Sharmila Mitra

Sharmila Mitra came to Pilates through necessity, not ambition. In 1997, while teaching dance in Los Angeles, she was diagnosed with alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease. Pilates was the one modality that made her feel better, not just in her body, but in herself. That experience never left her, and it remains the quiet undercurrent of everything she teaches today.

Two years later, she moved to Manhattan to apprentice under the late Romana Kryzanowska, the woman Joseph Pilates trusted to carry forward his life’s work. Earning her certification under Kryzanowska’s direct tutelage placed Sharmila within a rare and unbroken lineage. Very few instructors anywhere in the world can claim the same training path. While in New York, she trained alongside Kryzanowska’s most respected students, including Bob Liekens, Michael Fritzke, Ton Voogt and Mejo Wiggin. In Los Angeles, she continued training with Niedra Gabriel and Adylia Roman. She later earned a second certification through Power Pilates.

Sharmila brings more than 30 years of dance experience to her work as a performer, choreographer and adjudicator. Dance was never separate from her Pilates practice; it was the lens through which she understood it. She has built her career around one fundamental question first posed by Joseph Pilates: What does it take for the body to move at peak performance?