Chat EYT Episode #3: Business Evolution and Transition, Community and Another Big Launch Announcement

Jessica checks in from her brand-new (sixth!) studio location, mid-move and reflecting on 25 years of business evolution — from a one-reformer room above a gym laundry room to a 3,500-square-foot peak and back to a quieter, intentional space. From there, she dives into two listener questions: a new teacher worried her sequences feel repetitive and stale, and a rural teacher wrestling with whether to leverage her scarcity into a bigger paycheck at a brand-new studio. Plus, a big announcement — the launch of Chat EYT, a closed-AI mentor built from Jessica's full teacher training curriculum — and this episode's favorite movement: coordination.

In This Episode:

• 25 Years, Six Studios: Jessica's full studio arc — from a shared laundry-room reformer to her 3,500-square-foot peak with 15 teachers, and the quieter, intentional space she's building now
• "Am I Just Not Creative Enough?" A new teacher worries she's recycling the same sequences — Jessica reframes the real foundation of client retention: community, not novelty
• The Open Mic Night Analogy: Why real teaching skill develops after training ends, the same way comedians and musicians sharpen their craft through repetition and stage time
• The Four-Week Theme Framework: A practical system for keeping the same repertoire feeling fresh — cycling through precision, breath, rhythm, and flow week to week without changing a single exercise
• The Leverage Dilemma: A rural teacher with rare local demand wonders if she should ask for top-of-market pay from a brand-new, desperate studio owner — Jessica weighs the short-term win against the long-term relationship and career trajectory
• Negotiating Without Burning the Bridge: Why proposing a starting rate with a built-in six-month review can be a smarter long-term play than maxing out leverage on day one
• Announcing Chat EYT: Jessica introduces her new closed-AI mentor tool, built from 800+ hours of EYT curriculum, business courses, and mentorship sessions — available at chateyt.com
• Move of the Episode — Coordination: Why this breath-driven reformer movement is so often skipped, and how voice, pacing, and depth of cueing change everything about how it lands

Connect with Jessica:
📧 jessica@eytpilatesteacherteaching.com
🔗 Try Chat EYT: chateyt.com

Produced & edited by: Kristy Carrubba, Next Chapter Exchange

Transcript

0:04

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Chat EYT, the podcast. Once again, this is Jessica Spaleen, your host, and I'm coming back at you with another episode that we dive into our mailbag, i'm really showing my age by saying that. We all know that that's not how people communicate anymore. So how about this? How about I just modernize myself and say I'm opening up my email inbox instead of the mailbag? I have to get with what the kids are saying these days. But regardless, I am very excited to be here, and I love the direction that this podcast is going. I'm having a lot of fun, and I hope that you're getting something out of the content that we're putting out here I do think that you are I'll say that, because I am getting emails from people with questions. I'm getting emails from studio owners. I always get emails from my apprentices, but my graduates are listening and they're sending in questions. So that's serving as a great source of inspiration for the things that I talk about. But the other area that I get inspiration from is our Pilates studio owner network on Facebook, which I am the administrator for. We have about three thousand studio owners in there, and every one of them are spectacular in their own way. And I love that they really lean into the group to ask questions, to crowdsource ideas, solve problems, vent, whatever it might be. And there's a lot of support. Very rarely do I have to block somebody because they're being nasty or anything. Overall, it's a pretty supportive community. I generally stay a little bit quiet in that group, and I don't offer too much insight because maybe I'm being selfish, but I'd prefer to use this platform to give my answers because I feel like we reach a wider audience this way. And a lot of times the questions that are asked can benefit way more than just owners. They can benefit teachers as well. So I do wanna thank you all for continuing to contribute in both emails and the calls that you set up with me and of course, in the studio owners network. So I'm coming to you today from my new studio location. I feel a little bit out of sorts. I'm still a little bit surrounded by boxes and my equipment is only half moved in, but my office is moved in, so I'm feeling like I have one foot in each location. I've been in business for about twenty-five years, and I think this might be my sixth location. It's actually quite an interesting arc I feel like that I've taken. It's like the story of life in a way. My early days, I started in a very tiny space. I only had one reformer. I actually shared it with the laundry room of a gym. It was hot because of the dryer. I was on the second floor. There were no windows. The air conditioning only sometimes worked. But it didn't seem to matter to clients, which is fascinating considering, I tended to work with people who had very high standards, let's put it that way. But I think that was a testament to Pilates and what I was selling and how good it made them feel. And I will give myself some credit here and say that my teaching skills also helped. On my first day when I opened, I had zero sessions, zero clients. I was trying to get people from the gym to come up and give it a try. And then within six months, I had 50 private sessions a week. So clearly, Pilates had its effects and people were not caring about the humble or gritty environment that we were working in. I really needed to expand quickly. 50 sessions a week was too much for me. I needed to hire, so therefore I needed more space. So I moved, I got more space, and then about two or three years after that, I moved again, and that was really the first time I invested. I put in a big chunk of money. We knocked down walls. We built something from scratch. It was beautiful. It had a vibe my walls were actually lit. We had used I wanna call it plastic, but it was, a construction material plastic and made our walls out of that. And the bottom track of the plastic was where the lights were, so the lights washed up the insides of the walls. It was really beautiful. And we had floor tiles that were in different patterns depending on which room we were in. I loved that space. It was really fantastic. And I stayed there for a while. I stayed there for 11 years, so I definitely made back my investment. And then I actually acquired a studio that was technically a competitor of mine. But I don't like to use the word competitor 'cause it has such a negative connotation. And we had a really lovely relationship as two studio owners within a mile of each other. She was looking to get out of the business and move on to another chapter of her life, and I was her first call to see if I wanted to purchase the studio, so I did For about six months, I ran the two different locations separately with a slow merge. I brought the two studios together over time and stayed in the larger location for another six to seven years, and that's when COVID closed us up. When COVID had happened, I closed up the space. I opened up very close to my home. I only saw a very small group of clients who were willing to, take the risks. We did COVID testing on a weekly basis, make sure that we were all healthy. It was very small scale. It was no teachers, just me. And it was a drastic reduction in square footage, but I didn't need it because at that time, I really didn't see myself going back to the pre-COVID size. I felt like there was a been there, done that a little bit. And now I'm back to an even smaller space, and it's this fabulous arc where I had started in these humble beginnings, this tiny little room, and I started to grow. I had my extreme growth. I peaked at my 3,500 square foot studio with 15 Reformers, two Cadillacs, 10 towers, 10 chairs, a mat room, 15 teachers all over the place, 1,000 clients walking in the door every month. Those were the good times. That was really fun. But now I'm back to a much more peaceful, quiet, smaller space where I'm really set up for this kind of business, the new business model that I work at, which is my teacher training program, so I do a lot of filming and then obviously now podcasting. And it's been wonderful, and it's an interesting, story as to how I grew, how I peaked, and how I've settled back into a quieter season of my business life. That's why I might feel a little bit of displacement and it's a little bit of a sense of transition. Transitions are always hard. But I still have my computer, I have my microphone, and I'm here to check in with my group. I'm here to read out a couple of questions that I've got on the docket for today. So here we go. Hi, Jessica. I have a confession that I'm almost embarrassed to say out loud because I feel like it says something bad about me as a teacher. I've been teaching for just under a year. I have a small but loyal group of clients, a couple of classes on the schedule, a few privates, and lately I've been sitting down to plan my sessions, and I just feel like I'm pulling from the same well over and over again. Same exercises, same cues, same general flow. I catch myself teaching the exact same sequence like three weeks ago, and I hope that nobody notices. I finished my training feeling like I had this whole toolkit, and now that I'm actually in the room week after week with the same people, I feel like I've already cycled through everything I know. My clients haven't said anything. Nobody's complained, nobody's left. But I'm convinced it's only a matter of time before they get bored and start wondering why they're paying me when they could just follow a YouTube video at home. I see other teachers on social media who seem to have endless creativity, new variations, interesting transitions, fresh ways of cueing the same movement, and I don't know if they've just been teaching for twenty years or if there's something I'm fundamentally missing. Did I not learn enough in my training? Should I be taking more workshops? Am I just not creative enough for this? And honestly, how do you keep it fresh for clients who've been with you for so long and know your whole playbook? All right. Thank you for that question. This really is a great question and one that I think is very common for new teachers. So I'm actually gonna answer the middle part of this question first and then move out. The part that I'm gonna start with is, "Nobody's complained, nobody's left, but I'm convinced it's only a matter of time before they get bored and wonder why they're paying me when they could just follow a YouTube video." That's the part that I wanna start with because I feel like it's actually more important than anything else, something I've spoken about in other podcast episodes, but I feel like I can't beat the drum enough and that this is a relationship business. This is a business where people come to us not just because of our expertise, of course, that is a part of it, not gonna take that away from us, but it's the sense of community that a studio environment gives them. The feeling that you're part of something, getting to know others who come to the class and knowing what's going on in their lives, wishing them a happy birthday, checking in about how a person's mom's hip replacement may have gone, celebrating them when their student graduates, asking to see pictures of their first grandchild. We need community to survive. Every single documentary will tell you that. Every single study on longevity will tell you that. It is the key to life, all about communities. That's the blue zone concept, right? We have to stay social. And for many people who work at home now or people who are retired, people who are empty nesters and they don't have the activity of kids that pull them and create chaos in their life, the community is lacking for those people today and that's where the studio environment fills that void and that's a huge piece as to why they're coming. So the first thing I'll say is lean into that component. Make your clients feel seen. Make your clients feel special. Do the things that help strengthen the sense of belonging that your clients feel with your studio and the things that everybody needs to keep them coming back. Now I'll address the larger question, which is the teaching and the creativity behind the teaching. But the reason why I wanted to dive into the community piece is because that's the bedrock of what you deliver, and now everything else gets laid on top of that solid foundation. So what I'm about to say might burn you a little bit, and I apologize, but the real education starts when your teacher training program ends. The teacher training program, generally speaking, gives you academic tools. It gives you the system, it gives you the kind of foundation to work from to become who you are supposed to be as a teacher. Think of someone who wants to become a comedian or someone who's striving to be a musician. They all start with open mic nights. They try out new stuff. They see what works. They see what doesn't work. They break through their nerves. They start to get more relaxed with standing in front of a crowd. They might be doing some of the same jokes, or they might be singing the same songs, but as their confidence builds, the jokes and the music, it just lands differently, and then the crowd responds differently. The songs sound more passionate. The songs sound more alive and more confident as the person continues to practice it. There is no difference between what they're going through and what you're going through as a teacher. So yes, do you have the same crowd coming back maybe every Tuesday at nine? That's great. They're consistent. You can work on your skills, develop your progressions with them and for them. But lean into the teaching tools. Lean into the softer side of what teaching is. Don't get so caught up in the individual sequences or the exercises or the creativity on Instagram Throwing out an idea. All right? So this is just an idea, do what you want with it. Think of creating a theme. So a four-week cycle, maybe you teach the exact same system every week for four weeks, but each week you're going to choose a different Pilates principle that you lean into. So if your teacher training program didn't teach you the Pilates principles, shame on them, but I'll be nice. Feel free to email me or do a little research. I'll talk about ChatEYT in another episode. That's a tool for you to help sharpen those skills. But let's pretend that everybody listening knows the Pilates principles. So each week of your four-week cycle, and you're gonna choose a different Pilates principle to drill down on. So let's say the first Tuesday of the month is going to be a technique-driven class. I'm going to be all up in everybody's grill about their form and their precision, the precision of their movements. We're moving with intention. We're moving slowly with no momentum. I'm not gonna let anybody change until every toe is pointed, every knee is straight, every elbow is long, every chest in the room is lifted to the place where we want it to be lifted to. We're not gonna be sloppy. We're gonna be in alignment and really work the beauty of the lines of the body and the movements. That's the theme for week one. Week two, you're gonna work the breath, and that means you really emphasize that breath powers the movements. Every single transition is led with an exhale Every single initiation is led with an exhale. Every single change is led with an exhale. And before they even complete the movements, perhaps you hold them there and have them do two or three more exhalations just to get even more deeply connected. That's week two. Week three, perhaps it's rhythm and you add song to your voice. You lift them, you lower them, you reach them, stretch them, elongate them. We lift lift lower. However it comes across for you, you add that rhythm to it and you make music with your voice. You don't use music in the background. You are the conductor. You add the rhythm. This person lifts a little bit higher. That person stretches those legs a little bit longer. They reach it up a little bit higher. Do you hear how my voice is changing? I have rhythm. I have expression. I'm giving energy to the person who's in front of me. I'm getting them across that finish line. I'm cheering them on. So maybe the fourth week your theme is flow, and it's all about working transitions. If this room is strong enough, maybe you choose teaser to be your transitional movements. Let's say you're on the reformer and you're doing footwork. We start at the very beginning, right? So you're doing your footwork. Everybody's pressing in, pressing out. Of course, you're using your breath cues. Of course you're using your precision cues, but you get the idea. Everybody's moving in. Everybody's moving out. Once they have finished their footwork, you tell them to pull their knees into their chest, move it to a tabletop position, and roll yourself up to a teaser. Hold it right there. Hold it. Now roll back down. Grab your straps, bring the arms to the ceiling, legs to ninety degrees, and we start our supine arm series. After that, put the straps back, roll up, do a teaser. Here's another teaser for you. And roll back down. Now we do the hundred. Hundred. Now put those straps back, roll up, do a teaser. If you can do the teasers in between everything, you have such a nice flow happening and you haven't changed anything about the repertoire. Then you layer on your rhythm, then you layer on your exhalation, and now at the end of the month, there has been a completely different experience each week, and that is magic. That is where your teaching skills are on fire and your class is like, "How was this so different than the first class of the week or any other class this month?" And not only that, but you are building your skills. So by the fourth week, when you're emphasizing flow, they already have been challenged with precision, so they know what those precise moves are supposed to be. And they look at that sort of progression and development in themselves, and you acknowledge it and move together with this synergy and this energy. There's also another example of community when you're all moving together. It's like it's a song. It's like you're all in it together and everybody's united. I've had many classes like this that I've taught in all my years, and I remember them. At the end, I'm like, "This was an out-of-body experience." I was so in the zone, I almost don't remember what I taught. We were all so in it together. You don't even have to change the exercises. You just have to change the tools. You have to change what your emphasis is, and it's magical when you do it, and it develops a lot of strong skills in them, and then obviously it develops strong skills in you All right, moving on. The second question I'm highlighting today is about negotiating pay. So I'll just read this question straight out, all right. Hi, Jessica. I'm reaching out because I have an exciting opportunity and honestly, a little bit of a moral dilemma. I have been teaching Pilates for about two years now, and I live in a fairly rural area where there are very few certified teachers. I can actually count us on one hand. A brand new studio just opened up about ten minutes from my house, and the owner reached out to me directly because she heard my name around the community. She needs teachers badly, she can't open her full schedule without me. So here's where I'm conflicted. I know she needs me more than I need her right now. This is pure supply and demands. I have something she can't easily replace, and I feel like after two years of building my skills, investing in my education, and frankly, being one of the only options in this area, I deserve to be compensated accordingly. I'm thinking about asking for significantly more per class than the going rate, like the kind of number that would make most studio owners balk, because I feel like I finally have the leverage to do it. But part of me wonders if I'm thinking about this the wrong way. Is it bad form to push too hard on the money when the studio is just starting to get their footing? Am I burning a bridge before it's even built? Or is this smart business and I'm advocating for myself while I have the upper hand? How would you approach this conversation? All right, so I have a lot of feelings about this, but I'm gonna couch my answer first and foremost by saying that everybody deserves to be paid fairly and with respect, a respectable amount. We are an industry that is predominantly women, and women have a tendency to agree to lower wages because we have self-worth issues. Let's just be honest. That's one of our weaknesses, isn't it? We also have a tendency to work for free, and this industry sometimes asks us to work for free when we're apprentices. Also something I don't necessarily agree with. And so I just wanna reiterate that I do believe that everyone deserves a fair wage, but it's based on your skills, based on your commitment, and based on the quality of the service you are providing. That is where the compensation formula for me comes in. So with that said, you also have to remember that this is a relationship business. Like I spoke about this earlier, we talked about community, we talked about leaning into that with your clients, but this is also a relationship business between studio owner and teacher and employer and employee So if you come at this new studio owner at a time of vulnerability and you approach it like you're going to take advantage of it, then you are, in my opinion, biting the hand that could be feeding you, and it's gonna leave a very bad taste in her mouth. She might agree with it because she's desperate, as you said, but is that fair to her? Is that how you wanna start your relationship? So there is a few things to think about here. From a short-term perspective, yes, this might be a win. You might get the money that you're asking for, you might be happy, and, maybe it makes a lifestyle change for you perhaps, or you just feel like you've gotten what you're owed, and you have a certain measure of happiness and comfort as a result. However, if in six months, she hires somebody else or maybe she even trains somebody else, she-- maybe she'll bring in a teacher training program, and then she hires people from within, then you'll probably be the first one asked to leave, and that might be a long-term plan for that studio owner. "Okay, i'm willing to make this investment for six months, and in those six months I need to find myself two or three other teachers who I can pay a wage that is sustainable for me, and I'm not just gonna move on with this teacher." That might be what she says to herself "Okay, i'll deal with it until I find another solution." So in six months you might find that you're back to not being employed, and maybe you have other jobs, I don't know, but you will not be employed at this studio, and she's probably not gonna be very forgiving, fair, or compassionate to you on certain things 'cause she doesn't like the way you've treated her. Second thing is if you want to work at this studio long term, she has to be able to turn a profit. There's nothing wrong with people wanting to turn a profit. That's why we go into business. We go into business to build something and to make money, and it is not an ugly thing for someone to want to make money. If she can't pay her bills because she's overpaying in the employee category, then the studio is not sustainable, and you will not have a place to work. So if that doesn't matter to you, then fine. Go in, go after that big payday. But she might say no because if she's smart, she will know that is not a sustainable option, and she has got to move on, maybe teach it all herself or maybe open up with a smaller schedule as she finds other teachers So the third thing is if you start out only two years in this business at the top of the pay scale of what our industry commands, there is nowhere left for you to climb unless you are planning on opening up your own studio. So any other location that you go to, any other studio that might hire you, it is going to be a pay cut. So if this studio closes, then you're out that income, and you have to go find somewhere else, and that somewhere else will be a pay cut. And if you have adjusted your lifestyle based on that higher rate, you went and leased a car that was a little bit more every month, maybe a hundred dollars extra a month because you had this nice pay from this new studio, there's nowhere to go but down. And that is something for you to think about from a long-term standpoint. So short term, it might sound great, but long term, I think that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face, and I would prefer that you think about the long-term investment here, the investment in the relationship with the studio owner, the investment in the success of the studio, and the need to invest in your own longevity in this industry from a career and income standpoint The other thing that you could do, which I don't think there's anything wrong with, and you probably should if she doesn't offer it, say, "How about I start out at this pay rate for six months and if at six months we do a review and look for a raise? I would like to make X, but I'm willing to start out with Y if we can do a six-month check-in and review." And in those six months, show yourself to be a team player. Show yourself to be someone who's worth investing in and who's worth a raise. If you are a clock puncher and you say no to subbing every time something comes up, or you just come in, teach your class, and leave, and you make no efforts to engage with clients, you don't empty the garbage every once in a while, you don't show that you care about the studio as a whole, then I don't know. Maybe I'm old school, but that's what we look like as Gen X employees, and as Gen X owners, that's what we're going to look for. People who just, are doing this to get paid for the session, it leaves a bad taste in our mouth. You should have a stake in the success of the studio and making it great so that you have a place to continue to work in. And I'm saying helping. I'm not saying, doing a whole bunch of extra work, but just stepping in and show that you care. Help it run smoothly. Make it a good client experience. You don't have to overdo it, but just show up. Be a person who feels present there. So you don't have to become the cleaning lady, but clean up after yourself. If you see the garbage overflowing, take it out. How hard is that? It's like when I tell my kids, "If you see the garbage overflowing, take it out. We're all a team here. We've all got to do this." So that's just a little bit of extra to show that, you care about the success and the longevity of the business. And maybe some Gen Z-ers or millennials are scoffing at me right now thinking otherwise, but that's how the Gen X-ers roll, and that's what we believe in, and that's how we got employed. That's how we learned, and that's how we learned what it took to be in a successful business. By the way, I'm not judging or slamming you for the desire to question whether this is a good opportunity or not. I get the thought. I really do. But it's just you gotta think long term, and you gotta think about what kind of effect is this going to have on your long-term viability with this studio and then your reputation in the industry. Okay, a quick segue. I wanna talk about Chat EYT. Chat EYT is launching, or maybe depending on when this episode airs, it will be available June 1st. And this is a revolutionary program that I built with my team, obviously, for teachers of all levels of experience and studio owners of all levels of experience. And it is completely built around all of the program, the systems, the workshops, the questions, the conversations I've had with studios and teachers over 25 years. And it's a closed AI as opposed to an open AI. So open AI, scrubs the entire internet looking for the answers to your questions. But that often leads, as we've all heard, you have to check it, it leads to contradictory information. Sometimes it actually scrubs and produces answers from itself because its own stuff is out there also clogging the internet. So you never really can 100% trust the information that you're getting. Chat EYT is a closed AI, which means it is only resourcing the materials from the EYT teacher training program, from our business courses, from our startup courses, from our mentorship sessions, from all of our student check-ins and office hours, and everything in between. So our entire curriculum, there's like 800 hours of content that was used to build this AI mentor and best friend. So we encourage everybody to go to www.chateyt.com Use your email address. If you are an EYT student, use whatever email address you created to log into our curriculum. And if you're not an EYT student, you will get a free trial, so you can play around with it. It's an amazing resource. I couldn't be more proud of it. You can ask it any question that you can think of. I struggle to teach runners. They seem to never feel it. How do I teach the roll up to somebody who can't roll over their lumbar spine, or they can't get up? What should I look for in my lease? How should I protect myself in my lease? I have a friend who wants to be a business partner. What do you suggest I think about or ask? What-- How should I handle scoliosis? What about a hip replacement? I have imposter syndrome. Anything you can think of, I want you to throw into that search bar and see what kind of answers it gives back at you. And it will also tell you where in the EYT materials you can find the full resource from what it scrubbed. So this is an incredible resource, something that I think is going to change your life as a teacher and something that's going to, really impact you in a positive way 'cause I feel like so many people have rushed through their teacher training programs out of desperation, not criticizing, but because studio owners needed teachers, that so many of your questions still have been unanswered. I'm going to do one last thing and Highlights my movements of the episode. The movement of today's episode is coordination on the reformer. Coordination, you're probably gonna find a theme with me. I so often say, "This one's one of my favorites," but coordination really is one of my fa-favorites. It's a breath-driven movement. As I tell all of my apprentices, without breath, this is a non-event. You can just open the legs, close the legs, bend the knees, bend the arms, everything come in. Or you can really work this, work that depth of connection, work the breath as they open their legs. The legs should almost feel non-existent. Everything is in those abdominals. So we curl the head, neck, and shoulders up, press the arms and legs all the way out, stretch it across the room. Reach through those fingertips, stretching the straps that inch longer, feeling the engagement of the upper abdominals. Now with a very slow and deep exhale, open those legs slowly. Slowly open through the exhale. Now pause. A new exhale to slowly close the legs. Resist the closure. Slowly move back into the center. Bend the knees, bend the elbows. Again, exhale, press it all the way out, and hold. Notice how my voice is slow. My voice is deep on this one, and that's because I want them to move slowly. I want them to move deeply. I want them to feel and connect, so my voice is helping really develop that connection, and it's another way of communicating to them what I want, not just with my words, but with my voice, with my speed, with the depth So coordination is one that should not be ignored. It should not be eliminated. It should not be passed over. Lean into it. Bring it onto the mat. Bring it onto the barrel. Don't just leave it on the reformer. It's too good. Do it with your hands on the push-through bar, safety chain attached, of course, and really work that breath connection as you open and close those legs. And exhale is on both the open and on the close for maximum benefit. And that is all for today, my friends. I look forward to talking to you, in our next episode. Have a great one. Thank you for listening to Chat EYT, the podcast. And a special thanks to Christy Carrubba at Next Chapter Exchange for producing and editing. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, leave us a rating and a review if you like what you heard.