Hi everyone! Welcome to our new series: Q&A’s with cool New Yorkers about their fitness and wellness routines (and we mean that in the most lenient sense of both of these words.)
Meet Kennyth “Ken” Montes de Oca: the founder of Ken Pilates, a boutique spring-resistance Pilates brand which began in a second bedroom during the pandemic. In the often overly-homogenous NYC fitness—and especially pilates—scene (sorry but you know it’s true), Ken Pilates is a BIPOC and queer-owned studio with a devoted, diverse community.
The business has grown: Ken has two locations in Hoboken, plus he’s opening a Manhattan flagship in Chelsea in September. He is the creator of the SpringSculpt™ method, which teaches contemporary, three-dimensional movement on the Pilates Tower/Springboard. (We need to try this!) And he has strong thoughts about the reformer, which has dominated the pilates scene in the last few years.
A movement professional, dancer, and artist, Ken has been teaching group fitness since 2017. He has performed with Ballet Hispánico’s BHdos and OCA Dance, with credits including the Joyce Theater. Ken also co-produces Hoboken Dance Fest and serves on Hoboken’s arts advisory committee and business alliance.
Age: 29
Neighborhood: Chelsea. We’re at 14th and 6th, which is technically the corner where four neighborhoods argue with each other. But I’m claiming Chelsea. It has the queer history, it has the neighborhood feel, and it’s having a real renaissance right now. (Flatiron felt a little too… venture capital.)
Occupation: Owner of Ken Pilates
Astrological Sign: Capricorn… which explains how I survived two years of permits.
1. Tell us about your personal approach to taking care of your body?
I like water. This might sound obvious, but we need water. What I like about water, in theory, is how clear it is. It helps me clear my mind. It helps me clear my body. So I like to hydrate a lot. I like to go to the beach, take a shower, do a cold plunge. Water is healing, and sometimes just being near a body of water, I can feel my body resetting in real time. It connects to where I’m from. I’m from the Dominican Republic. The beach wasn’t that far away from me growing up.
In Pilates, we talk a lot about alignment of the body, and sometimes that can be anxiety-inducing… to feel like everything has to be in the right place at all times in order to feel great. But at the end of the day, if you find alignment, you will find flow. I think that life is all about flowing, and if there’s something that gives us the biggest lesson on what flowing is, it’s water.
That even goes to how I sequence for clients. It’s about how it flows. Like in yoga, getting lost in a vinyasa flow can be meditative and physically empowering. Being able to flow, like water, is how I approach taking my body every day.
2. Where do you actually workout, recover, and relax in NYC right now?
I’m loving the bathhouse culture booming in the city! I love Bathhouse for a long day; I switch between working on my computer at the in-house cafe and hopping into a sauna.
Othership is fantastic for a quick sauna and cold plunge session in between meetings.
I love Restore because it’s a one-stop shop place for recovery. I love compression boots, and I’m quick for an IV. (Actually, an IV sounds great right now…) I love places that have it all.
I’m really looking forward to Furoya opening on 13th and 6th, right next to Ken Pilates NYC.
And, all that said, I’m still a Hoboken girlie, and many of my workouts are in the Mile Square. I love Real Hot Yoga, Project Sculpt, and my own instructors at Ken Pilates Hoboken.
3. What’s in your (metaphoric) gym bag?
A workout journal; a Burga Canary Yellow Water Bottle; LMNT electrolyte packets; a crystal (the specific type depends on my mood); Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 and Dior Homme Cologne; a pair of grip socks; and ATOBARRIER365 Hydrating Milky Cream Mist (it’s life changing - I carry it everywhere).
4. You opened your studio, Ken Pilates in Hoboken and you’re soon expanding into Chelsea. What is the importance of BIPOC, queer-owned businesses in NYC’s current fitness and wellness scene?
When I opened my first studio in Hoboken, it was out of survival. During the pandemic, I lost my fitness job and my dancing job. I moved to Hoboken to reduce costs, and I taught Pilates on Instagram Live, on Zoom, and on a Reformer in my second bedroom. It was never my goal to grow this big. But it really showed that creating empowering spaces for people was in demand.
I have loved seeing the Ken Pilates studio become what it is. The growth has felt so organic and true to who we are. Some of my favorite memories at Ken Pilates don’t even involve fitness: we’ve hosted queer comedy night, book club, bachata night, outdoor socials in our studio garden. Over the years, I’ve found that our studio is most successful when we produce events based on community. Whereas I feel like in NYC, a lot of fitness programming can feel capitalistic and artificial, leaving clients to search for that sense of community somewhere else. I want my space to be that somewhere else.
The importance of me building this business my way is because there’s somebody out there that looks like me, that feels like me, that wants to feel empowered and have access to community. Wellness is a billion-dollar industry. But Google it for five minutes and it’s pretty clear who that industry is being built for. Just how I love to give access to their body, I also love to give people access to dream and feel a sense of life. Even Joseph Pilates acknowledged that this practice is a “return to life.”
Building it my way also meant not building it on a Reformer. In Hoboken we have two spaces: a private studio where we do one-on-one training, and our group studio on Washington Street (one room, 15 people, all on the Pilates Springboard). The Springboard gives you the springs and the mat at the same time, so we can move three-dimensionally and teach a contemporary style instead of only classical. Fewer spring changes, more flow, a much bigger repertoire. That’s SpringSculpt, and it exists because I was a dancer long before I was an instructor.
Chelsea is that same idea with room to breathe. Three rooms at 541 Sixth Avenue: a private studio, a hot room for heated classes (sculpt, Pilates, strength, dance), and a Tower Room where we’re taking SpringSculpt to the next level. Everybody gets real space, their own station of props and weights, and a class that moves the way we actually move.
I’ll be honest, though: it has taken us almost two years to get here. Two years of the DOB, architects, contractors, mega landlords, brand designers. We are still legally a small business trying to do big things, and the red tape teaches you discipline whether you asked for the lesson or not. Which… fine. I do teach alignment for a living.
I see this expansion as an opportunity to shake up the industry. I want to show all the work we’ve put in to create an empowering space for Black, Latinx, and LGBTQ people. My goal for the company is for other people to find success from within.
5. What do you do to take time for yourself when life gets overwhelming in the city?
Honestly, watching live theater and concert dance. I recently saw Philadanco at The Joyce. They brought so much joy to the stage, and you can feel the energy of the City of Philadelphia and its vibrancy. I felt like I vacationed just by going to a show. When life is overwhelming, I like to feel like a tourist.
But really, whatever the art form is, I search for active acts of presence. In this day and age of AI and technology, it’s healing to see people be real and genuine, and doing what they love with passion and authenticity.
I’m also involved in Soulskin Dance Company, and this is another way I can shut off my brain and turn off my phone. My castmates in that company are all teachers of somatic practices. I like that we all get to share that with each other. What I like about it the most is that every performer in there is there for the same reason. It’s our time to make art. We can put all this information we know about our bodies into something real and can make people feel something.
6. What’s the most overrated thing in wellness right now?
I hope I don’t regret saying this… Reformer Pilates. I love it… but it’s overrated.
And this is coming from someone who has been teaching on that apparatus since 2017. It’s how I learned. It’s literally what was in my second bedroom.
I only say this because the Pilates industry is growing rapidly right now, and this one apparatus has a chokehold on it. And it’s changing how the industry works. It’s no secret that some studios will hire an instructor after one weekend of training. Clients feel it, and studios feel it, too.
To be fair, there are a lot of people who are creative on the Reformer, and kudos to those instructors. I love people who challenge the limits of the apparatus by being intuitive and incorporating different somatic practices in one class. Those are the classes I love to take. People who aren’t afraid to move in different planes of motion, incorporating the principles of Joseph but trying new ways to use the equipment.
It’s also exactly why we built our group studio on the Pilates Springboard instead (springs and mat at once, three-dimensional movement, fewer spring changes, more flow). And why Chelsea is getting a whole Tower Room.
So from the client side: don’t be scared of the rest of the equipment. If you really want your ass kicked, try the Pilates Chair. Or test your alignment by booking a private on the Pilates Cadillac. Treat yourself to a class on the Pilates Tower, or take a chance on the Pilates Springboard.
Like… girl! There is a whole system of apparatus out here and the industry is behaving like there’s one. I’m not trying to run a basic b*tch studio.
7. What song have you had on repeat lately?
It’s literally a manifestation song. “If you want it / You already got it / If you thought it / It better be what you want.”
Confessions II has been on in the studio all summer and it sent me straight back into her catalog. She’s done the work. She still does the work.
Madonna pushes the industry by being bold, and that boldness has meant something real for the LGBTQ community. She disrupts, and then everybody else catches up. That’s the career I want.
8. What have you found lately—books, newsletters, podcasts, accounts—that have stuck with you and why?
These aren’t really fitness related (lol), but they’ve stuck with me:
Ryan Walker. He creates high-quality travel review videos. I’m so busy, I feel like I’m traveling with him.
The Art of the Brand. As I’ve been growing my own brand, I’m obsessed with hearing different perspectives on how people build theirs.
Lushious Massacr. She makes me laugh whenever I need it most!
9. What’s a gym, spot, or trainer in the city that’s underrated and deserves more love?
The adult dance classes at Gibney, Ailey, and Ballet Hispánico, just to name a few. Dance is fitness. Dance is joy. I’m a professional dancer, and dance is what lets me move my body in different ways, which is what fitness is all about. If you are a non-dancer, I recommend it!
Many of these spaces are non-profits, too, so it’s a great way to support the arts.
10. New York is notoriously expensive for pretty much everything, but especially fitness and wellness. What would you do to take care of yourself in a day if you only had $40 to spend.
$40 = 3 dirty martinis and a walk on the High Line
…Okay, the honest version: a drop-in adult dance class and the biggest bottle of water I can find. Movement and water. It’s always movement and water.
Thanks for reading, we hope you found some little nuggets to bring into your own life. Have someone you think would be a great fit for this series? Send us an email!
<3