoy witnessing the unfiltered journey of two women betting on themselves and their vision—we're so excited to take you along for the ride!

Leila:

Three, two, one Episode, one Series, one Season one, whatever it's going to end up being. All the ones, all the ones. That's an angel number One, one, one, one, one one.

Rose:

Yeah, I don't know what it means, but it's true.

Leila:

Probably each angel number has a meaning

Rose:

, yeah, it's a good sign for something. Also, I took a nap today and I didn't set an alarm

Leila:

.

Rose:

And I woke up and I looked at my phone and it was 11.11. And I literally smiled Okay, here we go, we're doing this

Leila:

. I was walking by a house with a friend yesterday and it was 11.11 and we're like I'll make a wish and I was like should we just start doing laps of this exact house?

Rose:

Yeah, and just keep doing 11.11.

Leila:

Manifest all the good things. Yeah, run them back.

Rose:

Manifest all the good things. Yeah, all right.

Leila:

This is our Sticky Notes podcast, in alignment with our other business that we're doing, businesses, businesses that we're doing. Should we just introduce ourselves?

Rose:

first yeah.

Leila:

That can be our thing Go ahead. I'm Rose. Side note do we think our voices sound really similar? I?

Rose:

think they do sound a bit similar, right.

Leila:

I wonder if people might struggle to know who's speaking.

Rose:

They might but at least it's only two of us.

Leila:

Yeah, because the problem is the whole thing where I think I mimic people, that's the third culture thing or weird accent thing when I believe I mimic, so I might just start sounding like Well, the video will help too. Then that's a good reason to watch. If you're listening, maybe you should watch if you can't tell who we are.

Rose:

Yeah, I also didn't know. I go by Rose and Rosie. Yeah, in my life it's like 50-50. But I feel like I actually prefer Rosie Really.

Rose:

But you don't know me as Rosie, so that probably feels weird.

Leila:

Because I remember hearing Tristan refer to you as Rosie and I was like, oh, I don't know if that is just like nickname for you, in terms of like endearment, like he is your husband.

Rose:

He calls you Rosie. I mean my legal name is.

Leila:

Rose, I imagine, like he is your husband, he calls you rosie, I mean my legal name is rose, I imagine, but people call me rosie, so I had all your rosie. I had a rose. I for a minute was. I mean, either one is fine but.

Leila:

I might I kind of like having the pilates thing being rosie. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, so I might introduce myself as that yeah, rosie and leila, leila and rosie. It's cute. I mean my, I have like a family nickname and that no one but my family uses, but they call me lulu, which is which is pearl, and that's so cute too but it's almost a thing.

Leila:

There's some members of my family where I've never heard them call me leila, and there's I have cousins who thought I, my birth name was leila or lulu because they've never heard here leila and there's some yeah where, if they say they and I, I'm like what has happened?

Rose:

like why are you? Why are you calling me yeah?

Leila:

um, I have a pretty even split in my life, but I actually feel like I don't know some people might get upset if I say this. Probably people I know aren't watching this, maybe I don't know, but he can code the closest people to me call me Rosie, okay, cool. So I kind of want that to be the persona that you are not personal, yeah it's. It's like an intimate experience you know anyway, all right, that's Rosie.

Leila:

I'm Rosie and I'm Layla whoa whoa, and we met in London, which is a third location space for both of us. Do you want to talk about?

Rose:

where you are we can. A little brief history of Layla, how we got to London kind of how you got to London, I got to London and then I can say how I got to London and then we'll say how we met.

Leila:

Yeah, yeah, cool. Well, I leila, as we said, I was born and raised in jeddah in saudi arabia. I'm lebanese, originally in lebanese. I have a lebanese nationality I never really know how to say it, but I was born and raised there, hence the americanized international school accent which, if you've never met an international kid before I, sound american to you, but if you've met an international kid I thought she was american.

Rose:

When I met her I was like whoa, where are you? What's it? Yeah?

Leila:

I've had so many american flags like so when are you coming back home? When I was like I don't think we have.

Rose:

Yeah, we're not understanding.

Leila:

Yeah yeah, um. So once I think you meet one international kid, you start to pick it up because it sounds American at first, but then the more internationals you meet, you realize that we just sound a little bit off. Yes, and then.

Rose:

I do notice that about you now I'm like she doesn't sound American Cause I was in a British international school as well.

Leila:

So then there are some things and some terms that I would say and spell in the British way over the American, which people then think I'm canadian, but also the accent that you have, I think, is an american word to place it. It would probably be. Maybe it's a pretty neutral one I feel like I'm too far in it to actually know what they would think, but I've gone into the midwestern accent, which is very, I've either gone to california or the states that sort of border canada, I can't remember which ones I've been given, michigan's like that.

Leila:

So the West, but yeah, california, I could totally see Okay fair. There's worse places to be.

Rose:

Oh 100%.

Leila:

I didn't. I was really shocked in the beginning. I was like I feel like I don't give up California girl, but I guess they come in all, yeah, I guess they come in all like shape sizes and colors and all that. So yeah, yeah, but yeah so. Was born, raised in the middle east, picked up the international school accent. Uh. Came over to london five years ago almost now in covid five years.

Rose:

Yeah, it's five years. I also came in 2020 yeah, for during covid that is so weird.

Leila:

I didn't know that I came over for uni, graduated from ucl, uh, with a degree in human geography, which is being put to great was that your university degree?

Leila:

yeah, like undergraduate as we would call it yeah. Yeah, so it's a bachelor's in human geography with an original aim to go into like ngo work and politics, because I was super interesting so it was so cool. I just got burnt out. But I always get everyone thinks when I did because, because I say I did geography and they always think it's the physical side. They're always either asking about volcanoes, continents, or they start topography.

Leila:

Or they start quizzing me on capitals and countries and flags. It's happened one too many times where I just don't know it's not quite it. I don't have that knowledge.

Leila:

You have such important knowledge, though the ongoing joke in the friend group is I just should not be trusted when anything geographical, as it pertains to maps and countries, so but yeah. So then when I graduated or towards the end of my degree, I was getting burnt out with the politics of human geography and just the state of the world and I felt quite useless fair enough, just, and I mean to be fair.

Leila:

Also my a lot of my professors were on strike for valid reasons, but it was very tough to be in education when they kept going on strike, yeah, and I was like I don't think I can do a whole master's degree of this as well. Um, and I had started up Pilates and it was doing so much for me just mentally more than even physically, and the way I felt, or maybe the unhealthy codependency I had with my Pilates instructors I was like I would like to be able to give that to someone else, like that joy of like the one hour a week where my brain would turn off and I was attending more Pilates classes than I was lectures and I was like maybe this is a sign we go down the Pilates route. So, yeah, I signed up for a course. I did my full comprehensive classical training with Equinox, finished that up a year ago now Started working at Pi and that was where I met Rosie, which is crazy. I didn't realize she would come in 2020 when I also came here. Who?

Rose:

knew Someone say that I was about to say that feels serendipitous.

Leila:

Um, yeah, is that? Is that everything you want? I think so, and that's the basis of how I got to London, at least. I mean my mom sort of grew up coming to London quite a bit yeah, it's gonna ask, is there?

Leila:

a connection. Is there a reason why you came to my grandfather, came for work a lot, um, and so then when? Because there was also then like things politically in Lebanon. So there was a point when my mom was like in a levels where they she needed to be sent um abroad. She couldn't be in Saudi or in Lebanon, so they sent her to boarding school for a levels, and so she did that for her a levels and then uni.

Leila:

So I was kind of like, well, I want to do whatever she did. So I wanted to come here for uni. But then we had that home base here where I came in for a couple summers, or quite a few summers, um, so it felt it was close to home in terms of like the flight time was only seven hours also, so it wasn't like I had to go all the way to the states or like Canada, yeah, um, and then just logistically, like it cut the expense of having to pay for rent by just like being able to stay in a family house totally fair, so like logistically it worked out not cheap, no.

Leila:

But then also I I had a love, a bit of an affinity for london, because I had grown up coming to it and it did feel like home, um so yeah, perfect that's how I got to london and how I got to pie. How did you get to pie? I moved here also in 2020 for a master's at King's in bioethics. Stop, we're their rivals, kind of. Yeah, yeah, they are actually. And it was weird because the whole thing was basically online and there were lots of strikes going on to your point.

Leila:

And so I just, weirdly, similar to you, I loved what I was learning. I thought it was super interesting and I studied philosophy in my undergrad, so it was thinking that I liked, but by the end I just post dissertation. It's like I need a break from school. And then around that time I had been doing Pilatesates my whole life, unbeknownst to me that it was classical. I just did it with my mom, yeah, at a studio in my hometown in michigan, which is where I'm from. I was actually born in the uk. I was a backtrack I was born in southampton.

Leila:

So that was why I came back to the uk, because I have citizenship here only in the states. I moved to the states when I was six okay, so basically yes, but my dad is from London so I had kind of an affinity for that reason. He did, he went to all of his schooling here and he did medical school here and then he moved to the states. I mean, he went to the states and basically brought my mom back here, they had all their kids here and then they went back when I was

Leila:

six. So my reasoning for coming here was basically like, I have citizenship, let me use it, yeah, thinking it would just be. For two years when I moved, I was trying to find a pilates studio and Pilates is very unregulated. So I kept going to all these places which were just doing contemporary, like nothing wrong with it. But I was like, well, this isn't what I'm used to, I'm not recognizing this.

Leila:

At that point, were you then aware that this is a different concept to what I've been doing? Like you were starting to be able to separate classical and contemporary, and I figured out that that was why. Because I did some research into it and realized, okay, I'm looking for classical bodies. And then I asked a few people who were connected to my studio in Michigan, where I'm from, and PI came up. I started going there, as well as exhale, which is another classical studio in London, and was a client for a long time. And then now I'm still in the midst of doing the classical full comprehensive training there. But I got very integrated with yeah, with pie, not with. Shout out, holly. You did a shout out to Holly who runs PI, pie, have both names go, I I think I can't remember if I asked her once she's like whatever yeah, um but yeah, pi, pie, whatever I feel like I call it PI usually.

Leila:

But pie is a studio in Battersea and the first time I met Layla so I had been a client there, and then I did my mat training first and then Holly you were my body for my that's what I was going to say.

Leila:

This is literally how we met is Holly kind of tapped me on the shoulder literally and said I need some admin help. Are you interested? And I said yes, because I just wasn't sure what I was doing with my life and I was fine with that, but like some extra money, sure. And I ended up being like very heavily involved in the behind the scenes of the studio and so then we had a different person also doing admin at that time, who's no longer doing admin, but I remember he said to me like a suture monitor yeah we have a new potential teacher coming in.

Leila:

I think you were the first person to come in who had trained at Equinox. Like you were the first. You were the start of that like flow, I do think. So I don't want to credit how did you reach out, like think, to teach there? Had you just heard of it? I, when I was doing my teacher training we, so we were only doing privates, obviously, with whoever your teacher trainer was that you chose to train with um, and then I was training like privately as in, just on my own personal practice, but I missed going to group classes because I had obviously only done group classes before starting off my certification and I I love the environment of a group class. I think there's pros and cons to privates and groups, but I missed just like going to a class and I wanted to hear different teachers teach me because I just got so used to the instructor I was always training with and her cues and she also knows how to talk to me and train me and I obviously respond.

Leila:

Everyone responds differently to different cues, so I asked um Laura, who is my what I would consider almost like a mentor at. Equinox. And then Christos um, the team at Equinox in Kensington, who where they would recommend for me to train because I had only just discovered classical a couple months before that and I was like, so where do I go to do a classical class?

Leila:

and then they listed Pi AI and uh exhale. But at the time I don't think exhale had their Marlboro location and Battersea was like Pi was only like about half an hour from my place and I was like, okay, I'll just go there. They recommended Max to me.

Rose:

And then I remember who it was.

Leila:

Yeah, by the way. I remember they just gave me a bunch of names because you know, I mean you know the class and, as we will probably go to explain, the classical world is so small yeah, in london and even just worldwide everyone is really interconnected yeah, because you sort of all train from the same people and in the same circles.

Leila:

Yeah, so they recommended pi to me. Um, so we got holly had trained under amana and I was like, all right, I'll go to a class there. And then I just went and I did a class, and I think the first class I did was I did one of nasia's classes in a long yeah, months before I even went to interview for them.

Leila:

Yeah, but so then, when I was nearing the end of uh qualifying to sit in my like final exam and was just ready to start teaching, I was like right, I could do with some money. So I was like, let me. I wasn't even going to email Pi because I know that Pi have their own teacher training program.

Leila:

And I was talking to Laura and I was like, is there even a point? I was like why would they take me over someone just from in-house, yeah, and she's like no email, like you never know what's going to happen. So I kind of credited to her or owe it to her a little bit, because she was email, and then I just found the contact email, I think from the website, but what?

Leila:

happened was yeah, but what happened was I really lucked out because I just sent over my email. I gave a bit of a bio in my email and my cv, but at the time the email I don't want to say the actual email, obviously for privacy reasons, but there is a oh, not the conservatory, it's mine.

Rose:

So oh yeah, yes, the email I was using in my cv.

Leila:

There is basically a bit of a confusion between one of the l's either being an l or a one. Okay, it's a different email to the one I now use.

Rose:

I'll just tell you.

Leila:

So the old one was like, so a lot of people couldn't tell if it was ll or il or one one yeah.

Leila:

So I had that email and it just was not, for whatever reason, on the CV it just like wasn't showing. So the old studio manager reached out to me on WhatsApp because I had my number on my CV as well, and he reached out to say hey, listen, like I've been trying to email you back and schedule you in, but I can't. It's like the emails are pinging back. So I really credit, I owe it to him actually, you do, yeah, he did that. He took that extra step and made the extra effort to email to send me a message through his app.

Leila:

I don't know how many other people would have done. That's very yeah, let's just acknowledge our mic, because we only have one right now and it's just right in the middle, yeah, on our pillow. So, yeah, I owe a lot to him as well for making that extra, taking that extra step. And then he messaged to ask me to come in, and then when I came in, Rose.

Rose:

I was my body.

Leila:

So he told me we have this teacher coming in. Would you, you know, just do an hour with her to see? I think it it wasn't like to judge, but it was just to make sure there wasn't anything glaringly wrong, which I think is a good idea, definitely. And then I did the session with you and I loved it. I thought you were so sweet and I remember thinking we're american and then learning that you weren't, and then you started working there and it was brought forth the wave of equinox employees you did, and now there's been a steady flow because they clearly have excellent training and very cool.

Leila:

Not that they all owe me their jobs, but holly did tell me once she's like we were really happy with you and you got good feedback, so we're trusting the equinox employees and she really has. She's stuck to that. Yeah, she's really brought a lot of them in and we should have a whole episode about pie, because a lot of them and we should have a whole episode about pie because that is such a, I think, unique space to grow as a teacher, um, so we don't have to get into it too much now.

Leila:

But then what happened with this connection was there was a period of time where holly, who runs the studio and runs the training program, was hosting, like, not workshops but monthly meetups of the newish teachers to just where you're going, but yes, she was yeah, yeah, to talk about we haven't had a meeting in I know it hasn't happened in a while.

Leila:

Yeah, but there were a few we had like two or three and then it just it's very there was one that was supposed to be scheduled and I just think no one could show up for it. Yeah, just no longer. But it were a few, we had like two or three and then it just it's very.

Rose:

There was one that was supposed to be scheduled and I just think no one could show up for it.

Leila:

Yeah, just no longer. But it was a great idea because it was like people and I was super, super new to teaching I'm still very new to teaching, but it was, you know us basically coming in and saying like let's go over how to deal with this type of issue that, yeah, someone's running up against or whatever it might be. It was kind of open floor and I remember one time we were just going around and checking in and Layla said I, yeah, just went home. It was around.

Rose:

I don't know where it was New Year's. Yeah, I went back to Jeddah.

Leila:

yeah, for the first time in about five years since I had graduated high school, because my parents moved to Riyadh, whichdah for the first time in about five years since I had graduated high school, because my parents moved to Riyadh, which is in the eastern province. So I hadn't been home, because I consider Jeddah, I think, home, beirut is home and Lebanon is home, but that's where I spent 18 years of my life.

Rose:

So it's like a home in a different way? Yes, definitely.

Leila:

One of the many places I'm able to call home? Yeah, and yes, definitely One of the many places I'm able to call home. Yeah, and I remember I was doing a bit of unofficial scouting of just what's the Pilates world going on here, what exists, what are the studios like? Now that I had known about the classical, where is the classical? I remember you said market research was the word and I remember just clocking it because I think in this space I've kind of noticed and there's so many ways you can group people, but I've definitely noticed, even at Pi, there's people who want to come in and teach and cash that check and that's what they want to do. And then there's people who want to like evolve it more in some way and there's judgment either way, but it's there's people who are teaching and then there's people who want to either teach teachers, as some of the instructors in our studio are now doing.

Leila:

There's some people who are starting their own thing and I just had a feeling in the back of my mind for a long time I would want to do my own thing and then eventually I remembered it and I was kind of starting. We'll talk about this in the full episode, but I was building my own thing. I was like who? I need to do this with someone. It's so much more fun and then remembered and or was it tristan?

Rose:

that was like oh yeah, tristan was like what about, don't?

Leila:

let me you're talking, talking to me about. That's what tristan told me. We had a dinner that was like a group pie dinner, but it was all the teachers, us too with, with tristan rosie's husband. Yes, yeah, yeah, in the corner and we were just having our own little in our own little.

Rose:

Yeah, we were in our own world.

Leila:

He was like I love he's like. I've been hearing about this so long Like talk to someone else about it, yeah, in the most loving way. Cause he's a vet, which is obviously so different from Pilates. Yeah, and I just think it's more fun to do things A it's less scary and P it's more fun to do things with someone else 100% to do things with someone 100%, and I was like, great, let's do it.

Leila:

and then I remember I sent you I don't know if it was a voice message or a text both there was a voice message and like a sure it was like too much and you immediately were like, yes, yes. So now, because I remember it was, I love her. It was like either the Monday or the Tuesday. Right after I ran a high rocks, I raced in the high yes, she did, she crushed it.

Leila:

Thank you, she's an athlete mixed doubles with my cousin, so the weights were really tough, very cool. But I'll never forget, because the Saturday of that weekend that, like bank holiday weekend, was international Pilates days, and then the Sunday was the day I raced high rocks and I remember I felt that that weekend sort of just summarized everything for like the two biggest facets or parts of my life, which was the Pilates on the Saturday and like that class, like getting to post about how much I loved the classical world, yeah, and getting to do the high rocks race on Sunday, which if anyone hasn't done a high rocks, it's just, it's a hybrid sounds really scary it's a functional fitness sort of race.

Leila:

It's running mixed with functional fitness like ergs and things like that pushing so but yeah very different to pilates, but I love both so equally and they've both done so much for me and for my life, um, and so I really felt like, wow, the weekend also was like just a mixture of everything I loved. And then you messaged me on either the monday or the tuesday because it was right after that, um, with your idea of I guess we haven't even said it officially, but a way to combine those two things in a new, through a new lens, like rather than just looking at what is like now. I think a lot of people are doing like a Pilates sculpt, which is like, yeah, bringing weights and bringing fit or bringing weights into pilates are yeah, kind of, yeah, I think it's just like I.

Leila:

I like the classes that refer to it as as a sculpt, because I think that is what you're what they're aiming for the goal is yeah, that's kind of how it's being marketed, but they all just call it pilates something yeah, it's not really pilates or just a whole other conversation.

Leila:

Yeah, but the frustrating thing with it being unregulated which you were saying before is that people don't know what they're signing up for, so it's like some classes are just selling them the wrong thing, which then means when they come to us wanting that and you don't deliver that it's frustrating for both ends like I get.

Leila:

If you want to do a sculpt class, that is more than fine and both can exist. But I just wish universally we were labeling things and naming them a bit differently so that you could get what you wanted almost and like have signed up for yeah, but yeah, so rosie sends me the paragraph idea or, just like you, sort of spitballing. I was still in the spitballing phase, yeah, and that's how we got to where we are now yeah, so that's kind of our intro.

Leila:

Yeah, should we do just a metaphorical cut intro and then into? I think that's a good like about us because that's something that can be pinned like at the top of definitely wow yeah, like hello, this is how we got to it. Okay, cool and now, what is this? Podcast? Deep dive, what are we even doing?

Rose:

here. What's the purpose?

Leila:

sticky notes. I don't even know if we said that in the first one, I guess we did welcome to oh my god, we should sticky notes, should we? What do we don't want? Do we want like not? An intro, but like, but like a thing we say at the beginning yeah, welcome to sticky welcome back, welcome back the sticky notes, or welcome welcome or welcome back, welcome or welcome back.

Leila:

To put a pin on it, we should we should probably run we can workshop it yeah the sticky notes, and I think it would be nice to say something on a sticky note and we'll deal with that. Whoever you are, wherever you are, welcome. By the time we record next week, we'll hopefully earn that, we'll have something yeah, dialed in, but this goes back to to the purpose of this whole thing anyway, which is we are starting many businesses under this umbrella company called Honeycomb Co, collective and Sticky Notes Podcast Initially.

Leila:

We'll be documenting that process because the process of what it even is, what we're doing, why we're doing it, who we are um, what the businesses are, what the businesses are, and then it will also evolve into us. You know, talking to other classical teachers, interviewing people, talking more about everything the wealth. Yes the health and wellness industry. Health as well, health as well, all of it, and initially it's going to be what we're even doing and why we're even doing it, so I don't even know where to start with that.

Leila:

Should I say the background of what I was thinking first Talk about how you what you initially came up with or not what I was thinking, but your original plan, and then we can talk about how I sort of decided or came in and just threw a ball in it.

Rose:

A whole exciting fun, wonderful, not wrench but like kind of another layer to it.

Leila:

With all these other paths I've tried to take, I feel like I always have gotten to the point of like man, I just want to be doing my own thing, like I just want. I feel like I have a some kind of creative entrepreneurial undertone that I'm now allowing to come through, but it was always kind of there, um, which I do think we can touch on it more. I do think in our duo you do bring that entrepreneurial spirit a bit more. I think I ground us more you totally ground us.

Leila:

Layla's like what's the to-do list? And I'm like in 30 years we can have this, this and this yeah, but. I think I needed someone to give me that, because when you reached out to me and groped me into your idea, I think you me the not permission to dream of something bigger, but I, the hope, was always something of my own but I think you were very much. No, we can do something now.

Rose:

We can do something now.

Leila:

Brought it to the present day, Whereas in my mind it was just like one day down the line. I'll deal with it then, so I think you're always pushed in a very good way. You are being like let, what's? How can we push this forward? And I'm like, okay, so what's step one? Yeah, what's that?

Rose:

What's the finances? Can we meet next?

Leila:

week and discuss things, and I do think we balance each other out well in that sense, definitely.

Rose:

And I know, because I would have never described myself as entrepreneurial.

Leila:

In that way, and I do think we ground each other and balance. You need both but yes, definitely been working. So I, before I started my training to be a teacher at Pi, I had started a different one in the US and which was phenomenal. It's through this thing called the Rebel Pilates Collective and it's very classical, great program. But I just was not based in the U? S. I wanted to do it Cause I knew the people. It was connected to my studio at home.

Leila:

So you started it when you were here, yeah, and I was like I'll just go back and forth for cause the modules are pretty spread out Like I'll go back and forth, I'll visit my family when I'm doing it anyway. And then it just wasn't. It wasn't working. It wasn't feasible financially to fly back to Michigan all the time. It wasn't working. It wasn't feasible financially to fly back to Michigan all the time, um, but they had this really cool virtual online network for the apprentices and I used it to find PI in part and other classical studios, um, so it was just a cool.

Leila:

I and I had it in the back of my mind like, okay, that was really awesome that that existed for that group of people. And then when I was working at PI doing admin, pie, whatever both names work doing admin I would get so many emails from people who were apprentices in Australia, in Japan, in States, or people who were in the classical space and had clearly found Pi through, you know, googling classical studios or whatever. And I've always had this thought of how fun would it be to be able to connect them in some way. And then I started thinking like that could be bigger. I would love to have a virtual space. I love to travel Like I want to have that freedom and I just thought starting off as a virtual Pilates space would be cool. It was all pretty loose and I also think and thought having a physical location at some point would be really cool. I wanted to do something of my own.

Leila:

And then I so you're like maybe one day we could have a person right Like I just think there was.

Leila:

I want to have my own Pilates thing. Honeycomb Studios was the initial idea name. It went through a few different renditions but that's been a really like cool thing too for me, because that idea comes from when I was a kid. I would dress up like a bumblebee and I was obsessed with like being a bee, and now my close family and some of our really close family friends will call me the bee or bumble or something.

Leila:

It's been a theme in my life and I really like the concept of a honeycomb being this strong natural structure and then the fact that Pilates is such a strong, it's such a source of strength, but it also has kind of a softness to it and an elegance to it at times. Not necessarily, but I think also what you were saying about building a community. We haven't even discussed this personally, but you mentioned something I don't know if it was on the podcast or when we were talking beforehand about wanting to build a community and all I could think of was like a hive and like the idea, and everything keeps coming back to this like honeycomb, bumblebee, and I was just thinking of like the buzz of like a hive around and the community that exists, and you can build and build and build, like it's just a cool idea.

Leila:

And then I had I reached out to these two amazing women who are helping us, nikki and Kate, doing like branding and website design, and they helped me design a Honeycomb Studios logo, which is kind of. I was in the final stages of that when I reached out to you. And then, well, first of all, will you talk a little bit about what you told me, the significance of like because this was just a real.

Leila:

I remember telling you the name and being like is she gonna hate this name? There's, so there's two parts of it, so rose turns to me.

Rose:

Rosie, sorry yeah, no, either one either one, um, either one, totally fine.

Leila:

Um, you come to me and you were, as she was describing the honeycomb. What got her excited? And also, I think, the work you did with the branding team, because they were explaining about how subconsciously the shape of a honeycomb and our knowledge of it in nature being a structural object or having structure, inspires a feeling of support and company.

Rose:

I can't remember what you were explaining exactly.

Leila:

but she turns to me and goes yeah, so, like the hexagonal shape of a honeycomb. And then she continued to speak but all I heard in my head was hex, and I just those three letters, hex. It just got in my head and as we, I think, go on to explain the idea of where we bring Hex into it, I just really liked the name.

Leila:

Yes, it's very sharp and sweet, and I love the Honeycomb Studios and where we were going with it originally. But I think, very quickly in our first conversation, things were shifting away from your initial plan, or just having your initial plan, and I think we both were aware that we were probably going to need some different names. Yeah, I think, yeah. So hex came to me and I was like, dear god, I hope she loves this name and I loved it, and so that worked out. Wait, will you also talk about, though, what you, when I had messaged me about what your mom said?

Rose:

yes, yeah, yeah.

Leila:

So then, we hex comes from that. And then I emailed my face. I got on a call. No, so I based on my parents and I it was a few days after our call, because I sort of had to let everything settle with me and just like think not think things through but like process, process of like, okay, crazy. No, but it was also. It wasn't even that. It was like in the best way. I was like my life is about to change or like yeah not change, but I think it was.

Leila:

This marks a big shift in my future, of the in my career and what you said to me sorry to interrupt, say what could I what she said to me which I really loved and have been telling people about, because it's true for me too is it is quite challenging to be in an industry or career where there isn't a ladder to follow.

Leila:

There's not like the promotion that everyone who's at your level will get if they do X, y and Z steps. So for both of us, I think having something that we want to build is so cool, because we both have wanted to build a career around this skill and world that we love and are a part of. And so you said to me like this is really cool because I've been trying to figure out how to, yeah, yeah, career build. There's been almost a year of teaching and I've just started to look at the career or just like think, looking forward, where I want to take it whether I want to go down the education route and looking to be a teacher trainer, or whether I want to build a studio because it's like as long as someone he was explaining there's either.

Leila:

You either go down the management route, which is kind of what we're eventually getting into in the terms of building your own studio and or managing people, or, alternatively, you go down the education route, which I wasn't really ever that no, I mean never say never.

Rose:

Yeah, never say never, but yeah and I was.

Leila:

it's not that I was also getting burnt out with teaching, but I and I would love to always be teaching to an extent, whether it be privates, groups, whatever it may be. But I was just looking for a fulfillment from something else, and this has already started to give me that fulfillment.

Rose:

So once I sort of I'm loving it, yeah, to give me that fulfillment.

Leila:

So once I sort of I'm loving it and once I sort of and it gives me the same excitement that I felt in the first weeks and months of the teacher training program. Not that I'm ready to not be a Pilates instructor anymore, but I was sort of looking for something else, whether or not I continue to teach TBD. But so then I, once everything settled and I was like, okay, I think it was a big shift where I was like, okay, my life is actually going to change and, hopefully, where this is a success which I'll manifest and say it will be, that is a whole future for myself. That I never really imagined Because, like I was saying, that was down the line, Someone else would have fun like that.

Leila:

It's like, oh, I'll deal with it at a later date where it's like now coming so much earlier and also being relatively new teachers, that was a big hang up for me. Is I and I remember kind of trying to figure out, like how long was Holly a teacher before she opened?

Rose:

a studio.

Leila:

And that's why we're doing this podcast, because we at least I have not been much of a witness to people who are still in the building stages and we have all the skills that we need to to do something like this, and we're learning so much along the way already, so to just go into it and produce something like this, even that's super honest about where we're at, yeah, I think is great, because we're not. I didn't want to wait to do this until I have 30 years of experience, yeah, and then open up a studio and that's my whole like ethos is that I've been doing this for 30 years and look how experienced I am.

Leila:

Where I'm at now is I've been teaching since last autumn and, like September, I think october and I have this business idea and that's what I want to be doing.

Leila:

Yeah, and you can build it from wherever you are so so then, once everything's settled, I call my parents and just to catch up and then to sort of word vomit this to them, because I talked with them briefly about the idea of like sort of moving home one day to the middle east and like setting up a studio or like one day wanting to have a studio, but very much all in the vagueness of one day I want to do this. Wouldn't it be cool to have a studio, which I think most people who are in like also the fitness industry, like that's sort of a typical thing that you would think of. So then, when I was explaining everything that we had discussed in our first meeting and how much I believed in honeycomb and in hex and honey, hex, um, and we were talking about how meaningful the honey, what the honeybee is and everything like that my mother turns to, or she had also actually, more importantly, she had been not crocheting, my needle pointing, quilting, quilting quilting, because it was quilting she was quilting her new path.

Leila:

My mother is in in her retirement age, which is not that old. I don't want her to see this and think I'm on her own, but she's been just loving her all her arts and crafts, so she's great at it um, and she'd been working on the. I believe it's probably to represent um, oh, float like a butterfly sing like a bee, and so she was doing a butterfly and a bee, um.

Leila:

And then I was like, oh my god, the bee is so cool. It's like, well, you know, it obviously has a lot of religious significance. Uh, in Islam we are Muslim, or my I am, whatever um. And then so it's so. The bee is mentioned quite frequently throughout. There is a whole sort of verse, um, for titled. The bee, um and the sort of bees are seen as examples of obedience, discipline, service, reflecting a divinely guided system, but also they're diligent team workers and they benefit others. There's a lot of very positive attributes, basically, with their symbols of hard work, both in the community, in the religion.

Leila:

Um just felt symbolic because there was lots of little things where I think you might not necessarily picture our lives to have interconnected the way they are or for there to be so much new crossover, but there just seemed to be so many things that just oh, there's another link that connects us yeah my mom said that I was like how, what? How on earth do we have like another connection?

Rose:

or like yeah sidebar from editing leila here just to add, because we found another connection, like the day after this was recorded, and I really just feel like it needs to be mentioned here my mother's sort of nicknames in childhood was zaina bee Zayna my mom's name and then the it's the bee was because of an Arabic cartoon called Zayna wal Nahla or Zayna al Nahla, which translates to Zayna the bee or Zayna and the bee. I'm not sure I have not seen Zayna and the Nahla or Zayna and the bee, but I remember um, even just like sort of joking or teasing comments being made and referring to my mom as zayna nahla, so my mom the bee another lovely, wonderful connection to the name and the idea behind honeycomb it just was another thing that that's so meaningful meaningful that we have two different, now also connections to the name and what it means to each of us and then together.

Leila:

So it just was so, and my mom was quilting up a bee as we were speaking, so it was just like it felt very fated yeah, I felt like something, cosmically or something, was being aligned in the universe and I felt like, okay, it feels. You ever feel like you're in the right place at the right time.

Leila:

That is exactly how I felt like yeah, I felt like everything was lining up yes, to bring us to london from all, from our different sides of the world, to bring us to london to pie in london as well, and then to yeah to this so yeah, that's how, this, that's where the names all came from and came to be, and so where we're at now maybe can just say this part, and then we can wrap it up.

Leila:

But where we're at now is we have registered this bigger company which is called the Honeycomb and Co Collective. I never, whatever people ask, I never know what our actual legal name is I forget too because it's really just for legal purposes to have something to be registered under.

Rose:

Those are our legal departments.

Leila:

I'm the legal department and you are the organization department, which probably should be a little more on me too, but I'm working on it, um, and then under that and it's still also evolving, but under that we have kind of like the initial idea that I brought to Layla, which is Honeycomb studios which is a very kind of purely classical space and um will encompass quite a few things, but it will be geared toward the classical world and teachers and apprentices, who are hopefully a hopeful tool, a helpful tool, a helpful tool and community to connect, kind of these floating strings that I especially keep seeing in my job at pie, but also that you've mentioned. There's a very kind of small world that's spread out globally and, as the generations go on, classical pilates is, you know, getting diluted and changed, which is fine because that's how time affects things. But um, it would be cool to connect to people. So that's the other piece. And then what leila brought into it, which makes so much sense, if you understand classical pilates which we will talk about at a different point is and then do you want to say, yeah, how is that? So?

Leila:

The hex vision brings hit or combines, not combines. It brings hit workouts or hit strength training, whatever you may look at it to pilates. In a way we want to do differently to the idea of a sculpt class, so it is not that you are combining the moves into one like at the same exact time. We want there to be a clear separation between the two. But I think in our both of our lives, we both do a combination of Pilates and HIIT training.

Leila:

You will find there most of instructors that you train with have some combination of strength training alongside Pilates in their routine. Most people don't. Most Pilates instructors don't just do Pilates right? Um, and historically, like you're just saying, joseph Pilates does have a connection to also that boxing hit world, but so that was something that I think in the last few months where I've really introduced a lot of hit into my daily life, it has done sort of almost magical things for me in my how my body exists nothing aesthetically, just the actual like functionality of how I can move, um, and it was a new way to look at working out a way to combine those two things and also a way for us to have, I think, there are unique view of on Pilates and on workout classes, because I think there are a lot of great workout classes that you can take online and great instructors, and we want to approach it in a different way and our unique usp, our unique selling point, yeah, is that we are taking adding a twist onto it without without changing the actual classical Pilates, because when I again was doing classical Pilates in Michigan and didn't know that I was, there was a class I did, taught by a classical teacher who was also trained as um, like a spin instructor, and it was 25 minutes of spinning and 25 minutes of truly classical mat Pilates, like going through the order as it was designed, and I loved it.

Rose:

And.

Leila:

I have not been able to find. If you find anything that's hit Pilates, it's like you just said we don't want to do, which is really blending them, and you know the goal is that if you have a class with us with this thing we're building, it would be a class, but there is a distinct moment where you switch and do this, you know, and change the tone of what you would know when you were doing pilates and when you were doing hip like we wanted to be, even though it's one class um and two sort of separate sections, rather than jumping between exercises, between the two um, and we also hope that through that we can bring pilates to people who may not have wanted to include it into their uh workout routines.

Leila:

Or to be a little broad, like men, yeah, for instance athletes, people. It is encouraged to be complimentary to so many other things, but there isn't always an easy, you know, for me, especially if I go to do a hit class, like this morning I went and did a boot camp in the park I live near and to then go and like, ride my bike to a classical studio and do another.

Leila:

Yeah, like, time is precious, money is precious. Yeah, that's just not something I have the space for right now. So to be able to effectively get both while still getting all the benefits that you can get out of classical pilates, I think is so important. Yeah, um, yeah, like I think it's. In my personal life we're obviously, because we are also Pilates instructors, we do it a lot more and take a lot more probably privates and sessions than anyone others may. Um, and I, on a friday, I do a private and then I do a hit workout right after I do.

Rose:

I do have that luxury for that, um, which is great, yeah, no, it's, that's the ideal, ideal, and genuinely those.

Leila:

I look forward to that two-hour slot on a friday where I I see laura for an hour and I go to shout out laura, shout out, shout out big time and even my mom, my parents know they're like she'll call us after the two hours.

Leila:

Oh, I look forward to it so much because it just I feel great, I'm like almost buzzing after yeah, and I want to be able to give that feeling to someone, and also people who may be on the other side of things, who are in the Pilates world and have an apprehension or a fear of like either the gym strength training hits, whatever it may be, because it can be a very intimidating space, definitely, especially if you haven't worked out, if you don't have what you consider the ideal body or the idea. But I think there's now an image that we may all support, like through social media, as for our social media has formed. We all have an image of what a pilates person looks like the pilates princess of it all.

Rose:

Where?

Leila:

I mean, pilates was created by a man in his underwear, and that's in the world just to be clear about it. We want to be almost like the antithesis of that. Yeah, like, if you are, you know, look in a certain way, great, how? But, however, we want it to be accessible and also completely non-judgmental, because there is definitely a status quo for how people in this industry look and it's just not really acceptable in my opinion.

Leila:

It doesn't make sense, because people have different bodies yeah, that's like the 0.1 percent of people I think a lot of. I mean, this is a whole other time we're going into, like I don't want to go into it too much, but I mean, yeah, see, when you have people who are promoting it and they're already quite lean through how they eat or how they just genetically are, and then to say that that is through Pilates.

Leila:

There is no Pilates body, everyone is a Pilates body anyone can do Pilates, anyone will benefit from Pilates, yeah, and so hopefully, by bringing those to almost opposing which they're not, but can be seen as opposing concepts we are going to help bridge that and give people the option to do just that so where we're at now is the company's registered.

Leila:

We have part of our branding done. We're working more on the other pieces and the website and things, but we'll have the next trademark, the trademark, all that stuff. The rest of this first series will be about or not necessarily first series, but within this series will be about how we're building it. What's happening like literally what? What does this look like from our perspective?

Leila:

yeah, so even if you don't care about the sort of pilates business. Hopefully it's just an insight into how people create a navigating the ground up yeah, yeah, I mean with also minimal connections in the space. That completely. Yeah, we're still, we're green, we're figuring it out as we go yeah, um, and sticky notes which um was like kind of your, you were drawn to that I was drawn to that.

Leila:

but the idea is that honeycomb, honey, we're, we're building something, building it, having our little notes all over the place in there. We should have had post-it notes for this we should have had little post-it notes. Maybe we can add yeah, so you'll see the live process of us.

Leila:

So it's the idea of like oh, if you were in a week or like just in a week, of us two and like the messages we send each other or the notes that we take out of things to do with the business, what we send each other, or the notes that we take things to do with the business, what meetings we have. Who are we talking to?

Leila:

And you would say and sort of put on a sticky note yeah, A post-it note. The idea is that that's what we would discuss here and almost to get an insight into how we're maybe not making decisions, but how we've come to these decisions. I don't think we'll make live decisions.

Rose:

Yes.

Leila:

We don't want to. They're the only one. Yeah, we also actually never say no. Who knows, maybe we can retroactively talk about it. And then we also hope to have this space be one where we can interview people in the classical world, people in the fitness world, you know, all kinds of explore, all kinds of topics, being like women from very different parts of the world. Yeah, in this space, as teachers and the fitness industry, the fitness industry.

Leila:

There's so much to unpack there, yeah, so so much to talk about. So much to talk about. It's very exciting, yeah, and I think that might be about it for the first one, I would say so. Thank you for being here. Thanks for being here. Yeah, we hope to be quite regular, I think, with these podcasts I would like where we can weekly. Yeah, I think, not me just saying we're not gonna make no I think we can't.

Rose:

Let's do it, leila.

Leila:

This is why leila's good?

Rose:

because this is this is our dynamic. Let's do it. I'm like we'll film a podcast?

Leila:

yeah, it looks like when. At what time? Yeah, how? When?

Rose:

how was like when at what time? Yeah, how when, how, when? Who?

Leila:

what, when, where, why? Okay, cool, we're going to, we'll be aiming for weekly ones. We'll yeah, we'll launch with this and then go weekly on whatever date we figure it out. Yeah, or what day in the week journey to our journey and come along for the ride and see you soon see you soon bye and that's it. Cool 53 minutes, that went by quick yeah, it did damn 10 seconds.