Keeping others at ease

Paul Clinton

Signing on with the family business was an easy decision for Nicole

Leto, who with her mother Karen runs Pilates studios in Newport

Beach. Watching her mother develop a passion for the yoga-like

exercise style rubbed off on the younger Nicole.

“My mother, she’s the one who got me started,” Nicole said.

“You’re working from the inside out. The more I do it, the better I

feel, the more balance I feel.”

Practicing the array of exercise techniques gives Nicole a

peaceful, easy feeling. She said it centers her in a chaotic,

stressful world.

The Pilates technique is named after Joseph Pilates, who developed

the string of exercises for bedridden patients during World War I. He

opened the first Pilates exercise studio in New York in the 1920s and

practiced the technique until his death in 1967.

Pilates, like yoga, is a method of body conditioning that employs

more than 500 individual exercises. It emphasizes the importance of

strengthening the “powerhouse” or “core” section of the body,

including deep abdominal muscles, buttock muscles and the muscles

around the spine.

On Sept. 23, Nicole, 33, and Karen, 60, opened up a second Pilates

studio in the city -- on Balboa Peninsula, where they live. Nicole

now runs that studio while she completes training to become a

certified Pilates instructor.

Karen kicked off the family business on Oct. 8, 2000, when she

opened the doors of Island Pilates Studio. Karen, a certified

instructor, retired from what she calls her “first career” in retail.

In the late 1980s, Karen sold off a string of clothing stores in

Seal Beach and Huntington Beach. She began studying yoga and Pilates.

She took Pilates classes at Orange Coast College in 1998 and 1999 and

gained her certification in 2000.

She now manages a staff of nine Pilates instructors and one yoga

instructor, who teach the classes at both studios.

Right now, the Letos have about 800 clients and potential clients

in their databases.

Clients can sign up for a 10-class package for $100. The studios also offer private lessons, semi-private lessons and group lessons,

on either floor mats or the Pilates equipment.