ZOE’S PILATES | DECEMBER 2024
When I sit down to write about Zoe, the first thing I notice is that my back hurts. Not a normal thing for me to notice when I shift tasks, work-wise, but such is the magic of Zoe Groom, two-decades’ veteran in all ways of Zoe’s Pilates—she gets in your head! So, I listened to her, the Zoe in my head, and rearranged my desk even before I began to work out several pages of furiously scribbled notes I had on an inspirational visit the CVEDC team made to Zoe’s business a few weeks ago, during the prettiest days of fall. There is a Zen at her space that balances orchestration with what’s natural, and it begins the moment you arrive.Even in 2024, the GPS still doesn’t really take you all the way there, so you must discover this place yourself, a bit. The studio itself is wedged into a hillside Tolkien would’ve appreciated; to access it, you must align your car neatly along the driveway. If you arrive at class time, the turning around, the parking, is all done with calm reverence ahead of attending one of Zoe’s popular Pilates classes.
Magic is a word you just keep thinking about in Zoe’s presence.
The vibe of the studio is happy and calm, with focused movement and energy. This vibe is carried amongst class attendees into their days, and their lives. Friendship and coming together in joy have become long-established touchstones of what Zoe’s studio offers the community it supports.Chatting with Zoe, she attributes the manifestations of her business to be guided by highly personalized systems. They work for her, she tells me, and never translated to anyone else. She’d dabbled, a couple times, with how to add an instructor, to pivot her model to incorporate someone else’s work. But it turned out, this business had been finely-tuned to offer Zoe’s unique gifts best.
Everything Zoe has created at the studio is imbued with quiet meaning.
Zoe also attributes the success of her business to a coalescing of her interests, an investment of her time into studying and learning, and practice, practice, practice - of her own Pilates and teaching the system. As we talk about her business and as we tour the studio and she demonstrates the basics of her work, my mind travels to Le Monastère des Augustines, a 17th-century convent in Quebec City that’s been converted into a very specific type of hotel. It’s silent. The food is healthy and fresh, and meals are taken in silence. No one is sad, though cancer patients and those who have suffered are present, often as free guests. Most guests are women. The sense you have in that place is you are in a sanctuary, one that’s particularly restorative to the suffering of women. Without ever dwelling in sadness, just uplifting from it.
And that’s how it feels at Zoe’s, and those are some of the intentions she also bears in her work. I tell her about this reflection I’m having, the concept of a sanctuary for women created in spaces like these, and she agrees earnestly. Zoe’s clients are mostly locals. There are patterns to drop-in attendees of her classes given that she’s located off the Access Road to Sugarbush ski resort. But regular, local attendance is part of the systems to Zoe’s magic. And the fact that Zoe’s clients are connected as neighbors, by community, and in many other ways, adds complexity to her work. It means that when the community grieves, managing grief becomes a part of the work. Over the decades of Zoe’s Studio’s life, there have been many losses to process together. Zoe’s balances also contain the individual alone and the class, the group.
When the group carries grief, one of Zoe’s jobs is to work in ways that helps the group with that burden.
How does Zoe recharge? Zoe thinks about that question and gives me a second answer a few days later, longer than the first. She said: I take my dogs for walks to be in nature, I value coffee time with Matt, I am always reading one fiction and one non-fiction book (currently three: To The Women by Donna Ashworth, Rich Dad’s Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki, and Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger), I eat a healthy diet and make sure to get enough sleep (I might slip a jelly bean or two in there!). I am honored you chose me first to be your business of the month. I am so fortunate to have found Pilates, to be surrounded by wonderful women (and some men ;)) every day, that my brain and body are in balance as a result of my profession. I plan on running my studio in some capacity for many years to come.
Gold Hill Road • Warren, VT 05674 • 1-802-583-2673 • zoe@zoespilates.com
