Wendy LeBlanc-Arbuckle, Director
Pilates Center of Austin and
Core Connections® Pilates

Wendy’s experience in holistic health and related movement sciences has spanned 3 decades. An internationally respected "teacher of teachers", in 1995 she was chosen by Vogue Magazine as "one of America's 55 top trainers."

The early years…
Wendy's training in movement dynamics and holistic health began with yoga disciplines at The Himalayan Institute in the early 1970's. In the late 70’s, her studies culminated in her certification as a Holistic Health Teacher through the Kushi Institute. Over the next 8 years, she directed the East/West Center of Louisiana, as well as traveling extensively around the country leading seminars and training teachers. In the mid through the late 1980’s, Wendy participated extensively in Landmark Education's Leadership Development Program, for 2 years as a Seminar Leader. In 1989, she and her husband, Michael, and 3 other partners from the U.S, Canada and Switzerland, founded NOVA Institute, an international holistic school for the healing arts in Estes Park, Co.

And then came Pilates …
From there it was all downhill—literally. Because, it was during the development of the NOVA venture that that she met Rachel Segal and Amy Alpers in Boulder, a 40 mile trek down the mountain. From that point on, her life took on a decidedly expanded direction…lightening had hit, the train had left the station, there was no turning back. She was in one of the first Certification Program at the Pilates Center of Boulder, heading down the mountain 2 –3 times a week!
       Needless to say, this was, for Wendy, divinely inspired…as Romana Kryzanowska and her protégé Steve Giordano were delivering Boulder's Certification Course in the early years. She and Michael moved on from Nova in the coming year, and she devoted herself almost exclusively to her Pilates training. In 1993, after receiving her Pilates Certification, she, moved to Austin, Texas, where she now calls home, and founded the Pilates Center of Austin.
       Over the years since, she has studied with all of the 1st Generation Pilates Elders, particularly with longtime friends and treasured mentors, Mary Bowen and Kathleen Stanford Grant, and Pilates Master Teacher, Alan Herdman.

The road goes on forever…
Her ongoing yoga and Pilates practice, along with intensive studies with Judith Aston (Aston Patterning), Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen (Body-Mind Centering), Emilie Conrad (Continuum), The Guild for Structural Integration and Tom Myers (Anatomy Trains) has propelled Wendy to develop her work even further - inspiring students and teachers, alike to think "outside the box" and to reach deeply into the heart of their work, looking not for answers, but for the kind of questions that will generate a true breakthrough in their way of thinking, personal practice and teaching.
       Her passion has been the pursuit of illuminating and unifying the universal core principles that underlie Pilates, yoga and all great body/mind practices. It is this journey that has profoundly influenced the development of her dynamic Core Connections® Pilates 3 Core perspective. This perspective, which forms the foundation of the PCA's Continuing Education Programs, is an illuminating 3-Dimensional Full-Body Mapping of the Lower, Central and Upper Cores, from the feet to the cranial base. It provides an illuminating access for teachers to analyze and enhance any movement, seeing beyond an exercise to the essence of what each person needs.

* The Pilates Center of Austin, along with Wendy and her husband, Michael Arbuckle, were actively involved in the class action lawsuit that ultimately enabled the "Pilates" trademark cancellation, freeing up the Pilates name. Wendy is a founding member of The Pilates Method Alliance, is a second generation teacher, and participated in the PMA Pilates Certification Exam Panel, which created a professional standards National Exam to raise the bar for Pilates teachers and training programs. Wendy is a PMA Gold Certified Teacher.
 

Teaching Staff Bios (Bios coming soon).

Certified Teaching Staff

• Marcos Apodaca
• Mandie Pitre
• Gaye McElwain
• Lindsey Brannan
  
• Heather Quiring