You’ll find me at the 5:30 AM class.
My day starts at 4 AM with coffee with my husband, Edward, and prepping breakfast for our dog, Teddy Bear, and then a 45-minute full-body Lagree workout alongside some of our most dedicated early risers.
I still teach every week, Relax & Restore, a small five-client class built around stretch and breath work, shaped by my classical training but designed to meet the stretching needs of a Lagree studio client.
Mostly, though, you’ll find me at the front of the studio chatting with clients. I want every person who walks through our doors to feel like they’re coming home, seen, known, and well cared for. If you leave your first class feeling a little stronger and like you’ve found a community that’s genuinely rooting for you, then TIGHT is doing exactly what I bought it to do.
Meet LITA
Owner
It started in a physical therapy room.
I was in my early twenties, fresh out of the University of Colorado, working my first desk job, when an injury sent me to physical therapy. My PT happened to be a Pilates teacher, and by our second session she had me on a reformer. I’d never felt anything like that first push against spring resistance, demanding and supportive all at once. I was hooked.
After earning a PhD at Yale, I spent fifteen years teaching Latin American history in Georgia, Illinois, and Connecticut. It was in Chicago that I first found Lagree, on what were still called Proformers back then.
A studio owner asked if I’d consider certifying.
Years later, I was taking classes at a small studio in Connecticut when the owner asked if I’d consider getting certified. I hesitated at first. The studio had for years been my place to escape, and I worried teaching would change that. But I’ve always loved learning, and I believe teaching is the best way to truly understand something. So, despite my hesitation, I said yes.
Teaching fitness lit something an academic classroom never had, and I kept going. A year into training clients, one told me, after a class where she’d finally nailed a move she’d struggled with for months, “I was a prisoner in my own body, but you helped liberate me.” That was the moment I knew I had found my calling and wanted a studio of my own. Everyone assumed it would be a classical Pilates studio, since that’s what I’d initially trained people in. But I asked myself what had made me strongest, and the answer was unmistakable. And so, when a Lagree studio in University Park came up for sale, I was ready. I put my life savings into TIGHT and have never looked back.
You’ll find me at the 5:30 AM class.
My day starts at 4 AM with coffee with my husband, Edward, and prepping breakfast for our dog, Teddy Bear, and then a 45-minute full-body Lagree workout alongside some of our most dedicated early risers.
I still teach every week, Relax & Restore, a small five-client class built around stretch and breath work, shaped by my classical training but designed to meet the stretching needs of a Lagree studio client.
Mostly, though, you’ll find me at the front of the studio chatting with clients. I want every person who walks through our doors to feel like they’re coming home, seen, known, and well cared for. If you leave your first class feeling a little stronger and like you’ve found a community that’s genuinely rooting for you, then TIGHT is doing exactly what I bought it to do.
“When I imagined owning a studio, I always pictured a partner in it with me, another woman passionate about lifting other women up, humble, smart, and a relentlessly hard worker. Then I met Hannah.”
-Lita
“You know you’re at TIGHT when someone greets you by name before you reach the desk, and when the owner hugs you on your way out.”
I take three to four classes a week and never teach a routine I haven’t done myself, several times, until every transition is right. Outside the studio, you’ll find me cooking a delicious meal with my boyfriend, Pierson, taking a well-earned nap, or feeding the turtles at the creek on my evening walk.
Meet Hannah
Studio Manager
I came to TIGHT for a certification. I stayed for everything else.
I first came to TIGHT to complete my Lagree certification. Then I took my first class, and I was immediately impressed by the lights, the music, and the energy of the room. But what truly kept me coming back were the women in class. They were so strong and encouraging that I immediately wanted to get to know them!
When there was an opening at the front desk, I asked if I could fill it. I became one of the first trainers to come through TIGHT’s internship program, and since then I’ve held nearly every role in the studio, front desk, trainer, assistant manager, and now Studio Manager. I did all of it while putting myself through school full-time, and I was offered the manager role before I’d even finished my BS in Psychology at the University of North Texas.
My day starts at 5 AM with the gold lights.
Before anyone arrives, I set the studio: blinds down, warm gold lighting to ease everyone into the morning, and a quick reset of each Mega. I print the day’s schedule for our trainers and add notes where I can, if I know someone is coming in with an injury or celebrating something exciting, our trainers know before class begins.
