About Jillian Hessel

Primary Teacher Training: Jillian Hessel Pilates

Originally from Tarrytown, N.Y., Jillian Hessel is an internationally renowned Master Pilates teacher based in Los Angeles, California, and a second-generation Pilates teacher in direct succession from Joseph Pilates. Jillian first discovered the benefits of Pilates when her professional dancing career was sidelined by a back injury in 1981. She began to study with Kathy Grant, a New York-based movement coach specializing in the technique of corrective exercise and body conditioning developed by Joseph Pilates.

Jillian recognized at once that the goals of this therapeutic conditioning system are full body control, an extremely high degree of abdominal strength, greater range of motion, and most significantly, the combined power of the body and mind.

Within a few months, Jillian was apprenticing at the Carola Trier Studio, where she studied to teach Pilates' method of exercises. "I began to develop my own teaching style," she says." It was a synthesis of my knowledge from years of dance training, yoga classes, and my work with Kathy and Carola."

In 1986, Jillian moved to Los Angeles, where she continued teaching the work of Pilates at the Ron Fletcher Studio. Two years later, she founded her own training practice, and since then she has tutored countless students in the finer nuances of Pilates exercise. Throughout this time she has developed and constantly honed her own unique approach to teaching Pilates, which she calls the B.E.A.M. Technique™.