Find out more about Weena's Education here

Weena Pauly, originally from Atlanta, began developing her passion for the human body and fitness at a young age. Through her own training as a competitive gymnast, soccer player and a dancer, Weena devoted much of her time to understanding how to improve her strength, endurance and longevity as an athlete. This knowledge fueled and inspired her pursuit of a career in movement and health. While in college, she became a certified fitness trainer through AFAA in 1997 and began training clients in the university health club. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BFA in dance in 1998. Three months later, she moved to New York City to pursue her career as a dancer and fitness professional.

Weena danced with several choreographers in New York as well as performing her own choreography. Within her first year, she began dancing and touring, personally training private clients and teaching classes at gyms and studios throughout the city. In 2000 after a one-year apprenticeship, she was hired to become a full-time member of Elizabeth Streb’s dance company, STREB. Streb, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, is known for her intensely athletic, even “extreme,” choreography. Weena’s training was an invaluable asset to the company. Weena toured Europe, Asia, South America and the States performing, teaching and training with STREB. It was within the company that Weena was introduced to Pilates. Alongside cardiovascular and strength training, the Pilates mat work was important part of warming up before shows and maintaining core stability in the off-season.

Studying Pilates with core-strength gurus Liz Gillies and Lesley Powell in New York, Weena was inspired to teach the technique and became a certified Pilates instructor of The Method® Pilates from Physicalmind Institute in June 2003. She also re-certified as an optimum performance trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine in August 2003. Studying yoga off and on since her arrival in New York, she found yoga to be an inspiring supplement to her life. By making yoga a regular part of her life, she became greatly influenced by her teachers, Susan Braham, Kristen Davis and Michael Hewett. Weena saw the relationship between Pilates and Yoga essential for balance between stability and mobility. As yoga began to inform her teaching and sessions more and more she sought out an education in yoga that incorporated biomechanics, anatomy, philosophy and meditation in the right doses. Weena became a Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher through Be Yoga in the style of ISHTA yoga (the Integrated Science of Hatha, Tantra and Ayurveda) in June of 2005.

Weena brought Pilates, Yoga and Sports Training together and developed CORE in early 2005. CORE is a fitness class that allows the students to discover their best, personal alignment, the strength to maintain it, the mobility to move with it and the power to express it. CORE also ventures into the outside world. Outside-CORE is one of Weena’s more advanced classes that is taught at various outside locations. Outside-CORE, centered around core strength and proper alignment, takes the studio classes to the next level; running, climbing, jumping and flying through parks and playgrounds.

Weena volunteers as a physical therapist aid at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in Nero-Rehabilitation, Acute and Sports Physical Therapy departments. She continues to choreograph her own work. Her most recent pieces were shown at Manhattan Theater Source, PS 122 and Galapagos. Weena’s newest goals are becoming a better tennis player and doing an intensive anatomy workshop in a cadaver lab. Her experience volunteering, dancing, learning, teaching and training informs her sessions and classes in a unique and educated and way. Personally training clients in and around New York City, Weena also continues to dance and tour, with Brian Brooks Moving Company, now in her fifth year. She teaches Yoga, Pilates and CORE classes in various cities while on tour and at home in Brooklyn.