Mary Sue has more than 25 years experience teaching Pilates and movement fundaments in therapeutic, fitness, and performing arts settings. After graduating with honors in dance from Point Park University, she moved to Houston, where she performed with several area dance companies and theater groups. In 1983, she began her training as a Pilates instructor at Alan Herdman’s Body Conditioning Studio with 1st generation teacher, Alan Herdman, and master teacher Elizabeth Jones-Boswell. Mary Sue also studied with 1st generation teachers, Eve Gentry and Ron Fletcher, and other inspiring master teachers in her career have been Elizabeth Larkam and Karen Clippenger.

While in Houston, with Sandra Lauffenburger, she co-founded Fitness Movement Training. They developed and presented certification reviews and continuing education courses for the International Dance Exercise Association (IDEA) from 1987-1991. Mary Sue began a lasting interest in the therapeutic application of Pilates in rehabilitation, injury prevention and maternal fitness. She has created and implemented hospital-based fitness programs and pre- and post-natal fitness programs for several hospitals, and has worked with physical therapy and athletic rehabilitation clinics, as well as the Houston Ballet’s Body Conditioning Studio, to integrate the Pilates method with conventional rehabilitation practices.

Fueled by an insatiable curiosity about anatomy and biomechanics and a life-long love of dance, Mary Sue has pursued independent study in other movement disciplines including Bartenieff Fundamentals® and The Feldenkrais Method®.

Mary Sue founded Bodies in Balance, Seattle’s first commercial Pilates studio, in 1992. In addition to teaching private clients, she directed the therapy and conditioning facility at the Pacific Northwest Ballet.  She has continued her collaboration with physical therapists, occupational therapists and dance and sports medicine specialists.

Mary Sue is certified by the Pilates Method Alliance® and holds memberships with the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science and the International Dance Exercise Association. She has taught workshops and been a guest teacher nationally and internationally.