Rising Stars: Meet Shari Berkowitz of Santa Monica/NYC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shari Berkowitz.

Hi Shari, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was a professional dancer, singer, actress with a remarkable musical theater career in NYC. However, one night during a performance of GREASE, the man playing “Danny Zuko” violently whipped me in a turn rather than gently guiding me. His violence left me with a massive brachial plexus pull and multiple herniated discs pressing into the nerves of my left arm and my spinal canal. I was paralyzed in my left hand, arm and shoulder girdle. It was horrifying! After 11 months of physical therapy (PT) multiple times a week, I was given 30 minutes of Pilates and 30 minutes less PT. Though I had regained feeling and movement at this point, I was extremely weak and unstable. Pilates was life giving to me! I got stronger both in body and mind! It was a huge part of my emotional healing as well as my physical healing! I was in love!

I returned to my performing career and after 1.5 years of PT overlapping with Pilates, now, I moved to L.A. (This was in 2000.) Though I was performing and shooting small films, I really was finding myself more and more interested in Pilates. Eventually, I moved back to NYC for 6 months and intensely did my Teacher Training. Then I moved back to L.A. and started to teach full-on!

By 2004, I opened my own studio The Vertical Workshop in Beverly Hills! It was a really spectacular place where I wanted people to feel welcome, at home and drama-free! The Pilates world is full of drama and back-biting. Not The Vertical Workshop! We are all about creating “A Community of Help!”

Though, I was the Lead Teacher Training of a company headquartered in NYC and was getting requests to teach workshops all around the country and the world. And so I did! There was something different about the work I was doing and sharing…something that encouraged people to do more, want more, get excited and play! Part of that was because I had decided to deeply educate myself in the human body and movement…to learn what is going on when Pilates works well…and what is going on when Pilates does not work well!

I became the “go to” person for providing answers to the questions of Pilates teachers of all styles all across then world and travelled more and more connecting with more people. Adding to this “Community of Help.” The Vertical Workshop was becoming more than a brick and mortar studio in Beverly Hills. It was becoming an international network of education and kindness.

In 2010, I moved back to NYC, left the training company I had been working with and went solo. But my ties to L.A. were and still are very strong! I run training programs and workshops in L.A. The Vertical Workshop has many teachers across LA and southern California in general! There are more The Vertical Workshop teachers in L.A. and SoCal than anywhere else across the world…and we’re everywhere! My heart is still there!

While in L.A., I thought it was important to try to connect all styles of Pilates together. To try to eliminate the back-biting and in-fighting and be a greater community. Though I didn’t develop the utopia I had dreamed of in that way, I think that a lot of walls got broken down and a lot of bridges were built! I’m proud of that…of those who worked and still work to be together rather than apart!

After so many years of working with a diverse national and international teachers, I transitioned from teaching clients to teaching teachers across then world. That made me need to travel more and do something before anyone else did in the fitness world: live-streaming workouts. Without knowing it, I was apparently the first person to do live-streaming workouts! I just had a need and found a solution. Of course, now everyone does it!

When Covid hit and the world was shutting business doors, I received hundreds of emails from Pilates teachers across the world asking me to teach them what I had been doing for so many years live-stream. So…the day before doors were to close, I held a live-stream webinar that had about 500 Pilates teachers from across the world. Then hundreds and hundreds more worked with the recording and the Pilates world kept going! I’m very glad I was able to support my community this way! I couldn’t let them shut their doors! No way!

This is also the time that I created Pay-What-You-Can pricing (unheard of in Pilates and I still do it) as well as a really vast On Demand Workshops and On Demand Workouts platform! Of course, I also have a really rich YouTube channel and a super deep blog that I started back in 2008 The Pilates Teacher Blog! I want people to have the resources they need! I have a lot to share and wish to share it all!

Considering L.A….I love L.A. so much…I think about a move back! I work strongly with so many in L.A. and my heart is there! In fact, I think of doing my PhD in L.A…that would bring me back full time…! Yes, while in NYC, I did my Masters in Biomechanics and Ergonomics…it’s time for my PhD after I’ve had a little academic break! L.A. would be a glorious place to do it!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Gosh, life has not been a smooth road, but I have remarkable resilience, it seems! I’ll share that I grew up in an abusive household and then married abusive men. These things go hand in hand. Overcome extreme abuse is not an easy feat. That combined with devastating paralysis that interrupted my performing career, being held up at gunpoint and shoved into a garage in L.A. as well as just the challenges of owning a business (are employees and contractors going to show up or call in sick, lock up or leave your business unprotected, respect your clientele or steal them from the studio… Challenges!

When I did my Masters in Biomechanics and Ergonomics full-time, I somehow had to still keep my business going. I did! It was difficult and possible. So I did it! And I will have to figure out how to keep it all going in one iteration or another when I do my PhD.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a Pilates Teacher of Teachers, Biomechanist and Ergonomist. I am known for moving forward the world of Pilates with evidence-based, scientific information that helps Pilates teachers understand what to do and what not to do…and how the human body really works…not just mystical ideas from their own experience. Real, evidence-based information!

I hope that I am also know as bringing joyful energy into Pilates as well as encouraging working hard and strongly to the ability of the clients we work with! I try to influence my community to get strong!

I’m really proud of being the person that my community knows they can turn to for help, assistance, support! I want to be for others what wasn’t there for me! And maybe that means they will be present for others, too! We can build a better world one person at a time in giving, caring ways!

These are things (bringing deeper science and more kindness into Pilates) that I am both most proud of and what sets me apart from others!

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Most people likely don’t know that I was severely abused as a child and as an adult. I have worked desperately hard to strengthen and heal; build resilience and overcome the horrors of abuse.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theverticalworkshop.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theverticalworkshop/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Shari-Berkowitz-The-Vertical-Workshop-100063373111656/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shari-berkowitz-9619a43/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMRuR9kg6WTQTrqt2taT0IA
• Other: https://theverticalworkshop.wordpress.com