What Building a Studio From Zero Taught Me About Building a Body

Daisy Zhang (pictured here) is the founder of Mind Pilates , a boutique Pilates studio with two locations in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. Mind Pilates is one of the only studios in the NYC area specializing in Cadillac Pilates — an equipment-intensive, highly personalized method that goes beyond the Reformer classes most people know.

I didn’t have any clients or following when I opened the first Mind Pilates studio in Bushwick. I knew I wanted to share my love for Cadillac and Reformer Pilates and had a deep belief in what Pilates had done for my own body and mind. I contribute my stubborn conviction to showing up for others is why people showed up for me.

As we're opening our second location in Maspeth, Queens, I've reflected on what it actually took to get here — the lessons that built this business are the same lessons I teach inside the studio every single day. The way you build a community and the way you build a body have more in common than most people think.

It starts with presence, not performance

One of the first things I tell new clients is that pilates is not about how you look doing it but about whether you can feel what's happening. You should be able to sense which part of your core is firing or if your breath is guiding the movement (don’t hold your breath!).

Body awareness is the most underrated benefit of a consistent Pilates practice. Before you can strengthen something, you have to learn to feel it. Most of us move through the world almost entirely disconnected from our bodies. We sit for hours without noticing the tension building in our hips, hold stress in our shoulders and call it a bad mood and even breathe shallowly and wonder why we feel anxious.

Pilates, particularly Cadillac Pilates, uses a full apparatus of springs, bars, and straps to support and challenge the body to also simultaneously force that reconnection. The equipment shouldn’t be intimidating: It is there to help.

When I was starting the studio, I had to learn the same lesson as a founder. I wanted to rush having a full class schedule, a waitlist, and a recognizable name, but what actually worked was showing up fully for the one or two people in the room. Creating that personal connection, tailoring the workouts to their needs, and being genuinely curious about how they felt, not just how they moved changed everything for me.

Presence built the business, and it is also the thing that makes Pilates work.

Consistency compounds, both in a studio and in your body

I love Pilates because it also taught me patience. There are no shortcuts in Pilates.The method was designed by Joseph Pilates to rebuild the body through deliberate and intelligent movement to improve posture, core strength, back pain, and greater mobility. All of these things don’t happen from a single session.

Research published in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies found that participants who practiced Pilates consistently over several weeks showed significant improvements in core endurance and functional movement patterns. How their nervous systems understood and coordinated movement changed after deep adaptation was practiced over time.

I think about this when clients feel frustrated at week three and not seeing changes in the mirror. Your body is learning and building new patterns takes time. The work you're doing right now is laying the groundwork for everything that comes next.

I gave myself the same reminder when the studio was quiet and felt uncertain. The accumulation of small, consistent acts of care helped me build my community. And that showed up in forms of follow-up texts, remembered birthdays, the classes I showed up for even when attendance was small.

The Cadillac difference: meeting people where they are

Mind Pilates is one of the only studios in our area offering Cadillac Pilates, and why that matters speaks to my philosophy.

The Cadillac apparatus was originally designed by Joseph Pilates to rehabilitate bedridden patients. At its core, it is a tool for working with the body as it actually is (and not as we wish it were). The springs provide resistance but also assistance, which means that someone recovering from an injury, working around chronic pain, or simply new to movement can access the full range of Pilates principles without being limited by their current fitness level.

We’ve seen a rise in the "push through it" culture, but Cadillac Pilates is the opposite of that which dominates so much of the fitness industry. The fitness industry often rewards performance, but Cadillac Pilates rewards honesty with one's body.

I didn't try to attract everyone when I was building the Mind Pilates community. I tried to understand exactly who was walking through our door — often people who had felt intimidated by other fitness spaces, or who were dealing with physical limitations that mainstream gyms had no patience for — and I built around their actual needs. The studio grew because people felt genuinely seen, not through advertising.

My background shaped how I teach

Before opening Mind Pilates, I was a stay-at-home mother and a makeup artist. I never would have guessed that I’d become a loud proponent of anything in the fitness industry.

What I had was a personal experience of what intentional, supported, compassionate movement can do for a person who has been disconnected from her body. Many Asian wellness traditions, from Traditional Chinese Medicine to various breathwork practices, have long understood that the body is a living system to be listened to. I carry that understanding into every class I teach and shape the pace I set and the language I use.

It is also why I am currently completing my breathwork certification. Breath connects everything in Pilates: It governs the timing of movement, regulates the nervous system, and creates the internal pressure that supports the spine. Teaching people to breathe well is one of the most powerful things I can do for their long-term health, and I am eager to bring that deeper practice into the studio.

What I want people to know about starting

If you have never tried Pilates, or if you tried it once and found it confusing, boring, or not hard enough, I want to challenge you to try again.

The confusion usually means you haven't yet learned to feel what's happening and the perceived ease is often a sign that you're not yet connecting to the right muscles. All of that to say, it is part of the learning experience. Once it clicks, you will feel the work in an entirely different way.

Pilates rewards the willingness to slow down and pay attention to something subtle, which feels unnatural in a culture that prizes speed and intensity.

I built Mind Pilates because I believed that the right environment, the right method, and genuine human connection could change how people feel in their bodies. Several hundred clients and two studio locations later, I still believe that.

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