Our Teachers
Amy Sackler
Amy’s passion for Pilates began with her own introduction to the fitness regimen in 2006. The physical and mental benefits of a consistent Pilates practice became so evident to her, that Amy was compelled to pursue her comprehensive Pilates certification through the Equinox Pilates Training Institute.
Amy infuses classical and contemporary Pilates exercises into her work to foster strength building, combined with intermittent stretching and joint-focused mobility work. Through her instruction, Amy strives to help educate her clients on how to weave skills of a consistent Pilates practice into daily life through mindful movement.
In addition to being a Kaira Studios instructor, Amy works one-on-one with clients at Equinox Century City and her home studio. She is a Certified Schwinn® Indoor Cycling Instructor and has more than two decades of yoga, strength training, group fitness, kick boxing and Krav Maga experience.
Felicia Kelley
Felicia is a certified Pilates instructor, creative movement coach, and athlete who simply helps people to move better. She actively promotes the healing transformation of bodies so that others can do what they love without pain, discomfort, or strain. Felicia's pilates classes are nourishing for the body, challenging to the mind, fun, and always full of joy.
Michelle Ballon
Michelle is passionate about helping being move better in their bodies. She discovered Pilates when she took a community college course as a teenager. She quickly became curious about movement and fitness. She shifted gears while in college and started practicing yoga to relief her anxiety. She was so excited to learn more that she enrolled in back to back 200 and 500 hour teacher trainings taking her all the way to India. Wanting to incorporate functional movement into her yoga classes, she started studying Yoga Tune Up under Jill Miller, where she learned the importance of movement variety and self-care techniques to roll out fascia, tight muscles, and relax the nervous system.
She began practicing Pilates again to rehab a knee injury in 2016. Her curiousity led her to enroll in both the BASI Pilates and Wundabar Pilates teacher training trainings. Michelle is a forever student who is always on the hunt for more information.
Her teaching style is playful, challenging and a little goofy. You can expect to be challenged, supported, and maybe even laugh a little.
Nicole Watkins
Nicole's been teaching for almost two decades in New York and Los Angeles. She found Pilates through dance. Simply, she was looking for a way to pay the bills that wasn't food service or sitting at a desk.
After her first mat certification, she knew that wasn't enough to satisfy her thirst for knowledge of the body. While in New York, she completed a comprehensive Pilates teacher certification, and went on to study with master Pilates teachers, as well as somatic bodyworkers and kinesiologists. She has built a knowledgeable and compassionate teaching practice that honors the client in front of her rather than only looking at the Pilates repertoire.
In Los Angeles, she worked with Kaira Studios to build a studio that empowers teachers to build their businesses. Nicole has created this program to teach you anatomy, Pilates exercises, and tools to build a business that helps you thrive.
Sofia Klass
Sofia’s teaching style is inspired by her various movement backgrounds as a dancer, choreographer, Yoga and Pilates teacher. Sofia guides her students with anatomical awareness and imagery in order to give them self-knowledge to heal themselves and to move better in their bodies. She teaches all ages and levels of fitness designing her sessions to the needs of her students which include posture, injury improvement/prevention, strength training breath work.
Sofia received her Pilates Certification from Long Beach Dance Conditioning with Marie-Jose Blom, her Hatha Vinyasa Yoga certification from Max Strom, and holds a B.A. in Dance from UCLA’s World Arts and Cultures department. She is a performing member and manager for Invertigo Dance Theatre and teaches for their Dancing Through Parkinson’s program in Venice.