Align & Shine: The journey and launch of Rocca Pilates

Hello dear Rocca readers,

Here is Claudia, your founder.

This week I come to you with very exciting news: I have expanded further into the wellness world (hence, life well lived) and launched a service platform – Rocca Pilates.

My aim is to give our customers a full Rocca lifestyle experience and encourage everyone to live a more active life through one of the most transformative practices known to mankind - Pilates. Our signature method has been designed for every body, fitness and motivational level. Our mission is to make you feel stronger, longer and leaner, as well as release physical and mental stress. We want you to treat your body and mind with love and kindness, and inspire to you to live a really good freaking life.

The reason I decided to expand into this market doesn’t come from the Tiktok Pilates girlies trend (we all love it, don’t get me wrong), but rather from a major life event I’ve experienced, that let me into the practice of Pilates. It played a critical, lifesaving role when I was at my lowest and going through a second burnout within a year (IYKYK and I hope you don’t). Seeing the impact and results it brought to my daily life made me want to share all the knowledge I’ve been acquiring over the last years to firstly HELP anyone who is going a similar situation, and secondly incentivise you to jump on the Pilates train and never look back – I promise you wont regret it.  

So, this is how it started (I’ll keep it brief) - One morning while travelling, I made my way to the hotel gym and, for the first time since I can remember, I didn’t want to be there. This might not seem relevant, but bear in mind my gym routine had been going on for over 15 years and, all the sudden, it felt completely strange to me. At the time, I couldn’t sleep, felt awful every single day, lacked energy and motivation and working out was the only thing that brought some joy and relief to my everyday fight against the disease, but even that wasn’t working anymore. I found myself anxious, lost and desperate to regain control over my body and mind.

However, I’m not a quitter (I might be overly dramatic, sometimes extremely negative and break down for a bit, but I never quit). I was determined to take my life into my hands again and do ANYTHING I could to recover. After all, we only have one life to live. This was the moment I was drawn into trying Pilates.

While randomly scrolling on Instagram, I found a profile that said all the right things: it was kind, motivating and made me feel at ease. The next morning, I piled two towels just outside the bedroom, downloaded the free app trial and did a 40 min intense class (even though I wasn’t sleeping, I still pushed myself too hard – I strongly discourage this behaviour). Once I finished my first Pilates practice, I couldn’t believe how my body felt, but most importantly, how my mind had completely drifted from all the bad things that had been looping in my brain (also, if you’ve done Pilates you know full attention is required or else you’ll just fall to the side, mess up the breathing, and so on...). I signed up for a full year membership, joined a professional training academy and never looked back – and I can’t express how grateful I am for this decision.

“What’s different about your method”, you ask:

Rocca Pilates was born from the need of recovering my physical and mental health. I have incorporated in the practice the principles of Pilates, the power of visualization and stress-management meditation. Also, I made it really fun (brace yourself for ratchet playlists). The goal of every class is that you feel you’ve had a 360 wellness experience and you step away from your mat feeling energized, relaxed, at ease… whatever you’re needing in that specific moment. Also, I want you to be able to do it anytime, anywhere. Every class will cater all fitness levels, where you may or may not use equipment - it’s all up to what feels right to your body. The main things I address with the classes are:

1. Health issues – from back pain to burnout, anxiety management, lack of flexibility… almost any issue you have can be solved through this Pilates.

2. Tone and lean – as it reads, Pilates will work your inner muscles that will support your spine and consciously make you more self-aware of your posture, improve your strength and elongate your muscles. There are endless benefits from becoming more flexible and agile, is you’re interest in deep diving into the topic.

3. You hate gyms but enjoy a good sweat – I promise you’ll be cursing at me 10 minutes into the class. It’s incredible what body weight can do for you.

4. You want to be active but don’t know where to start – here’s the thing: there is SO MUCH INFORMATION nowadays, but there is little to no guidance. I have doubled down on this point as I want you to 1. Not be scared / overwhelmed, 2. Learn and progress at a steady pace, 3. Build confidence and love for the practice, 4. Keep doing it forever because it is called the youth elixir for a reason. Your personal program will be designed in a way you’ll feel guided and truly informed about everything you’re doing.

5. IT WORKS – if you’re looking for the physical benefits only, here’s your sign to start practicing Pilates:

• My waist has never been so snatched. It’s absurd and I love it
• I love ab workouts (wait, what?)– Yup…
• I don’t have any sort of pain from strength or cardio workouts – my body recovers 10x faster and the only sore muscles I have is after a Pilates session. This mean, I feel less exhausted and find it easier to stick to the routine.
• I’ve never had such a perky bootie. Honestly, it looks really good.

My commitment to you is the following: I will keep learning and growing, I will listen carefully to what you need and I will give my best to help you reach your goals. I will create a community of love, support and guidance. And, I will make it so MUCH FUN. Because life is hard, it can get too heavy and this will be the space where you’ll let go and enjoy.

As for now, I’m teaching 1:1 and small groups, online and in-person (Lisbon only though) but working hard to put a platform together so EVERYONE can access it! Stay tuned, jump on the Rocca Pilates wagon a enjoy the ride!

Claudia x