Sara Colquhoun:
Sweat Trainer – Try my 16 week home Pilates program now on the sweat app!
Director & Principal Teacher – Union Pilates
Balanced Body Master Instructor – Teacher Trainer
At the age of four, I attended my first dance class. From what I’ve been told (and from the embarrassing videos I’ve seen!) it was pretty clear to my parents that I was meant to dance. At 11, I remember making a very clear decision that dancing was going to be part of me for the rest of my life – but what I didn’t know was that it would lead me to my next biggest passion … Pilates.
By age 14, I was dancing about five times a week and was a student dance teacher to one of the most influential people in my life still to this day. By 15, I had been accepted into Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, which was a two hour commute each way from my home in a small rural town in NSW. It was safe to say my passion to dance was very strong, and I was dancing for about five to six hours a day by this stage.
This began to take a significant toll on my body. I had my first injury and was unable to dance for a long time. I was devastated: dancing was all I wanted to do everyday and it crushed me to have to sit and watch everyone else dance while I was immobile and in pain. I had been taking Mat Pilates classes for around two years prior to this injury, but had never heard of or seen a Pilates studio. I saw countless sports doctors and physios and, with little improvement, was recommended to a Pilates teacher to help correct my Patella-Femoral tracking Syndrome (this basically means that there was an incorrect alignment of the Patella, lack of muscle balance and too much uncontrolled hyper extension going on in my knee joints).