Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

into a better, stronger version of myself; I was a mortal turned superhero. My range of motion and
overall physical capability for a young woman my age exceeded the norm, and I shamelessly
exploited the extra edge that Pilates gave me in the same way that bodybuilders use steroids. It never
occurred to me that my body would betray me.
Drago’s: The Magical Beehive
After pushing myself past my limits and sustaining the first of my near career-ending injuries (the
famous hip injury in London), Pilates took on even greater meaning. After miraculously recovering in
such a short time, I knew I had to continue my Pilates journey when I returned home to the States—
and the only place for me to go was to 50 West 57th Street in Manhattan.
The first time I walked into Drago’s Gymnasium, I was humbled. There stood Romana
Kryzanowska, another protégé of Joseph Pilates. I felt as though I’d entered something like an epic
European cathedral, perhaps Notre Dame, which commanded only silence and awe. Drago’s was
unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was like a magical beehive, a busy body shop of physical and mental
conditioning. One room, approximately fifteen hundred square feet in size, was designated for the
Pilates apparatuses, Joseph Pilates’s genius inventions, large-scale mousetrap-like machines rigged
with springs for isometric resistance. Romana held court in this Pilates haven.
As I scanned my surroundings, I saw clusters of clients paired with Pilates apprentices deeply
engrossed in their movement plans. All were on apparatuses and following different regimens to suit
the needs of their bodies on that particular day. From just a glance, I knew I had to do whatever it
took to get an entrance pass to become a part of this underground society.
Keep in mind that this was the early 1990s, long before anyone in the mainstream knew what
Pilates was. Only the New York elite practiced it; only celebrities, musicians, and members of old,
established, affluent New York families were exclusively privy to the gifts of this private club. On
any given day, as an apprentice, you could have right there on your Pilates machine, ready for a
session, Gloria Vanderbilt, Jill Clayburgh, or Mr. Glick, the first-chair violinist of the New York
Philharmonic. Mr. Glick, who then was easily seventy-five, showed off inversions that would shame
a twenty-five-year-old.
At Drago’s, I was invited to participate in a tradition steeped in discipline, hard work, and sweat
designed to keep a well-oiled human machine operating at peak efficiency. In so many ways, it was
more challenging than dance, and I was continually surprised by my body’s untapped abilities. To
understand this is to understand Pilates at its essence, its very raison d’etre—building self-belief
through the core, your seat of will and determination. After every single workout I ever did, after
moving beyond my own self-doubt and rising to the challenge of performing what I was asked to do,
my incredulity was replaced by an enormous endorphin rush—my prize for having worked so hard in
such an integrated, focused way. After every workout I felt fulfilled, powerful, proud, and never more
alive!
Pilates carries the music of movement, as I like to say. The earliest discoveries I made with
Romana at Drago’s about the singularly dynamic combination of fun and challenge, acknowledgement
of the self and of the human body in all its glory and capability, are being passed along to you directly