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The day after Alycea Ungaro enrolled in training under Romana Kryzanowska, she was put on the studio floor.
Not to observe. To teach.
Kryzanowska was one of Joseph Pilates’ closest protégés, and her training studio had a reputation that modern certification programs would find uncomfortable. You learned by doing. You made mistakes in front of clients. You corrected those mistakes the next day.
“Training to teach is the same as training muscles. It’s time under tension.”
Ungaro carried that principle into Real Pilates when she opened the NYC studio in 1996. It now sits at the center of the Real Pilates Teacher Training program, known as RPTT: 600 hours across 30 weeks, 18 to 22 hours per week, and from the first day of training, trainees teach real clients.
RPTT trainees on the Tower wall at Real Pilates NYC – teaching real clients from day one
The day after Alycea Ungaro enrolled in training under Romana Kryzanowska, she was put on the studio floor.
Not to observe. To teach.
Kryzanowska was one of Joseph Pilates’ closest protégés, and her training studio had a reputation that modern certification programs would find uncomfortable. You learned by doing. You made mistakes in front of clients. You corrected those mistakes the next day.
“Training to teach is the same as training muscles. It’s time under tension.”
Ungaro carried that principle into Real Pilates when she opened the NYC studio in 1996. It now sits at the center of the Real Pilates Teacher Training program, known as RPTT: 600 hours across 30 weeks, 18 to 22 hours per week, and from the first day of training, trainees teach real clients.
Alycea Ungaro at the Cadillac – the hands-on correction that observation alone cannot replicate
The Pilates market is a different place than it was in 1996. The global studio market is valued at over $180 billion and growing. Training programs are everywhere.
“The good news for future instructors is that you can find training everywhere nowadays. The bad news is that excellent training is becoming harder to find.”
Ungaro’s concern is structural. Programs built around extended observation blocks look like training on paper, but they move the accountability burden off the program and onto the trainee.
“I’m concerned that teacher training programs that require large blocks of unsupervised or unstructured observation are simply outsourcing hours in order to reduce the program work load and accountability of investing in their trainees.”
That is a pointed critique of how most certification programs are built. Ungaro is not softening it.
What a trainee learns in their first week of live teaching cannot be replicated from the sideline: how to read a body moving in real time, how to deliver a cue and watch whether it lands, how to adjust when it doesn’t. Those skills require a student standing in front of you.
Ungaro describes what she calls the hand-off moment: the point where a cue stops being what the instructor says and becomes the client’s internal awareness.
“Our role as instructors is alignment, progression, and meeting stated goals. In order to achieve that, our first task is to inspire our students to mastery. We build routine and chart the journey, but coaches can only do so much. Empowering your clients to own their own wellness is the most impactful thing you can do.”
Most coaching frameworks push in the opposite direction. Dependent clients rebook. Ungaro’s model is built on a different argument: clients who develop real ownership stay longer and refer more often than clients who stay because they don’t know what to do without you.
“A great coach will keep a client connected in myriad ways, but not dependent. Your clients should want to please you, but self improvement and self-actualization can only come from within.”
The hand-off moment is when a teacher knows their client has actually learned something. It is also when the coaching relationship becomes sustainable rather than transactional.
This is where most operators underestimate what they are taking on.
Real Pilates did not plan to become a teacher training network. Demand built it. As RPTT graduates moved through the industry, other studios began asking to host the program. The model now runs across multiple states and internationally. Each host studio operates under the Real Pilates educational structure while maintaining its own identity.
Ungaro is direct about what this transition does to a working studio.
“Teacher training is an identity. If your studio is considering growing into teacher training, there is a very real impact to clients and to your team.”
The infrastructure requirements arrive before the first enrollment. Curriculum, contracts, policies, and evaluation systems all need to exist before trainees walk in. That is not the interesting part of launching a training program, which is exactly why most studios skip it.
“You want to have your structure in place before you get rolling and not get stopped up with troubleshooting when you really just want to be educating.”
Enrollment sourcing matters as much as curriculum. Converting existing clients into trainees creates a different set of problems than it solves.
“Building a teacher training program that relies exclusively on converting your clients is a trap that can easily backfire. Source your applicants broadly and vet your enrollments carefully.”
And for operators who find the operational lift too large to justify building from scratch, Ungaro offers a question worth sitting with before committing to development costs.
“Do you really need to reinvent the wheel? There are great programs to partner with and it may make sense to build your brand alongside others.”
Pilates has no universal licensing requirement. Physical therapy does. Ungaro holds credentials in both fields. In 2024 she was elected to the Board of Directors for the National Pilates Certification Program, which created the NCPT credential: a neutral third-party certification any instructor can pursue regardless of which training program they completed.
“Pilates has been the wild west in terms of standards. This exam was created by Pilates teachers for Pilates teachers.”
The framing Ungaro uses matters for operators evaluating candidates. The NCPT is a floor, not a ceiling.
“It’s the least you can do to establish yourself as a professional. It was created as a safety standard for the public, not as a hierarchy for teachers.”
For a studio hiring today, that distinction changes how you evaluate a candidate’s credentials. The NCPT tells you a teacher has met a minimum safety standard. Everything above that is where the real evaluation begins.
Real Pilates, Upper East Side
Every season brings new formats, new technology layers, new hybrid concepts promising differentiation through complexity. Ungaro’s position on this has not moved since 1996.
“Depth over breadth is foundational for us. We train our trainers to go deeper not wider. Cueing for mastery and form will win over variety every time.”
That is not a Pilates-specific observation. It is a studio operating principle applicable to any format: the coaches who produce results are rarely the coaches who have the most certifications. They are the coaches who have spent real time developing precision in fewer things.
“You need not do more to get better. You need to do better to get more.”
Evolving your coaching practice does not always mean adding something. Sometimes it means returning to what you already know and coaching it with more precision than you did last year. Real Pilates has operated on that premise for thirty years. The studios hosting RPTT programs across multiple countries are operating on it now.
What is the NCPT credential and do Pilates instructors need it?
The NCPT is a neutral third-party certification exam created by the National Pilates Certification Program. Alycea Ungaro, an NPCP board member, describes it as the minimum standard: a safety baseline for clients, not a ranking of teachers. Instructors can complete any training program and still sit for the NCPT. Studios using it as a hiring filter should treat it as a floor and evaluate everything above it separately.
How does the RPTT program structure 600 hours of teacher training?
The Real Pilates Teacher Training program runs 600 hours across 30 weeks at roughly 18 to 22 hours per week. The defining structure is that trainees teach real clients from week one. Coursework, supervised sessions, and live teaching hours are integrated from the start rather than sequenced from observation to practice.
Should a studio owner build a teacher training program or partner with an existing one?
Ungaro asks operators to answer one question before committing: do you need to reinvent the wheel? Building requires infrastructure, contracts, enrollment sourcing, and an identity shift that affects your entire client culture. Partnering with an established program can build your brand and expand your reputation without the full operational cost. Both paths require the same foundational infrastructure in place before enrollment begins.
What is the single biggest business literacy gap for new Pilates instructors?
According to Ungaro, personnel management. New instructors often graduate knowing how to deliver sessions but unprepared to hire, manage a team, or build a schedule. Her advice: get a mentor early, find someone with the skills you don’t have, and treat business education with the same urgency as technical training. Winging it won’t cut it in the current market.
About Robert James Rivera
Robert is a full-time freelance writer and editor specializing in the health niche and its ever-expanding sub-niches. As a food and nutrition scientist, he knows where to find the resources necessary to verify health claims.
By Jessica H. Maurer
By Jessica H. Maurer
By Robert James Rivera
By Jessica H. Maurer
By Robert James Rivera
By Robert James Rivera
Powering the Business of Health, Fitness, and Wellness Coaching
