Marissa Bottino Strader

Marissa holds a comprehensive Pilates certification in both mat and equipment through the Kane School of Core Integration in New York, NY under the direct instruction of the program’s founder, Kelly Kane. Her training is heavily grounded in a knowledge of anatomy and an understanding of functional movement. Marissa has worked with a wide range of clients who have diverse needs and goals. She has also worked with individuals with various injuries and chronic conditions. She has a certification in pre and post-natal Pilates and continues to study facial connections in the body through Thomas Myers’ Anatomy Trains workshops. Marissa has been teaching Pilates for six years. She began teaching at Mongoose Bodyworks in Manhattan, working with many dancers, actors, and producers. She then moved to Augusta, GA and taught at Pilates on Riverwatch, working with many equestrians and golfers. She most recently taught at Framework Pilates in Southern New Jersey. Marissa came to Pilates through dance. Her movement experience began when she started dancing at age three. She holds a BA in Dance from Muhlenberg College. She fell in love with Pilates after she recognized how Pilates informed and improved her dancing by helping her to find an ease and efficiency in her movement through breath, balance, mindfulness, and core strength. Marissa is also an American Ballet Theatre Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level 3 of the ABT National Training Curriculum. Marissa also holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Social Work and works in the mental health field. This informs her passion for making her clients feel present, competent, and empowered. Marissa interweaves her mind/body training and social work practice to create a safe movement environment for her clients. She loves to think with, move with, and experience the presence of others. Marissa strives to create a positive atmosphere for her clients, working with them to craft fitness/corrective sessions that will leave them feeling stronger. She is passionate about meeting her clients where they are and challenging them to reach their movement potential!

After living in the UK for most of her life, Kelly moved to North Carolina in 2018. With a natural passion for health and well being, she has extensive experience in a variety of healthcare areas, a journey she began in 1999 working as a Healthcare Assistant during her holidays whilst at University.Graduating university with a BSc in Psychology, Kelly went on to join the Army where she gained a further degree with Distinction in Nursing. Her military career ranged from working in orthopedics to a high dependency surgical unit and she gained combat experience supporting military operations whilst deployed in Afghanistan, providing life saving care to coalition forces. On leaving the Army, Kelly conducted further training to qualify as a Community Nurse, responsible for wide and varied care in a remote community in Northern Scotland. For the past few years, Kelly has taken a break from nursing following the arrival of 2 beautiful children and supporting her husband in the Air Force, resulting in a significant amount of moving around the world. However, this also presented an exciting opportunity to adjust her career and focus on her true passion of preventative healthcare and fitness.

Kelly met Alisa, the owner of Thrive Pilates Studio which proved to be a fortunate stroke of serendipity! Through Thrive Pilates Studio, she rehabilitated her own body and re-discovered the mind/body connection that had been lacking since 2 difficult births. Alisa supported and encouraged Kelly with her new found passion in Pilates and now 18 months on, she has earned her Barre certification and completed training in Mat 1,2 and 3 and Reformer 1, 2 and 3, including Movement Principles and Anatomy and Release with Balanced Body and aspires to become a comprehensively trained Pilates instructor. She is a motivated, enthusiastic instructor who loves to help people discover their best selves. She looks forward to seeing you at her class soon.

Alisa Meier

Alisa is an instructor and the owner of Thrive Pilates Studio. She was born and raised in Ukraine. She came to the United States to play tennis for Armstrong Atlantic State University. She has been highly involved in improving community health and fitness since 2008, when she began working as a yoga teacher, fitness instructor, and personal trainer. Later, as a Graduate Assistant for Fitness at Boise State University, she had an opportunity to work with a wide range of NCAA athletes. Her Pilates journey started in 2010, when she started experiencing issues from old tennis injuries. After earning her Master’s Degree in Kinesiology at BSU, she started working as a Wellness Specialist at a hospital that had a small Pilates studio.  It is there that she realized that Pilates was her calling, and she dedicated her free time to mat, chair and reformer training.

Alisa enjoys working with clients of all levels, from beginner through advanced, but her specialty is working with injured clients.  Whether that client is dealing with a chronic physical condition or a more recent acute injury, she enjoys the challenge of evaluating the physical body, finding imbalances and inefficiencies, and devising a plan to stabilize and strengthen the injured area.  The goal is to balance the entire body by restoring function to the injured area. She uses her understanding of anatomy, biomechanics, and common injuries to make even the most hesitant client feel confident that they can have a safe and productive movement experience during a class or private session.

Anne DeKeyser

After a lifetime of training and competing in equestrian sports Anne, a USDF Bronze Medalist, started ADK Dressage, focusing on basic principles and the training scale of the horse. After a riding injury Anne was introduced to pilates by a Physical Therapist and she quickly realized how Dressage training of the horse is similar to pilates training of the human so she became a certified pilates instructor in 2016, with a focus of working with equestrians on and off the horse helping students to become more balanced with their equine partners.

With her appreciation and patience of the fundamentals she loves going back to the basics with existing students and introducing the art of Pilates to new students. Keeping her classes high energy she wants clients to leave the studio feeling like they are successful and have challenged themselves each time. Having accomplished the Balanced Body 3D Anatomy, Reformer 1 and Reformer 2, she is excited to be expanding her training to XO Chair and other equipment classes. When not at a Thrive Studio or ADK Dressage, You can find her trail running, searching new recipes to cook and spoiling her 3 rescue dogs.