We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelly Kane and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelly, how do you think about risk?
I often think of myself as someone who hasn’t had much fear, until recently I took a lot of calculated and not so calculated risks when I started my business. I was a medical school student and decided to leave medical school. The culture of medicine was not where I wanted to spend my energy and time. It was a highly masculine system and I wanted to work within a system that was egalitarian and collaborative. I was obsessed with human anatomy and biomechanics and wanted to spend my life exploring it and teaching. I was not obsessed with the classic structures of the medical system. I remember leaving because it just felt right. It felt like the right thing to do to align my actions towards actualizing my souls purpose. I learned to engage in that practice when I was young. Both of my parents died when I was 11. My grandmother always reminded me that I would have to depend on myself and decide what was right for me because no one was going to tell me what to do. It allowed me to settle risk taking in that practice; if it felt right, aligned with my souls purpose i did it. I have never been one to shy away from risks because I felt settled in this practice.

My relationship to risk taking is changing as I am getting older. I feel capable physically and mentally but the pandemic and leaving my marriage at 55 has altered the calculus in my decision making and risk taking. I often think long and hard about wanting to make sure that the returns on the energy I invest in my business will reap the returns that I am aiming for.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I found Pilates after I had been in PT for 5 months after a traumatic should injury, which was the result of a snowboarding snafu. The classic approach to shoulder rehab of manual work by a physical therapist coupled with self monitored Theraband exercises didn’t work for me. I was also watching other people receiving PT, in this highly reputable practice, strengthening their compensations instead of rewiring their movement towards optimizing function. Pilates is what helped me navigate moving back into high function and got me back to snowboarding with confidence.

I decided to train in the modality and eventually registered in a certification program. From the beginning I knew I would write my own Pilates certification program.The kind of program that I was looking for didn’t exist in the Pilates Certification space. I wanted to understand the “whys” from a a physiological and biomechanical perspective. I wanted to understand how to make programming and training choices from a highly educated and informed perspective. I didn’t find any certification program that provided that information. I knew that I could create a program that provided an academic approach to Pilates training. I also didn’t find any programs that integrated manual perceptual skills and cuing. I had developed those skills when I dropped out of medical school and matriculated in the local massage school.

The Kane School of Core Integration was borne in the mid 1990’s with the goal of teaching how to assess humans through touch and visual assessment. We also spend a lot of time on building skills to see the anatomy of the body in front of you!

Pilates Certification and education has been my primary business for the last 30 years. In the pandemic and as #Me too gained potency, I wanted to visit some content that I had taught for several years: pelvic floor health and sexual health for bodies with vulvas and vaginas. I also was starting to feel a little feral and dare I say radical as I was aging? I wanted to help women understand their physiology of pleasure and reproduction and create a program where they could explore what felt good and when and how to say no in the moment, if it didn’t. I also was aware that the religious right had been working tirelessly to erode reproductive freedom in the shadows and that Roe was about to be overturned. The time was ripe for it and it is crystal clear to me that one of the primary ways that we know we live in a democracy is body autonomy. Women’s body autonomy and healthcare have suffered a horrifying setback and it’s a symptom of democracy being eroded. The least I could do was help people understand how to have more control over their sexual and reproductive health.

I started virtually teaching Sex Ed with Kelly Kane and offering the Sugarbush Practice during the pandemic. Sex Ed is all the basics of how vulvas and vaginas work, how to access Personal Pleasure Principles and how to become pregnant and to avoid it. The Sugarbush Practice is a once a month way to reinforce personal practice around sexual self-care. You can see the content https://www.kellykane.org/sex-ed for Sex Ed and here for The Sugarbush Practice
https://www.kellykane.org/sugarbush. It fun and accessible and private!

Being an entrepreneur or solopreneur is easy, it requires discipline, structure and passion! I think that what I feel sooooo lucky about is being able to do something that gives my life meaning and helps women. I’ve helped women (and men) gain skills top support themselves through my Pilates Certification and I have helped women gain power int heir bodies and the world through my courses. I am very proud to be doing the work I do!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Currently I live in Vermont. I moved here from NYC 2015. I wanted to move here to snowboard and mountain bike. I had a deep desire to see nature and to find solace in her and see her daily in detail. I wanted to grow food. I wanted to SUP in rivers and on lakes and slow the f— down! I wanted to see bugs, birds, fish, moose and bears all the time. I wanted to breath air that smelled really good and smell nature. I wanted to spend time with the lungs of the earth: trees!

When I have my friends come up from NYC they don’t always know how to navigate the outdoors. If there is no place to shop or eat, they are not always sure what to do. I am a big fan of helping people learn how to navigate and engage with natural spaces. I would take someone mountain biking on the trails near my house or teach them how to snowboard or show them how to SUP on my favorite lake. We would walk and talk and cook food together. We would slow down and watch and listen. We would take some sweet deep breaths. We would see music at Feast and Field in Barnard, VT and eat best food I know locally at my table.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Madeline Black is a Pilates mentor who helped me transition into being a presenter on the global stage. She saw in me something that then I was able to see in myself.

Virginia Reath RPA MPH PC has been a practicing clinician, educator and activist in the fields of gynecology, sexual and reproductive heath care for the past 30 years. She taught me how to think outside the box around a women’s care. She taught me that process is a part of treatment and that we all need to be seen and heard for who we are as women and that that is as important as anything we do.

Website: kellykane.org

Instagram: @kellykanelove

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelly.kane.967

Other: I have two places on-line where people can access my on demand content: https://app.arketa.co/iframe/kaneschoolnycgmailcom/on-demand https://www.kinectedcenter.com/uncategorized/new-platform-tips/ The new Sugarbush Practice that starts in the beginning of October will also have on demand access once completed.

Image Credits
Abi Elaine Photography, Woodstock VT

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