Hidden Gems: Meet Emily Hollon of Core Collective

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Hollon.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My parents are both small business owners, so I’m convinced this was somehow in my blood.

Prior to discovering Pilates, it felt like I lived my life in extremes. I was either running 10 miles a day and cutting out all carbs, or avoiding the gym entirely and subsisting only on carbs. There was no in-between.

Pilates, for me, was about balance. It’s a fantastic workout, of course, but there’s no distance to run or mile time to beat – and it helped me connect with my body in a way I have never experienced in the past. It helped me to make peace with my body, and in doing so, helped me to become stronger than I ever had been in my life.

I don’t recall the exact moment I decided to open a studio of my own, but I do know it was a very self-serving endeavor, as my single greatest goal was to create the dream studio space where I had always envisioned I would want to work out, myself.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Being shut down for seven months this past year was certainly challenging, but reopening with a shell of a staff, a fraction of our clients and a whole new (and ever-changing) rule book was an even bigger hurdle for us.

Surviving this past year required a ton of hard work, but wouldn’t have been possible had we not doubled down on our core strengths.

While many other studios chose to lean in to their virtual offerings, I knew this was not sustainable for us, as community is such an integral part of our studio – and it’s nearly impossible to replicate that virtually. With this in mind, we opted to resume in-person classes as soon as we were safely able to do so.

For us, this meant:

• lugging 350-pound reformers out to our parking lot last summer to host outdoor sessions
• modifying our studio layout to give people the option to attend live classes either in a separate room of the studio, outside the studio or virtually, enabling us to accommodate a wider variety of individual preferences and comfort levels
• playing pre-recorded workouts in place of hosting live sessions this past winter. This allowed our clients to take classes without having to worry about being in close contact with our instructors, and allowed us to offer more classes even with a limited number of instructors, effectively minimizing our average class sizes
• doubling down on our safety protocols to ensure we kept both our clients and staff safe

While I hope never to have to face another closure, I do think it’s strengthened my resolve – and has given me a new appreciation for both the clients and the team that make our studio what it is.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Core Collective ?
On a surface level, we teach Reformer Pilates classes. But it’s our mission that sets us apart. Believing workouts should be accessible, diverse, effective and, most importantly, fun, we’ve created an affordable, infinitely adaptable workout that attracts everyone from beginners to Olympic and professional athletes. Clients consistently report improvements in strength and flexibility – and many report that it’s the first workout they’ve ever done that they genuinely enjoy.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Definitely my enthusiasm – even on the toughest days, I still love what I do. 🙂

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.corecollectivea2.com
• Instagram: www.Instagram.com/corecollectiveA2
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/corecollectiveA2