Our Founders
Katherine and Kimberly Corp
Most identical twins split in the first week after conception — before the body has decided which side is right and which is left. Katherine and Kimberly Corp split in the second week. By then, left and right were already written into the embryo. When it divided, each half inherited the opposite orientation.
One sister's dominant hand is her right. The other's is her left. They are not copies. They are reflections — and that biological fact became the foundation of a teaching philosophy.
Our Journey
Key milestones from Japan to a worldwide educator network.
-
Katherine and Kimberly graduate Duke in three years and move to Japan, where they live and work — fluent in Japanese, grounded in a culture of precision and discipline.Japan -
After performing careers as Radio City Rockettes, the sisters open Pilates on Fifth in Manhattan — a studio that becomes the proving ground for their method.Pilates on Fifth Opens -
Pilates Academy International opens in January 2006 — not as a studio, but as a school built to teach teachers.PAI Founded -
The PAI network begins to grow — taking the curriculum beyond New York for the first time.First Satellite Center Opens -
PAI earns PMA-ITTAP accreditation, the international gold standard in Pilates education.ITTAP Accreditation -
A milestone that reflects not just growth, but the reach of a method built to travel.10,000th Graduate -
PAI now spans six continents — a global network united by one curriculum, one standard, and one philosophy.44+ Centers Worldwide
Our Values
What guides the PAI community
Four values shape how we teach, mentor, and support every educator.
Challenge
We believe growth lives just outside comfort. Our curriculum is rigorous by design — because the instructors our students become will be asked hard questions by complicated bodies.
Motivate
Teaching is an act of sustained belief in another person's potential. We train our instructors to see what a student is capable of before the student can see it themselves.
Encourage
PAI was built in part because our founders experienced what it feels like to be made to feel wrong in their own bodies. Encouragement here is not soft. It is structural.
Inspire
The goal has never been to produce instructors who teach the way we do. It has been to produce instructors who teach — with rigor, with curiosity, and with a genuine love of movement.
Global Network
Forty-four centers. Six continents. One curriculum.
PAI's satellite network spans the globe — but every center teaches from the same foundation: comprehensive, apparatus-based training built to the highest international standard, wherever in the world it's delivered.
44+ CentersAcross 6 Continents
Stay connected
Join the PAI community
Workshops, faculty insights, graduate teaching spotlights, and CE reminders — follow along as we grow the global educator network.