Tania Huddart

Tania Huddart is a Pilates Teacher Trainer, a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher (NCPT), and the owner of Hearts and Bones Pilates® Centre. She came to Pilates training through a career in teaching dance.

Introducing Tania — personal statement

​A good teacher cannot be fixed into a routine. He must not impose on his student to fit a lifeless pattern, a pre-formulation.
​— Bruce Lee

I believe in thinking differently about teaching Pilates. My passion for teaching started at the age of 13. The act of teaching fascinated me. That passion has burned bright ever since.

In 2003, I started teaching instructor training courses. I am also a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher (NCPT). Over the years, I've developed a suite of teaching tools to train Pilates teachers. The Hearts and Bones Comprehensive Pilates Teacher Training was approved by the Pilates Schools Approval Program through the PMA (Pilates Method Alliance). This programme has now been shut down but we still deliver the same great teacher training experience.​

I believe...

Being good at doing Pilates exercises isn’t enough to make you a great instructor.

When training teachers, I'm interested in how you as an instructor can teach someone to be successful at moving well. ​Moving well in a Pilates class should also translate into moving well in everyday life. ​I look for teachers who aren’t limited to working through rigid routines, teachers who are able to vary their approach depending on each person. ​

Experience — Pilates and MFR therapy, teacher training, life coach

Pilates teaching and MFR therapy

​Tania started her Pilates training in the mid-1990s in London with the acclaimed Pilates instructor, Lesley Ackland. Tania completed her training through The PhysicalMind Institute in the USA, qualifying as a Pilates instructor in The Method® Pilates in 2000. The training is based on the work of Eve Gentry, an original Master Instructor who had worked with Joseph Pilates for 22 years.

Tania returned to New Zealand and established Hearts and Bones Pilates Centre in 2002. The following year, she undertook further training with the PhysicalMind Institute in New York and became a teacher trainer. In 2008, she became the first New Zealand Pilates instructor certified through the Pilates Method Alliance. The programme was rebranded in 2019 as the National Pilates Certification Program. This is the only third-party certification available to Pilates professionals and is based in the USA.

Read more about the Pilates Method Alliance

In 2012, Tania celebrated 10 years of teaching Pilates through Hearts and Bones Pilates and also launched her online studio, Always Pilates. Always Pilates closed late in 2018. She now uses the Zoom platform to teach private classes online. 

​Tania's teaching has further developed by working with Phillip Beach and his Contractile Fields model for movement. She also incorporates many other mindful movement practices and uses trauma-informed approaches.  In 2021, she qualified as a Myofascial Release Therapist under Beth Beauchamp.

Book a Pilates class or MFR therapy session with Tania

Pilates teacher training and professional development — courses, workshops, conferences

Tania first taught teacher training courses in 2003 when the Hearts and Bones Pilates Centre became the training studio for the PhysicalMind Institute in New Zealand. In 2007, Tania launched Hearts and Bones Pilates Centre’s own teacher training courses.

Train to be a Pilates teacher with Hearts and Bones Pilates

Since 2007, Tania has designed and delivered Pilates workshops across New Zealand for Dance Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ). She has also given workshops for other dance groups and organisations such as the Teachers' Refresher Course Committee, Royal Academy of Dance (RAD), and the British Ballet Organisation (BBO). She has delivered Pilates workshops in London, United Kingdom, and in Australia (Gold Coast, Sydney, and Melbourne). In 2014, she presented an international workshop suite for Pilates instructors called ‘Pilates Exercise for Real Life: Moving with Gravity’. In 2018, Tania delivered workshops in Wellington alongside Dr Anna-Maria Vitali from Rome, Italy.

Register for an online workshop with Tania

​In 2012, Tania organised the first Pilates conference — ‘Moving with Images’ — in Wellington. The following year, a second Wellington Pilates conference was held – ‘Walking with Gravity’.​

Life coach and NLP practitioner

In 2020, Tania qualified as a Life Coach and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner.

Find out how Tania can help your business thrive​

Pilates articles, books and podcasts

Tania has written articles for dance, health, and Pilates publications including The Inspired Guide, DANZ Quarterly, Healthwise Magazine, and The Pilates Forum.

In 2022, Tania published Teach Pilates With Confidence: A Comprehensive Guide to Movement Teaching and Class Planning. Tania was also an invited guest speaker for a podcast hosted by Bruce Hildebrand: The Pilates Diaries Podcast.

Dance experience

Tania has taught ballet in South Africa, Stockholm (Sweden), London (England), Oakland (USA), and Wellington (New Zealand).

Tania was a member of the Health Team at the New Zealand School of Dance (NZSD) from 2003–2006 where she gave Pilates instruction to approximately 80 dancers. She has also developed a series of warm-up and cool-down exercises, together with physiotherapist Susan Simpson, for the American Jazz Dance Affiliation (AJDA). These exercises are now part of the syllabus and are examinable.
​
Tania was an advisory board member for a joint project between DANZ and Skills Active. The project aims to develop one of Tania’s dance-teaching workshops into a New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) qualification for dance teachers.

Other qualifications

• Postgraduate Certificate in Public Health Systems and Policy, University of Otago, New Zealand (2017)
• Bachelor of Philosophy (Hons) in Dance Contextual Studies, Durham University, England (2002)
• Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Teaching Diploma, England (1992) 
• Diploma in Ballet, University of Cape Town, South Africa (1990)