Episode 21 - Ash Berry and Rob Carruthers - Movementality Pilates - Perth

Episode 21: Building a Pilates Business & Family Life with Ash and Rob of Movementality

Welcome back to Raising the Bar on the Future of Pilates!

In today’s episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing Ash and Rob of Movementality Pilates in Perth. This dynamic husband-and-wife team has built a thriving Pilates business while navigating the challenges of family life—and I know you're going to love this conversation!

Ash comes from a dance background, while Rob has a sports science background. They met in London in 2015 and later returned to the Southern Hemisphere—Rob hailing from New Zealand and Ash from Perth. In 2017, they purchased an established studio in Melbourne and successfully ran it until 2024, all while growing their family.

Now, they’ve relocated to Perth to start Movementality from the ground up—again! And to top it all off, they recently welcomed their second child, four-month-old Gus.

In addition to running their studio, Ash and Rob offer online classes and teacher education programs. This candid and insightful interview is packed with wisdom for anyone juggling business, family, and the pursuit of work-life balance. Their ambition, teamwork, and strategic mindset shine through in everything they do.

In this episode, we discuss:
✔️ Their early days in London—how they discovered their complementary skills and started working together
✔️ Ash’s journey from professional dance to Barre to Pilates, and Rob’s background in Sports Science
✔️ The experience of purchasing their first studio in Melbourne—making it their own while leading a team of instructors
✔️ How they navigated the challenges of Covid lockdowns and ultimately decided to move to Perth for a fresh start
✔️ The reality of running a Pilates studio while growing a young family and balancing personal and professional roles
✔️ How reopening their studio in Perth gave them a chance to refine their values and prioritize work-life balance

✔️ How they started their teacher education programs and how they expanded it nationally.

✔️Their thoughts about the current state of the industry.

 

Rob and Ash Mentioned:

The Imperfects Podcast

Bruce Hildebrand and Trimio

Phillip Beach

Tracey Nicolson - Somatics and Dance Movement Therapy

 

How to get a hold of Ash and Rob:

https://www.movementality.com.au/

@movementality_aus

 

More about Ash and Rob:

Rob Carruthers

Rob completed his degree Sport Science degree in New Zealand back in 2011. After graduating and a period of travel, he fell into teaching fitness-based Reformer Pilates classes in some of central London’s most popular studios, managing a number of them. After 12 months, he retrained to focus on injury rehabilitation, and leveraged his sport science background to begin working in several physiotherapy clinics, and supported the medical staff at the Brentford Football Club by delivering Pilates. It was during this time, that he also began studying the world of Functional Neurology and finding avenues to bring it into the Pilates world. Upon moving to Melbourne in 2016, Rob and Ash worked together for the same company before opening Movementality in 2017.  Over the next 7 years, Rob refined his teaching focus to develop strategies enabling a ground-up rehabilitative process for the Pilates side of his focus, and a top-down approach for those with more complex movement and pathological considerations.

 

Ash Berry

Ash is an ex-professional dancer, comprehensively trained level 3 PAA Pilates practitioner and Somatic Movement Therapist. She has been teaching Pilates for 10 years having run Movementality in Melbourne with Rob for 7 years prior to their move to Perth. During their time in Melbourne, Ash & Rob built their national reputations as industry thought leaders. They have been invited to present nationally for several conferences and have built their own workshop platform, Movementality Education, where they have been facilitating educatiing for other Pilates teachers since 2018. In 2021, Ash joined the Australian Ballet School’s Health Team as a conditioning specialist and in 2023 she presented her research on Pilates in pregnancy for the Pilates Association Australia Conference. She has also presented for Microsoft, Myotherapy Association Australia and Tensegrity Training.