Mother-daughter Pilates team, still at it decades later, has proven resilient
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Nicole Leto remembers watching her mother, Karen, as she was growing up.
From a bikini shop on Main Street in Huntington Beach in the 1970s and ’80s to a Pilates studio opened on Balboa Island in 2000, she viewed Karen as a successful businesswoman.
“I knew ever since I was a little girl that I wanted to be a businesswoman and be my own boss, do what she does,” Nicole Leto said.
“Now, she bosses me around,” Karen Leto said.
Mother and daughter both smiled.
“The roles are starting to reverse, and she doesn’t like it,” Nicole Leto said. “I’m just kidding. What made us a good team is that she’s a great businesswoman, and I became a really good trainer. We have our jobs that kept the business going.”
The fitness experts, who live together in Huntington Beach, are still at it.
Sling Body Pilates moved into its new space on Coast Highway in Newport Beach in November. They teach Pilates, specializing in a sling suspension training called Redcord.
Nicole Leto said the Balboa Island studio opened after her mother took Pilates classes at the Body Arts and Science International (BASI) school in Newport Beach, as well as Orange Coast College. She was searching for answers for her back pain; both mother and daughter have scoliosis.
In 2003, the Letos opened another Pilates studio on the Newport Peninsula.
The journey has also taken the Letos to Harbor Boulevard and 17th Street. Their most recent location, before moving again, was around the corner from the current spot, on Dover Drive in Newport Beach.
“I’ve followed her because she’s worth following,” Ann Smith said of Nicole Leto, who has taken over more of the business aspects in recent years. “She’s done amazing things for me.”
Smith, now in her 60s, has been a client of the Letos for more than two decades. She comes to the studio two to three times a week for private lessons with Nicole Leto.
“She’s been able to work through sports injuries with me,” Smith said. “She’s helped me develop core strength. I go to [physical therapy] for some other things, and we incorporate those into the workouts. She’s flexible, she’s accessible. She’s really committed to her clients and their well-being, and is able to adapt. For instance, if I have an injury or I get injections in my leg for varicose veins, we can modify workouts to make sure I still get my workout but I’m not working the areas that I can’t.”
Pilates equipment like a Cadillac and a pair of reformers sit in the studio. There are also two rows of slings.
Nicole Leto, a Corona del Mar High graduate who is now 56, formerly taught pole dancing — Pilates on the Pole. But she turned to the Redcord method of suspension training about 15 years ago.
“You’re offloading the big muscles to target the stabilizer muscles,” she said. “We look for the weak links, and we strengthen them. You are using your body weight as resistance, pushing through your own body weight.”
Andrew Jeffs, a surfer from Newport Beach, has been going to the studio for about 15 years. It’s offered particular help recently as he has been recovering from a hip labrum surgery to correct a common injury among surfers.
“There’s one word for her: transformational,” Jeffs said. “She listens and applies. I bring her ideas, and then we apply it, and then I apply it on the board. It’s amazing what she’s done for me.”
Bobbi Dauderman and her husband Jerry, who live in Newport Beach, are also longtime clients. Now both in their early 80s, they know something about fitness, as they previously owned Nautilus Aerobics Plus clubs around Southern California.
When Bobbi Dauderman was recovering from a skiing accident, she learned about Redcord, which they used in the physical therapist’s office. She was referred to Nicole Leto.
“We’ve stuck with it, because Nicole is a very good trainer,” Bobbi Dauderman said. “We’ve really appreciated the variety of workouts that she has given us over the ages. We can’t say enough about what it’s meant for us physically.
“We do other things. I mean, we’re physically active. It doesn’t mean this is our whole life, but this is part of keeping ourselves healthy.”
Nicole Leto said it’s common for clients to bring their physical therapy exercises to her.
“The problem is, people don’t want to do the work,” she said. “I’m watching you to make sure that you do things properly and correct to make sure that you don’t get hurt again, and that you actually do the work. Then, we add more things in, because they also don’t want to feel like they’re being held back.”
As one might expect, mother and daughter also keep themselves in tip-top shape. Karen Leto is now 83, but she said she hopes to come back to teaching soon at the new location. She has persevered.
“I’m 83, I’m not going to get any younger, but I want to keep the strength that I have,” Karen Leto said. “A lot of older people do it.”
The new studio space shows promise, even if the Letos are still adapting to it. Nicole told a visitor on one recent afternoon that she didn’t have business cards, but to find Sling Body on social media.
The clients range in age and scope, from athletes to autistic children. The Letos have seen a lot in their decades in the fitness business.
“It’s been challenging,” Nicole Leto said. “I feel like we’ve been pushed out of some of the situations, because of corporations or people coming in and taking the properties over. Part of my soul is like, ‘Maybe we should have just stayed where we were on [Balboa Island or Newport Peninsula], but we wouldn’t have grown as much, I don’t think. I don’t know.”
Resilience certainly has played a factor.
“It does blow my mind that we’re still in business, we’re still mother and daughter,” Nicole Leto said.
Karen jumped right in.
“Well, how can we stop that?” she quipped. “You’ll always be my daughter.”
