Uptown Pilates

I’ve been coming to Uptown on and off for the past few years and it’s never failed to be an enjoyable and relaxing experience. The front desk is always professional and prompt, the space is clean and accessible and the instructors worth well with you even if you’re a novice like me. What a great little Pilates community in the big city!

I’m here at least once a week, but would come more if a few things changed.
PROS
1. Front desk is great — unfailingly efficient, polite, etc.
2. Equipment — new!
3. Instructors — some are GREAT and challenging — Yael, Debi, Tatyana. Suzanne delivers a reliable, classic mat work-​out.
4. Clean!
CONS
1. No reformer classes
2. 90% of the tower classes are 50% mat — annoying, when you’ve paid for, and want, tower.
3. Inconsistent class quality/​difficulty (tending towards easy), varying too much by instructor.
4. As mentioned in other reviews, a few instructors can be snarky, excluding non-​regulars (to their class) and new students (literally excluding — telling a few students to do exercises and others not; giving some students props, others not!). So annoying!

Lisa’s review below is dead on: «Snarky/​patronizing attitude to non-​regulars.» I’ve been nursing a sprained ankle and am new to pilates so I was hoping for a positive experience here. I did a mat class and the teacher was a sub. The class was very small — maybe six people — and the teacher not only assumed that everyone had done pilates before but took this exact class. Every time she would ask «well what happens every week in this class?» I’d look at her and say «I have no idea — its my first time.» Whatever. She would also call people out — mostly me — in a super patronizing way and I was kind of giving it right back to her. Last thing I need at the end of a day. I wanted to approach her after class and tell her I would’ve appreciated her asking whose first time it was, how experienced people were, etc but she ran out of there. I did bring this up to another teacher who was super kind and suggested another teacher I should take there. This teacher is the type of person who discourages people from coming back and trying something new. Load of BS.

Hmm… there seem to be a lot of reviews that are outdated here, so I will try to give an update!
I found the staff to be very supportive, from the time of check in, to throughout each exercise. I took Leslie’s class. It was my first time using the tower (so confusing! So many springs and boards to push and pull…), and she guided us through every move (I hope I didn’t slow the rest of the class down!).
The nature of pilates classes are that they are very small, as there are only so many mats, towers and reformers. I hope to be back eventually!

I Don’t feel like I got a good workout here. It was too easy. I had taken 2 other pilates classes in the last 3 weeks and gotten a far better workout at those other places.

sometime good, often teachers are not watching, & correcting workouts

OMG Melissa, you have made me a «pilates mat class» convert. I usually hate organized, regimented exercise regimes, but not your class. She is incredibly challenging, and morphs the class’s agenda as you get better and better. The facility is excellent– extremely well run. Love the front desk lady, Kelly. The mats are very clean, they even have a shower, and if you buy a package, the class cost isn’t too bad. This makes me travel from the West Village to attend class. A top notch operation!

Interior: clean. (are you noticing that clean is very important to me)
Service: very nice at the front desk and they even have a daisy pen for you to use, nice touch.
$: Expensive! but also their rent?
Tidbits: My first experience here was horrible, I almost wanted to jump up and teach the class myself. The second time I took a class from Salome and really enjoyed it — I recommend her. The most important thing is that you want a teacher who knows their own body and has that innate body awareness and intelligence. The last thing you want in a teacher is a narcissist and someone just going through the exercises with no idea of what they are really talking about. Peace.