Christina Fanizzi has been teaching Pilates for 23 years. As a teenager, she had an acute awareness of the body. An avid dancer from grade school through college, where she earned her B.A. in Theatre, she constantly questioned and investigated the body’s capabilities through movement. After graduating, she continued her studies in the performing arts.
As a working actress, singer and dancer in New York City in her twenties and thirties, she immersed herself in varying movement and mind/body modalities, including Alexander Technique, Qigong, various approaches to improvisation, and much more. As a performer, she came to know just how powerful a tool the body is. When a trusted mentor became ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), Christina found herself assisting and supporting her mentor through the disease with simple range-of-motion exercises that became essential for her comfort.
A dear friend noticed Christina’s innate body wisdom and suggested she investigate learning Pilates because she thought Christina would be a very good teacher. Christina took her friend’s advice and started her extensive training and apprenticeship with Fran Lehen in Manhattan. With the help of Pilates, she started to gain a deeper awareness of the intrinsic power of transformation that is available to her in every area of her life, on and off the stage. Continuing her training at The Kane School of Core Integration, her enthusiasm for Pilates grew, and her passion as a teacher has evolved ever since.
One thing she has always known: the body is a most powerful instrument — whether you are performing on a stage, competing athletically or simply enjoying a nice bike ride or walk in the woods. A steady practice of Pilates informs your body awareness and radiates through all of life, allowing for “spontaneous zest and pleasure,” as Joe Pilates himself said. Our capacity for movement is a part of what makes life so enjoyable and wondrous.
Throughout her journey as a teacher, Christina is continually amazed and inspired by the work that Pilates can accomplish for everyone.
She is now a certified member of the Pilates Method Alliance and a Masters graduate from the Pilates Center in Boulder, Colorado — considered one of the most respected Pilates teacher training programs in the world. In addition, she has had the good fortune of teaching Pilates in Europe, both in London and Orvieto, Italy. She is also an Open Floor International teacher of conscious movement/dance and mindfulness.
Her inquisitive, passionate nature leads her to continually expand her knowledge of movement, anatomy and Pilates through ongoing workshops with the most skilled and intuitively gifted colleagues in the Pilates and Conscious Movement world. She believes in the true intention of Joe’s vision and, when practiced regularly, the transformative alchemy that follows.
Christina currently lives in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia and looks forward to meeting you!