By Lauren Charlip

Pilates-Pro.com was unable to attend the Pilates Method Alliance’s Teacher Training Summit in Dallas on November 7-8, and we’ve been eager for information about the event. This week the PMA released a report on the meeting that’s now available here. We also spoke to PMA Executive Director Elizabeth Anderson and summit attendees for a closer look at the outcome.

The summit, which drew nearly 80 teacher trainers and program administrators from a range of Pilates backgrounds, was organized to “try to build consensus about how to move forward as an industry in terms of professionalizing,” Anderson said. At issue, according to the PMA, is the use of the word “certification” and the need to differentiate between the completion of a comprehensive teacher-training program and an industry-wide third-party credential. Currently, the word “certification” is used to denote both.

After many hours of group discussion, all but a handful of attendees left the summit agreeing to cease usage of the word “certification” to signify completion of their training programs, and signed a public commitment to change the terminology they’re using by July 1, 2010. Several well-known Pilates brands signed on, including Balanced Body, BASI Pilates, Fletcher Pilates, Polestar Pilates Education, Power Pilates and The Pilates Center of Boulder. Read the full list here, on the PMA report.

In 2005, the PMA launched an industry-wide third-party comprehen­sive Pilates certification exam (which, to date, is the only industry-wide exam). As a third party, the PMA has no commercial rela­tionship to the exam candidate or the training provider. This independence distinguishes a third-party credentialed certification from a “diploma” or a “certificate” earned at the end of a teacher training program, much like passing a state bar exam is different than graduating from a law school. Many people believe that adopting a third-party credentialing process is important for the Pilates industry as it professionalizes, and believe that professionalization is important because of the level of growth Pilates has experienced in recent years.

The PMA suggests in the report that schools replace the word “certification” with either “diploma,” “assessment-based certificate” (ABC) or “graduate.” “We recommend people do it in the name of self-regulation, so that the Pilates industry can get in line with ways that other professions behave and operate that are much more established than us,” Anderson said.

The Pilates industry has a long tradition of passing on knowledge through mentorship. “Passing the Torch,” recently launched by Balanced Body University (BBU), is expanding that tradition with a formal program featuring a list of mentors that reads like a who’s who of the Pilates industry.

In the program, a small cohort of mentees works with a designated mentor for 12 to 18 months, spending three separate weeks alongside them, in addition to other curriculum. Signed on to mentor are Pilates elders Mary Bowen, Ron Fletcher and Lolita San Miguel, along with masters like Amy Taylor Alpers, Rael Isacowitz, Julian Littleford, Michele Larsson. Read the full list here.

“These teachers helped create the modern Pilates industry,” says Al Harrison, Director of Education for Balanced Body University. “A light went off for us—why don’t we ask all these people if they’d work together under a common banner to create this mentor program?”