:: FAQS ::
Where are you located?
ECM Studio is located in the Williams District/Boise neighborhood of Portland, Oregon
Who owns and operates Embodied Coaching & Movement / ECM Studio?
Alethea Dalton is the sole proprietor of Embodied Coaching & Movement, LLC / ECM Studio.
What services do you provide?
ECM studio provides 1:1 private pilates sessions, duet reformer sessions, small group (5 ppl max) mat classes, small group somatic practice gathering (6 ppl max), 1:1 somatic coaching and somatic bodywork sessions, and a 1-3 month immersive program called Transform Your Practice.
What happens in a Private Pilates session?
A private Pilates session will include an initial assessment of posture, movement patterns, nervous system awareness, injuries, and goals. Sessions are specifically designed to meet client goals through modified or more challenging exercises. Client will be guided through the use of specialized equipment in order to experience movement patterns in different planes of motion and resistance. A private session offers one-on-one attention for improving efficiency and injury prevention with precise adjustments to your form. Private sessions increase interoception and proprioception by allowing for more intentional focus, mind-body connection, and concentration. ECM Studio will track your progress to adjust the difficulty of exercises over time, preparing you for more advanced work and/or recovery from injury.
Do you offer Pilates sessions beyond 1:1 sessions?
Yes, ECM Studio offers Duet Reformer sessions. Duet reformer sessions are a great opportunity for shared movement with your friend, bestie, family member, or significant other. Sessions can be tailored to focus on whole body movement, target areas, playful movement, joint-hydrating mobility, balance work, mind-body connection, and more.
ECM also offers client-designed, small group (5 ppl max), Pilates mat classes. Grab your workplace friends or close nit crew and unwind or sweat it out with a mat class focus of your choosing. Available mat class props: foam roller, magic circle, over-ball, theraband, hand weights.
What equipment is available in at the ECM studio?
The ECM Studio is a fully equipped studio utilizing specialized Joe Pilates-Balance Body created equipment (2) Allegro 2 Reformers, (1)Trapeze Table Cadillac, (1) Ladder Barrel, (1) Combo Chair (evolved Wunda Chair); Physical therapist, Jonathan Hoffman, designed (1) Core Align w/wall mounted ladder; (1) Jumpsport Fitness Trampoline; (1) TRX Suspension Straps and pull-up bar.
What are the benefits of using the Reformer?
The Reformer was designed to strengthen the core, improve posture, increase flexibility, and build muscle tone through low-impact, spring-based resistance.The reformer is highly versatile for all levels, offering tailored support and feedback for rehabilitation, enhancing joint stability, and boosting overall body awareness and cardiovascular health. It offers a full-body workout that improves strength and posture, relieves stress and tension, and increases focus.
What are the benefits of using the Core Align?
Pilates Core Align is a specialized, upright training tool that enhances functional movement, core stability, and posture by challenging the body with independent sliding carts/carriages. The Core align promotes deep core engagement, improves balance and gait, and aids in injury rehabilitation, offering a dynamic, full-body workout that feels similar to controlled, fluid, and functional activity.
What are the benefits of using the Cadillac?
The Cadillac is a stable, elevated mat frame (table) that utilizes customizable spring resistance. The Cadillac safely supports beginners or injured users as well as allowing advanced students/practitioners the ability to perform challenging, controlled, and gravity-defying movements. Spring-based resistance targets deep abdominal muscles and provides comprehensive strengthening for arms, legs, and back. Cadillac exercises are designed to strengthen stabilizing muscles which reduces joint pain, increases spinal health, and promotes better posture. The Cadillac design allows for exercises that invert or stretch the body, helping to alleviate spinal pressure.
What are the benefits of using the Wunda Chair?
The Wunda (Combo) Chair supports both seated and standing exercises. The Combo Chair provides intense workouts that strengthen core connections, improve balance and posture, enhance stability, toning, and targeting, as well as rehabilitating the upper/lower body through adjustable spring resistance and split-pedal movements. The Combo Chair strengthens abdominal, glute, shoulder, and back muscles. Combo Chair exercises offer versatility for both beginners and advanced students.
What are the benefits of using a rebounder trampoline?
Rebounding offers a low-impact, full-body workout that improves cardiovascular health, increase lymphatic flow, strengthens muscles, and boosts bone density. Rebounding offers high output while being low impact. The unstable surface enhances proprioception, balance, and motor skills while the action of jumping releases endorphins which improves mood and reduces stress. Regular, controlled rebounding can also be a support for strengthening pelvic floor muscles.
What are the benefits of using the TRX suspension method?
The TRX suspension method/training is a versatile, low-impact workout that uses bodyweight and gravity to build total-body strength, enhance core stability, and improve flexibility for all fitness levels. Every exercise is scalable for all-levels and engages the core for stabilization, improving posture, and strengthening stabilizer muscles from head to toe. Dynamic movements enhance range of motion and flexibility; the instability of the straps improves balance and neuromuscular coordination, which is highly beneficial for everyday movement.
What is somatic coaching?
In somatic coaching and movement-based work, somatic principles ground us in slowing down, listening, being curious, and practicing together. A somatic coach supports clients in cultivating embodied awareness, somatic wisdom, resilience, and choice—honoring both personal experience and the broader contexts we live within—for the sake of individual and collective safety, dignity, and belonging. A somatic coach does not prescribe or advise.
Somatic work draws from a rich and interdisciplinary lineage rooted in movement education, bodywork, meditation traditions, martial arts, and Western psychology.
Somatic coaching is a commitment to embodied awareness, learning through lived experience, and supporting change that is sustainable rather than forced. Somatic coaching supports healing and transformation by inviting awareness, curiosity, and practice over time. This supports clearer perception, more responsive action, and greater alignment between values and behavior. Somatic coaching holds that a (minimum) 10-session commitment reflects the spaciousness needed for embodied change to emerge.
What is a somatic coaching session like?
Coaching sessions are 60-90 minutes in length and are led by a theme or topic brought in by you, the client. Topics may change from session to session and are held in a container of connection to the overarching theme or goal of our 10-session arc. The session will allow for intentional exchange (talking time) that might explore posture, breath, habits, moods, patterns of action, relationships, roles, values, resilience, and /or survival strategies. A more significant portion of the session will allow for intentional practice or process followed by a closing debrief highlighting take-aways, intentions for supportive practice, and next steps.
What is a somatic bodywork session like?
Somatic bodywork is a gentle, hands-on, fully clothed process that supports nervous system regulation, awareness, integration, and embodied change. Rather than focusing on "fixing" the body, this work engages the body by listening to patterns of tension, breath, posture, and movement that reflect how you've learned to meet and be in the world. These sessions are collaborative and responsive, supporting greater ease, resilience, and choice in how you move, feel, and act in daily life. All touch is guided by consent, presence, and close attention to your body's cues and comfort.
What are the benefits of somatic coaching and practices?
The benefits of somatic coaching and bodywork result in connecting body, language, and action for greater presence, integrity, and skillful engagement. Over time we repeatedly embody habits, reactions, ways of relating, and patterns of action that can then feel “normal” or inevitable, even when they no longer align with our values or vision. Somatic work supports awareness of these pattern and creates space for new possibilities to emerge. By working at the level of embodied experience, somatics supports more choice, adaptability, and alignment—personally and collectively—opening pathways toward liberation rather than repetition.
What are the benefits of somatic practice in a group?
Somatic group practice can offer ease and curiosity in experiencing somatic practice without the commitment of 10 sessions. Practicing with others can help normalize experiences of stress or trauma (individually and collectively), reducing shame and fostering a more secure, supportive environment for healing and connection.
Can I book a specialized, 5-person mat class in your studio?
Yes, ECM also offers client-designed, small group (5 ppl max), Pilates mat classes. Grab your workplace friends or close nit crew and unwind or sweat it out with a mat class focus of your choosing. Available mat class props: foam roller, magic circle, over-ball, theraband, hand weights. Focus theme possibilities created with classical and contemporary exercises: Beginner (habit 1); Intermediate (habit 2); Arms and Abs; Butts and Bellies; Balance; Reboot; Mobilize; Sculpt.
What props are available for mat and equipment sessions?
Available mat class and equipment session props: full and 1/2 foam roller, magic circle, over-ball, therabands, hand weights, spine corrector, short/long box, and pinky ball.
Do I have to be “in shape” to do Pilates?
ECM Studio meets you where you're at in your movement practice or non-practice experience. There is no pre-requisite to booking a private pilates session. Private sessions are ideal for beginners wanting to learn the fundamentals, individuals rehabilitating injuries, or experienced students aiming for greater precision and challenge.
Are ECM pilates and somatic coaching sessions accessible for neurodivergent folx?
ECM Studio is committed to inclusivity and supports neurodivergent folx by creating a predictable, sensory-friendly, autonomy-driven environment. ECM studio adapts to individual needs by minimizing distractions, dimming lighting, reducing background noise, and adjusting temperature while utilizing clear communication, consent and boundaries for touch, proprioceptive and sensory input, and individualized pacing. ECM Studio is a commitment to honoring individual histories, capacities, and goals alongside the fostering of stability, choice, and agency in the body.
What communities does ECM Studio ally with?
ECM Studio is committed to inclusivity and ally-ship
Why would I want to purchase the ECM Transform Your Practice package?
This individually designed program is for anyone who is longing…
To re-connect with their body and a daily practice of movement.
To feel stronger, more balanced, and confident in the movement that carries them throughout each day.
To feel supported and seen in order to overcome the hurdles that have created distance between them and a sustainable movement practice.
Your commitment to TYP is a commitment to your wellness and longevity.
ONE Month of Practice will …
Incorporate 4-5 days a week in a full studio of professional pilates equipment, TRX routines, Kettlebell workouts, mat work, somatic coaching & bodywork (optional), somatic practices, and 2 recovery day movement plans/wk.
Be a 1-hour a day commitment, allowing you to build a sustainable practice that will translate to a variety of movement practices and environments so that you can show up with more confidence in every setting.
Support you through the integration and growth process of being seen as a whole person, in order to overcome the hurdles that have created distance between you and a sustainable movement practice.