Instructors

Valerie Loo

Licensed Physical Therapist
Certified Pilates Instructor

Valerie Loo, founder of Stable Core Pilates, has been working with individuals as a Physical Therapist since 2001. She has a Masters Degree in Physical Therapy from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and post-professional training in orthopedic manual therapy from the Kaiser Hayward Fellowship program. She became a profound believer in Pilates because it helped her to commit to rehabilitating her own chronic spinal injuries resulting from a childhood of competitive gymnastics. The spring-loaded Pilates equipment helped her to re-discover the feeling of muscular balance in movement. This new-found body awareness has expanded her world from not being able to sit through a meal at a restaurant, to being able to sit for a week-long meditation retreat. She understands the frustration of feeling limited by recurring pain, and has experienced personally that re-training your body’s movement patterns can make a huge, lasting difference in your quality of life.

Inspired to share this with others, Valerie earned her Pilates certification through the Balanced Body University Instructor Training program. And now, with a well-trained eye, skilled hands, and the Pilates repertoire, Valerie is able to combine physical therapy with Pilates, integrating her clinical expertise of the musculoskeletal system into her Pilates teaching.

Valerie’s priority is to provide a safe and encouraging learning environment for clients. She uses verbal, visual, and tactile cues to improve neuromuscular control, incorporating manual therapy techniques when needed. Her goal is to help her clients achieve improved alignment, core strength, and efficiency in movement, whether in athletics or in everyday life.

Outside of the studio, Valerie loves being active and enjoys CrossFit, surfing, snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, and Argentine tango.

Nicole Richter

Certified Pilates Instructor

Nicole Richter has been teaching Pilates, and very happily at that, since 2002. She received her teacher training from Ellie Herman (while pregnant!), and has since worked at Ellie Herman Studios (SF and Oakland), Harbor Bay Club (Alameda) and The Center (Oakland), as well as independently. She is thrilled to be joining the Stable Core team. Her specialties include pre-natal and post-natal Pilates, Pilates for athletes (she's taught martial artists, dancers, skiiers, runners, and professional football players), and rehabilitative Pilates. She especially loves teaching absolute Pilates neophytes, and accomplished Pilates veterans (though not, it must be said, at the same time). Her teaching style has been characterized, aptly, as "gentle but insistent;" she believes in providing challenge that is specific to each body's particularities, and in attuning to those individual specificities in every session.

An independent dance artist, teacher and writer as well as a Pilates trainer, Nicole holds an MA in Dance Studies from The Laban Centre, London. As a dancer, she has originated roles in works by choreographers including Bill T. Jones, Stephen Petronio, Joe Goode, Joanna Haigood, and Sonya Delwaide, and has worked for dance companies including CandoCo, Detours (founding director), AXIS (co-director), Facing East, and her current (if sporadic) company, Tectonic Dance Theatre (founding director). Her choreography has been nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award, and she has been the recipient of four California Arts Council Artist-in-Residence awards.

Nicole is currently training to run her second half-marathon (www.mamajog.com). She also enjoys running after her two small children, a marathon in their own right.

Yaira Carpenter

Certified Pilates Instructor

Originally from Toronto, Canada, Yaira Carpenter has lived in Northern California since 1994 and earned a BA from UC Berkeley in Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations. Her movement experience comes from a diverse variety of dance, yoga, aerobic and strength training. She has practiced Pilates in the Bay Area since 2001 and became a certified Pilates instructor after completing Ellie Herman's Intensive Teacher Training Program.

Yaira continues to expand her Pilates education and has studied Pilates for Osteoporosis with Sherri R. Betz, PT, and completed Pilates workshops that addressed Pre and Post-Natal populations, Movement Analysis and more at Balanced Body University's "Pilates on Tour" conference. In addition, she attended Master Trainer Nora St. John's Upper Extremity "Movement Medicine" workshop and Anatomy in Clay with Dallas Everleth and Naomi Leiserson at Turning Point Studios, Walnut Creek.

Yaira loves the Pilates method and believes it is the best way to develop and maintain a strong core, prevent injury, improve posture, increase body awareness and have fun!

Celina Atkinson

Certified Pilates Instructor
Certified Yoga Instructor

Education:

B.S. Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley

Certifications:

Certified in the Ron Fletcher Method of Body Contrology, 1999.
Certified Pilates Instructor
Certified as Sivananda Yoga instructor, 1990.
"Movement Medicine" course completed May2002. This 6-month training in pilates-based techniques for injury rehabilitation was given by Nora St. John at Turning Point Studios, Walnut Creek.

Lise Prewitt

Certified Pilates Instructor
BBU Instructor Trainer

Lise Prewitt has been a lover of movement her entire life. She began taking dance classes at an early age and never stopped dancing. She studied biology and chemistry as an undergraduate and began integrating movement and the biological understanding of the body with the study of Ideokinesis and Laban/Bartenieff.
Pilates is a continual evolution of her training.

Lise started her pilates training with The Physical Mind Institute and completed it with Ellie Herman and since has gone on to learn various rehabilitation techniques. She incorporates all of her training in her work enjoying working with a wide range of ages and levels of fitness.

She also works with injuries including back, neck, knee and shoulder issues. She was part of Ellie Herman's teacher training faculty and is currently a faculty member of Balanced Body University, teaching students to become teachers. Lise finds satisfaction in watching individuals' awareness of their own bodies grow and flourish through this work.

Lila Heller

Certified Pilates Instructor
Certified Personal Trainer

Lila Heller grew up in the mountains of Southern Oregon where she was raised on organic food from her family’s garden. She swam in the pristine waters of the river, ran, biked, practiced yoga and danced her way to adulthood. These early influences led her to pursue a study of dance and movement in college and as a career path. After graduating with a BA in Sociology/Anthropology and Dance in 2001, Lila ventured to Salvador Bahia, Brazil at the invitation of Rosangela Silvestre to study modern dance. While living in Brazil, she began her study of pilates where she trained and earned her certification at Atelier Do Corpo under the tutelage of Jacqueline Borges.

Lila has now been teaching private and group pilates in the Bay Area for over seven years. She inspires and challenges her clients to experience the most out of their bodies and lives through the philosophy of pilates breathing, centering, precision, fluid control of movement, body awareness and concentration. She became a certified personal trainer in 2007 and continues to satisfy her desire to learn more by taking ITT master level workshops in pilates. Some of her training includes: Kinetic Control with Chad Brenzikefer, Advanced Mat with Ashley Beldon, Pilates for athletes with Joerg Chabowski and Functional Training with Don Lawson as well as yoga and nutrition classes.

Lila uses a variety of techniques in order to meet the many different goals of her clients. From wanting to gain strength before and after pregnancy, experiencing a pain free body, training to run a marathon or compete in pro baseball, or horseback riding. She is a firm believer in the “less is more” philosophy.

In her spare time, Lila can be found dancing, practicing yoga, traveling and playing with her four-year-old daughter (who also loves to do pilates).

Emily Park

Certified Pilates Instructor
Certified Personal Trainer

Emily Park has been practicing Pilates since 1998. She first encountered it as a tool for injury prevention during her professional training as a circus performer and dancer. After a serious motorcycle accident, she was re-introduced to Pilates in a rehabilitative setting and was inspired to share the benefits of this effective method of body conditioning with others. In 2005 she completed her Pilates apparatus certification through Integrated Teacher Training (ITT) in addition to mat certifications with both ITT Pilates and PhysicalMind Institute. Since then she has regularly invested in ongoing professional education by becoming a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and participating in various workshops including: Pilates for Athletes with Joerg Chabowski, functional fitness training and holistic nutrition seminars with Don Lawson, Neurokinetic Therapy with David Weinstock, and ITT Pilates master level workshops with Madeline Black and Jean Sullivan. She enjoys creatively incorporating this expanding base of knowledge and skills into sessions with private clients and her group classes.

Emily’s style of teaching is supportive and informative. She emphasizes mindfulness and precision while encouraging and challenging people to work “harder” by working “smarter.” She credits having a foundation in Pilates with enabling herself to resume performing as an aerialist following years of chronic pain. In addition to her work as a freelance circus artist: performer, director and teacher, she enjoys outdoor recreation including hiking, biking, swimming, sailing, snowshoeing, backpacking and rock climbing.

As a fitness instructor, Emily is continually re-inspired by clients’ testimonies of greater body awareness and physical ease and enjoyment in the activities of their daily lives at work, at rest and at play. She is both passionate about and committed to helping people of all ages and abilities find their inner strength.

Erica Wright-Belle

Certified Pilates Instructor

Erica Wright-Belle began her study of Pilates as a dance major in college. She used Pilates as a way of fine tuning her dance skills. As an adult, Erica found Pilates to be a healing practice that corrected imbalances and alleviated pain after her pregnancies. She became a certified instructor to deepen her understanding of the body and to share this amazing and empowering information with others. Erica holds a Bachelor of Arts in dance with a concentration in performance and choreography from San Francisco State University. In addition to her Pilates practice, she is married and has two daughters.