12 years in tech. 9 years on the studio floor.

9 years of pouring myself into my studio nearly broke me.

For 9 years, my studio ran on one engine: me. 4, 5, 6 classes a day. Admin at night. Messages between sessions. Retreats on the side to top up the income. Whatever the studio needed, the answer was always the same. I'll do it.

Then COVID hit, and while the world was shut, I lost my dad. I had a newborn at home. There were nights I lay awake certain I was going to lose the studio too. We survived. But I didn't slow down. I rebuilt the only way I knew how: by throwing more of myself at it.

A year ago, my body called time. A health scare. Honestly, I still haven't fully recovered. There was no dramatic crash. It was quieter than that. Standing between classes thinking: I can't do this anymore. Not "I don't want to." I physically can't. Meanwhile new studios kept opening around me, and I had less and less left to give.

Around then I moved studios, which meant updating everything. That's when I finally saw it: my website and my Google listing were in tatters. 9 years of pouring everything into the studio floor, and online, we were barely findable. So I picked up my other skill set. 12 years in tech, dusted off. I used AI to rebuild how we showed up on Google, on Maps, in AI search.

For the first time in 9 years, the studio was being found without me burning myself down to make it happen.

That's why Core and Code exists. Not because I stopped loving Pilates. Because I stopped believing the only way to fill a studio is to bleed for it.