Megan Gelabert-Mcgee
Megan is a 3rd generation instructor under Joseph Pilates who draws heavily from her professional dance background in her approach to instructing Pilates. She follows a long line of dancers and performers in her family making movement a natural instinct. Megan grew up performing with Pas de Vie ballet company under directors Charles Hagan and Natalia Botha in Tallahassee, FL. She spent many summers dancing at institutes such as Joffrey Ballet, Boston Ballet, The Harid Conservatory and Southern Ballet Theater (now Orlando Ballet.) She also had the fortune to study with renowned professors of the dance world during her time in Florida State University’s Dance Dept. Upon relocating to NYC, she danced professionally with Linda Diamond and Co and Bodiography Contemporary Ballet. While taking a class at Steps on Broadway, she noticed an ad posted for an administrative position at The New York Pilates Studio, literally in the same building as Steps. This was one of the original Pilates studios with second generation instructors (one lineage under Joseph Pilates himself) and Megan’s first exposure to Pilates. She landed the job and the opportunity to be within the walls of an original Pilates studio. Apprentices who were completing their certification would practice teach on her. She originally began learning authentic Pilates to strengthen her dancing but then fell in love with the mental benefits and the centering of the technique. Under second generation Pilates masters, Jennifer Kries and Jeanne Donohue (both trained under Joseph Pilates heir Romana Kryzanowaska) Megan received her 600+ hour teacher training at the studio Balance, and assisted in further teacher trainings afterwards. She instructed private clients at Balance, Sage Fitness with Pam Warshay, mat classes for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and owned/instructed a studio in Hoboken, NJ - aptly named Harmony Pilates. She moved to Charlotte in 2006 and since then, she has taught Pilates in every form from mat classes, privates in a studio setting, workshops and as an aid to injury recovery in a physical therapist’s clinic (Roper Physical Therapy.) With her dance background and as a yoga devotee, Megan instructs Pilates in a light beyond the physical. She sees the body from head to toe, believes technique is the key behind preserving the body, and focuses on intelligent movement patterns. Knowing the teacher is forever the a student, she continues her education through anatomy workshops, received her yoga 200 hour teacher training (Yoga One), is National Pilates Certified and a member of the Pilates Method Alliance. Megan also recently attained a certification in Rehabilitative Pilates with the London College of Osteopathy and Health Sciences.
Hi! I’m Megan, your Pilates instructor.
A personal story…
My entire life has been immersed in mind-body movement, therefore I’ve always been an avid believer in the mental and physical healing power in a practice like Pilates. But never more so since June of 2021. I was in a severe accident after another car swerved left and collided with mine. The result was my right arm completely mangled, radius and ulna forearm bones completely popped out and my hand barely hanging on by merely nerves. Truly one of the most shocking and horrifying sights of my life. After a 4 hour surgery (with no guarantee my hand would be saved) they managed to reattach, albeit with internal hardware to hold everything together. Although my hand was technically saved, the journey ahead was filled with uncertainty, pain and a complete relearning of life with one working (non-dominant) hand/wrist/arm. During routine X-ray appointments, my surgeon would constantly restate how c l o s e I came to becoming an amputee. All in all, I ended up having four surgeries in the course of four months to correct hardware issues, insert and remove certain parts, etc. The hand that once was immersed in dance, yoga and Pilates had to relearn how to make a fist. But the milestones kept occurring – relearning making a fist was followed by picking something up, then came back forearm rotation to cat/cow on my fists. My team of OT’s and surgeons have been blown away with my recovery road. I can say with complete certainty there’s no way I would be in this place had it not been for my background. An extremely useful tool that’s sharpened through Pilates or yoga is listening to your body’s intuition. The hyperawareness of proprioception, correct muscle activation and alignment I had developed from years of movement work was crucial for my recovery. As mentioned under Harmony Pilates’ perspective link, the notion bodies are supposed to subscribe to one certain look is unhealthy and becoming outdated. The absolute ticket through my ongoing recovery was the strength in my mind-body connection. Our bodies go through quite the journey in life – building mindfulness in movement is one of the most beneficial gifts we can give ourselves.