Meet The Team

Bonny-Lynn Russell is the founder, owner and teacher-trainer of Embody Pilates Studio.
She graduated from the University of Calgary with a collaborative Kinesiology/Fine Art Dance Degree (with Distinction). As a former figure skater who competed at the national level, she has a passion to help clients move and feel their best.
Bonny-Lynn has over 2000 hours of Pilates Teacher Training and has studied the Pilates Method in New York, Toronto, California, and Colorado. She was the first Canadian to have completed the Pilates Master’s Program at the world-renowned Pilates Center in Boulder, Colorado and continues to study Pilates & the body on a continual basis. She was the first to complete the Pilates Center Master’s Bridge program, granting her the Advanced Teacher-Training Diploma. The Pilates Center is considered the “Harvard School” of Pilates, offering the highest teaching standards and the wisdom of 3 direct lineages of Joseph Pilates. In 2013, she created the Embody School of Pilates, a 12 month Teacher-training program for Classical teachers. It was dream of hers to provide comprehensive Pilates education on Canadian soil and she loves mentoring new, passionate teachers. 
Bonny-Lynn is certified through the Pilates Method Alliance’s International Certification.
A self-proclaimed “Harry Potter Nerd,” you can often catch her proudly teaching in her Hogwart’s School of Wizardry T-shirt. She loves spending time outdoors in the mountains with her husband Allan and son Connor.

Kristi was born in northern Alberta, the eldest in a family of 5 children and grew up in Southern Ontario. She moved to Banff in 2009, intending to stay 6 months, but that clearly didn’t happen. It’s just so beautiful here and she’s been in the Bow Valley ever since!
When she moved to Canmore, she felt like she needed to do something active (this place just does that to you). After trying different things like Pilates, spin classes, running, and going to the gym, she discovered the only one that stuck and she really enjoyed was Pilates. Kristi has always had a thing for dance and movement so it was a natural fit. She loves that it’s constantly challenging you and loves that unreal feeling you get when you do something for the first time.
Kristi enrolled in Embody’s Pilates 101 course for beginners in January 2013 and she was immediately hooked! It was everything she was looking for; she absolutely loved it! She passionately continued with her practice and started looking into teaching Pilates as a Career. She enrolled in the Embody School of Pilates Teacher-Training Program in October 2013 and has been teaching at Embody since September 2014.
Fun facts about Kristi… she’s an avid sports fan! For instance, her dream is to go to all of the ball parks in the MLB and have a hotdog at each of them (because what’s a ball game without a hotdog)?!