Private and Group Pilates: The Third Option Is Both

When people ask us whether to choose private or group Pilates, they usually expect us to say private. We are a private studio, after all. But the question assumes you have to pick one, and you don’t.

There is a third option. Do both. Take private sessions so that you can take group classes, and get the most out of that time. The private hour sets a strong foundation you carry into every class. It also takes you places a group class never will.

At West Hollywood Pilates we only teach one-on-one. We do not run group classes. Some of our clients take classes somewhere else too, and this post is about how the two fit together.

Why this question keeps coming up

Most people meet Pilates in a group class. It is often the first way in, and for good reason. Then a few months go by and something feels unfinished. You are doing the exercises, but you are not sure you are doing them right, or where you are supposed to feel them. You set the springs the way the person next to you did.

That is usually when people start asking about private sessions, and they frame it as a switch. Leave the class, go private. We wrote an honest comparison of private and group Pilates for anyone weighing that choice. This post is for the people who like their class and want to keep it.

What a private session gives you that a class can’t

In a class the teacher has to keep the whole room moving. There usually isn’t time to stop and show one new person where an exercise should land. That is not a flaw in the teacher. It is what teaching many bodies in one hour asks for.

In a private session the pace is set by your body. It is often slower, and it is not easier. A few things become possible that a class rarely has time for:

• Understanding the machine. On the reformer the springs both resist you and support you, and heavier is not always harder. Once you understand why a spring is set where it is, you can set it yourself.
• Knowing where you are supposed to feel it. If the Hundred lives in your neck instead of your center, a private session is where someone sees it and helps you find the right place. After that you can find it on your own.

All of that adds up to feeling safer in your body. When you know it well enough to adjust an exercise, or skip one, a busy class stops feeling rushed.

Every session at our studio begins with breathwork. You can take that with you, too, and do it in the few minutes before any class starts.

What a group class gives you

A good group class has real value. There is the energy of a room moving together. The cost per class is lower, which makes it easier to come more often, and frequency matters in Pilates. And for a lot of people it is simply the routine, and seeing the same faces every week.

None of that goes away when you add a private session.

How doing both works

The idea is simple. You do private so that you can do group.

One of our clients had been taking group reformer classes for about a year when she added a private session once a week, to get her classes right. A couple of months in, she told us the classes had become far more useful to her. She had stopped trying to keep up with the room and was paying attention to her own technique and her own body. As she put it, “I’m in that class, but I’ve got your voice in my head.”

So the private hour is where you learn it, and the class is where you get to practice it a lot. You get the benefits of both by doing both.

In practice it can be as simple as one private session a week alongside the classes you already take. You bring questions from class into the private hour, and you bring what you learned back into class.

Where a group class will never take you

The foundation is only the beginning. Private work is also where you go deeper into your body, with more understanding and more awareness than a class has room for.

The client above told us in her last session that she is in this for life.

She isn’t the only one. Some of our clients have trained with us twice a week for four or five years, and they are still finding new places in their bodies. There are always new techniques and new exercises to learn, and their understanding keeps growing.

That is the beauty of Pilates. The better you get at it, the harder it gets, because you are really understanding your body and doing the work properly. Doing an exercise properly is not just using the big muscles you think it is asking for. It means finding the smaller, deeper muscles that work underneath and between the big ones. That is very hard to find in a class.

Signs you have a good handle on the basics

You will know the foundation is in place when a few things are true:

• You know where each exercise is supposed to work, and you can tell when it has drifted somewhere else.
• You set your own springs and understand why.
• You are comfortable doing an exercise at your own pace while the room moves at another.

That is when your classes start to feel like your own, and your private sessions can go further. If your classes have started to feel flat instead, our post on the Pilates plateau goes deeper into what a stall is telling you.

Where we fit

West Hollywood Pilates is a private studio. Every hour is one-on-one, with no group classes and no duets. If you take group classes elsewhere, we are happy to be the private half of the picture. The studio is at 717 N Highland Ave STE 6, Los Angeles CA 90038, a few minutes from West Hollywood.

A private intro session is a good place to begin. Bring what you have been doing in class and we will start from there. If you would rather ask a few questions first, there is a free 15-minute call.

Common questions about private and group Pilates

I already take group classes. Do I have to stop to start private sessions?

No. Keep your classes and add a private session alongside them. Bring what you notice in class to the private hour, and take what you learn back with you.

How long should I keep taking private sessions alongside group classes?

There is no set number. The foundation can take a few sessions or a few months. Some of our clients keep going for years, because there is always further to go.

We wrote a book.

The Classical Pilates Companion is 55 pages on the method as it was actually built. It comes with the letter we send on Tuesdays.

Read The Classical Pilates Companion