Instructor — Jump Board, Reformer Flow
Elin Sowerby
Loud, funny, and completely uninterested in whether the class looks elegant. Counts out loud, plays music at a volume the rest of the building can hear, and will absolutely notice if you have quietly taken a spring off.
Suits — People who already train and miss being out of breath, ex-runners, and anyone who finds the reverent version of pilates slightly hard to take seriously.
she/her
Elin teaches all six Jump Boards and most of the evening Reformer Flow classes. If you hear music through the wall on a Tuesday at 06:45, that is her.
She danced professionally for six years after training in Leeds, until an ankle injury in 2017 made the schedule impossible. She is direct about that period being fairly bleak and about pilates being the thing that got her moving without the constant background question of whether she was still an athlete.
What she teaches
Jump Board, six times a week — Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings or lunchtimes, Friday at 17:00 and Saturday at 10:00. Reformer Flow on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday morning.
On the music
Yes, there is music. Yes, it is loud. She has been asked several times to turn it down and has a standing offer to anybody who asks: come to Tower & Chair on Friday instead, it is genuinely excellent and you will never hear a single drumbeat.
What she is careful about
For someone who runs the loudest class in the building, Elin is the instructor most likely to refuse you a place in it. Jump Board is repeated impact, and she turns people away from it perhaps twice a month — usually knees, ankles, or somebody in their first month who has read that it burns the most and thinks that is a reason. She will point you at Reformer Flow and mean it kindly.
Elsewhere
Coaches a junior netball side in Fishponds on Saturday afternoons. Owns a motorbike that is broken more often than it is not.
The other three
Nadia Kellner
Explains the reason for everything, sometimes at more length than the class strictly needs. Will stop a room of twelve to fix one person's shoulder and make it feel like a group discovery rather than a correction.
Priya Raghunathan
Fast, precise, and cues with her voice rather than by demonstrating, so you learn to listen instead of watching the front of the room. Counts in a way people find unreasonably calming.
Ruth Ferreira
Asks more questions than she gives instructions. Will spend ten minutes of a fifty-five minute class finding out what your back actually does before anybody touches a spring, and considers that ten minutes the class.