Angelie Melzer, owner of Team Pilates Barre & Yoga, says her life was forever changed by Pilates. The former professional ballet dancer says that she continued Pilates training throughout her ballet career, and opening her own studio for instructors and clients was a natural decision. In addition to Pilates, barre, and yoga classes, the center offers private Gyrotonic sessions, which are conducted on a specialized piece of equipment that helps a client move their spine three dimensionally.

Melzer also owns Professional Ballet School — both businesses are located at 521 E. Holland, on Spokane’s North Side.

The Journal spoke with Melzer about her entry into the fitness industry, what it’s like to own a fitness and instruction center during a pandemic, and the nonprofit she and an employee launched together.

Journal: How did you get into the fitness industry?

Melzer: I had severe scoliosis when I was a child. My mom was born with it as well, and she had a full spinal fusion when she was 12. They haven’t done those types of surgeries with bone grafts since then — they only did six, and she was one of two who survived the surgery. That being said, she was very convinced that I would not ever have surgery. They diagnosed me at age 3, so when they wanted to fuse my spine at age 12, we explored many different options, as far as alternative medicine, and decided that Pilates was what we wanted to do. We were in a big enough city that it was popular in the therapeutic realm. 

That’s really what led me to what I do. Then I had a full professional ballet career, and my spine had never been fused. Pilates is what saved me, starting with my mother refusing surgery and then my being able to study for many years.

How did you start the Team Pilates center?

Team Pilates started back in 2000 as a teacher training organization. I was a master trainer for one of the (Pilates) certifying bodies out of New York City, PhysicalMind Institute, and I was continually offering education through my company, Team Pilates. I then joined forces with another (Pilates) company, which has since taken over the industry internationally. They’re called Balanced Body, out of Sacramento. 

I’m now a master instructor internationally for them and Team Pilates on the side when we moved here to Spokane. My husband was in the Air Force. That’s what brought us here. He retired three years into moving here because we realized how beautiful it is and such an awesome community to raise our three boys, so we decided to stay. 

That’s when I opened the studio here in 2012. We have a local studio, and then I have Team Pilates headquarters here in Spokane as well, and then we have teacher training organizations — four in the United States, and one in the Middle East.

How have the events of 2020 affected business?

We jumped on online courses and online sessions pretty quickly. We had already had what we called Pilates Live Online, which I offered for mentoring for my students around the country and around the world for certifying students and apprentices to be able to continue to study from afar. 

In March, we immediately turned that to the whole staff offering all of our classes online. We were able to stay open as an essential business through the therapeutic portion, so we were able to see private clients, but only one at a time. 

So, I took all of my patients and clients online and let the other practitioners use the space for their clients. Now, we’re back to being able to have five people in a class, which is what we did before anyway. We didn’t have big classes.

There’s a lot of intricate movements, and we want it to be really educational for the client. It can be fitness-based, but we want it to be really hands-on. We’re just trying to make sure that we follow the rules and have the number that we’re allowed to have in the facility at one time. 

It’s been a challenge, but just like everybody else, we learned to adapt quickly and hope for the best, hope that we can keep going and continue getting our clients back in the studio, because it really is hands-on, especially Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis. 

You really have to do manual cueing on the body to get the fascial release, to get the connective tissue to release. That’s the hard part of teaching online — you have to use words where you would normally use hands. It’s not quite the same, but people seem to still love it, and I think people are getting less scared as we go along.

Do you expect patronage to increase with the approach of winter?

We do. We hope so. Usually, our largest months are the rush back from school — that’s already come and gone, we didn’t get that September to October rush. January through March is also normally a big time frame for us — we’re hoping that the post-holiday rush will still be there. If not, we’re at a plateau right now where we can cover our expenses, so that’s nice, but we’d love to see growth again.

How many staff members do you have? Do they provide services that might differ from other centers? 

We have five. We have four Pilates practitioners, one — me — Gyrotonic/Gyrokinesis practitioner, and then we have an Internal Family Systems and Pilates-based movement practitioner. 

She and I have created a nonprofit called EMpower Organization for victims of abuse and disabled children and adults. She brings in the emotional healing side with the movement therapy side.