As you know most of Northern Ireland are taking some, or all, of this week off for a summer break, and so are we! TDR Academy is now closed for the week and Tanya is off for the whole week and Gary is off for two weeks.

If you do need to get in touch, please send a message via your usual text, email or social media, but bear with us - it may be a day or two before we get back to you.

Tanya will be back for the summer schedule at TDR Academy - full steam ahead from the Monday 18th July.

While Tanya's off, she's heading over to the Isle of Man for a day at the Pilates Teacher Association conference. The conference will be looking at the history of Pilates and the man behind the movement - Joseph Pilates.

Joseph Pilates is seen by many as a genius for inventing apparatus and creating a system of movement with unique properties which integrate the body and mind and ultimately "spirit". He was a prisoner of war on the Isle of Man during World War I and spent much of his time there developing and perfecting these new exercises.

"Concentrate on the correct movements each time you exercise" - Joseph Pilates

JosephPilates moved to New York City and throughout the 1920s further developed his system of movement. In homage to this, the members of the Pilates Teacher Association have voted to look at both his work and three lineages - Kathleen Stanford Grant, Eve Gentry and Romana Krysanowska - through a series of rotating workshops and mat classes.

Kathryn Ross-Nash, a world renown Pilates instructor and taught by Romana, will be one of the instructors:

“My favourite thing in the world is to be able to teach the work I believe in so strongly, as my teachers so generously gave it to me,”

Tanya is looking forward to learning and consolidating and, most of all, placing herself under renowned Pilates instructors! While she's over the water, she'll also be taking part in yoga classes in a nearby Studio.

She'll come back renewed and reinvigorated, and you'll feel the benefit of it in your next class!

Enjoy your week off and we look forward to seeing you from the 18th July onwards!