Sophia Sefchick, from Learning to Say the Word Pilates to Become a Main Instructor
Patrick McNabb reports on this business owner’s journey from Mexico to Reno, with plenty of dance and fitness in between.
Sophia Sefchick, now a Reno, Nevada local, came to America from Mexico City to pursue her passion of instructing fitness classes. Sefchick struck fitness gold in Reno, with the opening of her own pilates studio, now the Pilates Studio of Reno in the South Creek Retail Center.
Born in Mexico City, Sefchick moved to Reno, Nevada, in November of 2003 when she was 35. Sefchick’s main motivation in moving to Reno was to become closer to her family.
“One of my sisters moved to Reno, and then my other sister followed, and then they told me ‘You should move so all the family can be together,’” she said.
However, Reno was actually never Sefchick’s first plan. She originally detested the idea. “Originally, when they first asked me to move closer to the rest of our family, I said ‘no way in hell,’ but two years later we see how that turned out.”
Sefchick has been involved in the fitness and dance industry for decades now. Being a certified pilates instructor, Sefchick has many certifications including Polestar Pilates, the Pilates Coach, Reformer and Mat certifications, and most recently Elli Herman’s certification, based on the method of the author and internationally known pilates instructor.
Pilates is not the only area that Sefchick is certified in, with certifications also in Reebok core, cycling, and kickboxing just to name a few. Before moving to Reno, Sefchick studied dance at the Alvin Ailey School in New York. All of this work enabled Sefchick to be able to open her own pilates studio in the south Reno area in December 2004.
Reno has not been her only experience teaching. She also taught ballet in Mexico City as well as being a salsa instructor at the University of Mexico City. Nevertheless, Sefchick now does prefer Reno much more. “Reno is the one because I have been here longer and I was able to open and establish a business here,” she said.
There were challenges along the way but Sefchick says she confronted the many obstacles in her path as motivators.
The first motivator that Sefchick came across was the language barrier. Being a native Spanish speaker, English was hard for Sefchick at first, but she soon got better.
“My English got better, but I also used it as an advantage,” she said. “People would remember me because I would say something really stupid in class and it would make them laugh. It became sort of a point of sale for my clients.”
Something that always got a good laugh out of her class was the way that she pronounced pilates. “My clients always laughed at the way I pronounced pilates, so that definitely was a motivator.” The only real “challenge” according to Sefchick was finding enough people who were willing and certified to teach classes.
Although Sefchick considers Reno her home, she does plan to go back to Mexico City soon to visit. “If I can, I want to go back to visit Mexico City this year,” she said. “Both of my sisters are going and I’d love to go with them.”
For now though, Sefchick plans on continuing to run her business, with no plans of shutting down anytime soon, one Pilates C-Curve at a time.
