Kare is a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher with 18 years of teaching experience. Skilled in working with clients that are new to Pilates, those focused on injury prevention, enhanced sports performance and post-rehab populations. Kare takes a mindful approach to sessions with an emphasis on form, breath, somatic awareness, and alignment. When not in the studio, Kare also enjoys dance, being outdoors, working on environmental causes and community gardening.

In addition to Pilates, Kare practices yoga and has extensively studied somatic movement, anatomy, as well as dance.

Kare's journey with Pilates began in her 20s when she was first introduced to the method as a warm-up in one of her favorite Bay Area modern dance classes. After beginning her Pilates practice, Kare very quickly experienced so much more strength and power in her dancing and she felt more supported in all of her physical pursuits including walking, biking and hiking.

A daily bike commuter within San Francisco for roughly a decade, Kare was hit by a car as a bicyclist in 2009. She sustained a severe whiplash injury which led to a 2 1/2 year struggle with chronic pain. The pain ricocheted around in her body from place to place upper, mid and low back, neck, shoulder and hip.

Kare's long road to injury recovery in particular after soft tissue damage meant a dance between recuperation and activation with a focus on alignment and consistent core strengthening with Pilates.

Overcoming her injury and the many recovery plateaus that Kare hit along the way also came down to mindset and her belief and commitment to overcoming the persistent pain.

Kare earned a comprehensive 800 hour certification in mat and equipment-based Pilates from EHS Pilates, the premier Bay Area teacher training program led by Ellie Herman, a second generation teacher in the Pilates lineage. Ellie studied with Romana Kryzanowska and Kathy Stanford Grant, two of Joseph Pilates' original students whom he certified to teach the method.

Kare's Resume Highlights:

• Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher, NCPT

• Teaching Pilates since 2005

• 800 hour Comprehensive Mat and Equipment Pilates Certification completed 2008

• Post-Rehabilitation applications of Pilates with renowned Pilates Post-Rehab Specialist Lizz Roman

• Two-year in-depth study of somatic movement, movement analysis, and Bartenieff Fundamentals

• Yogini since the 1990s

• Decades of dance training
  (modern, jazz, Feldenkrais ballet)

Kare also holds a Bachelor of Science in Biological and Environmental Sciences from Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio and a Master in Nonprofit Administration from University of San Francisco's School of Management.