From the stages of Europe to Pilates studios around the world, the former ballet soloist is transforming a lifetime of discipline into a global method, education system and design-led wellness brand.
Or Kahlon notices what most people miss. A shoulder that rises a fraction too soon. A foot that has lost its relationship to the hip. The instant a movement stops being felt and begins to be performed by habit. In his classes, these are not minor corrections. They are the work itself.
That sensitivity was formed long before Kahlon stood at the front of a Pilates studio. It was developed in ballet studios and on European stages, where the distance between adequate and exceptional can be almost imperceptible. Today, as the founder of Pilates & Or, he is applying the same exacting eye to a different ambition: creating a movement method that can be taught, experienced and recognized around the world.
The result is neither ballet placed decoratively on top of Pilates nor classical Pilates repackaged for social media. It is a distinct movement language built from precision, musicality, athletic conditioning and choreographic intelligence. The reformer remains central, but in Kahlon’s hands it becomes less a machine than an instrument – a structure through which people learn not only to become stronger, but to move with greater clarity, control and expression.
Kahlon’s biography helps explain the rigor of the work. He began dancing as a teenager and earned a scholarship to attend the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts in Israel. Summer training at The Juilliard School in New York followed, expanding his understanding of what an international career would demand. He then won the first season of Israel’s Born to Dance, the televised competition associated with the So You Think You Can Dance format. The victory made him nationally recognizable, but visibility was only the beginning.
Kahlon went on to perform as a soloist with Compania Nacional de Danza in Spain and with Nederlands Dans Theater, one of contemporary dance’s most influential institutions. Each chapter sharpened a different part of his artistry: the purity of line, the intelligence of weight, the architecture of the body in space, the ability to move inside music rather than merely alongside it. It also taught him that virtuosity is rarely the product of force. It comes from awareness refined through repetition.
Pilates had accompanied him throughout those years as a tool for conditioning and rehabilitation. Over time, he became interested in the reformer not simply for what it could correct, but for what it could reveal. Springs made resistance legible. The carriage exposed instability. The apparatus gave immediate feedback, yet still left room for artistry. When members of his community began asking him to teach, a practice that started on an intimate scale gradually became the foundation of Pilates & Or.
His professional accomplishments now sit inside the method rather than beside it. The scholarship student, Juilliard trainee, national competition winner and European soloist are all present in the way he observes a body and constructs a class. So is the founder who has learned to translate an intensely personal point of view into something other teachers can understand and carry forward.
A Pilates & Or class has the continuous quality of choreography, but its flow is never intended to obscure technique. Kahlon begins with organization: the relationship of the ribs to the pelvis, the direction of the knee, the placement of the head and the quality of the breath. Complexity is added only after the body understands the foundation.
Ballet contributes more than elongated lines. It brings musical structure, coordination and an expectation that transitions matter as much as final shapes. Contemporary Pilates adds resistance, support and the possibility of intelligent progression. Strength training introduces load and stamina. Across reformer, infrared mat, barre and sculpt-based classes, the vocabulary may change, but the principles remain consistent: precision before speed, intention before display and quality before quantity.
Kahlon often refers to his students as dancers, including those who have never entered a dance studio. It is not a demand for performance. It is an invitation to inhabit movement more completely – to notice the path between positions, to listen to timing and to experience strength without sacrificing sensitivity.
The method first developed a physical home through Pilates & Or’s studios in Santa Barbara, California, and Boca Raton, Florida. Both established communities around focused instruction and an atmosphere that feels energetic without becoming chaotic. The opening of a studio in Polanco, Mexico City, extended that world internationally and tested a question that now sits at the center of the company: can a founder-led experience retain its integrity when it crosses borders?
Polanco suggests that it can. The location carries the movement philosophy, teaching standards and visual identity of Pilates & Or while being animated by its own local community. The company’s first international teacher training in Mexico City sold out within a week, evidence that interest in Kahlon’s work extends beyond taking his class. Instructors want to understand how it is built.
That demand led global training tours and a new licensing program intended to bring Pilates & Or studios to markets worldwide. Partners are not simply adopting a logo or purchasing a set of class plans. The license brings together the method, instructor education, brand identity and the broader design of the client experience. New license partners in Italy, the United Kingdom, Honduras and Germany are now forming the next layer of the network.
For a brand so closely associated with one person, consistency is essential. The objective is not to reproduce Kahlon’s personality room by room. It is to preserve the intelligence of the system: how classes are structured, how instructors see and communicate, how the environment feels and how the visual language supports the movement rather than competing with it.
Education is the infrastructure behind that expansion. Pilates & Or teacher trainings examine technique, class architecture, choreography, musicality, transitions, cueing and hands-on guidance. The most important subject, however, may be judgment. Teachers are asked to understand why a sequence works, what a client is compensating for and when creativity serves the body rather than distracting from it.
The advanced Soloist Master Trainer pathway develops educators who can represent the method at its highest level, mentor other instructors and support future training programs. Kahlon has spoken about building an ‘army of experts,’ a phrase that captures the scale of the ambition, although the real vision is more nuanced: an international faculty of observant, highly trained teachers who can protect the method without making it static.
Worldwide teacher trainings, workshops and mentorships are already extending that faculty across North America, Latin America and Europe. In November 2026, the international education schedule continues in Europe and Armenia. Each training is both a transmission of the current method and an investment in the people who will shape its future.
The company’s digital platform makes the work available outside its physical locations. Through the Pilates & Or on-demand library, members can begin with an introduction to Kahlon’s terminology and class structure, then progress into more complex reformer and mat sessions. For instructors, the library also offers continued exposure to his sequencing, musical decisions and evolving movement vocabulary.
Equipment completes another part of the system. Pilates & Or reformers are sold for home and studio use with worldwide shipping, allowing clients, teachers and license partners to work on apparatus aligned with the brand’s programming. Together, the studios, education, digital library and reformers form a connected ecosystem rather than a collection of unrelated products.
That integration distinguishes Pilates & Or at a moment when wellness brands often expand faster than their ideas. Here, growth is being organized around a method. Studios provide community and live experience. Training develops the teachers. Master Trainers create leadership and quality control. Licensing brings the work into new countries. Digital classes make it accessible across time zones. Equipment gives the practice a physical foundation.
Kahlon’s career has already moved through several worlds: a small-town beginning, elite arts education, national television, European dance companies and entrepreneurship. The transition from performer to teacher did not require him to abandon the discipline of his first life. It allowed him to make that discipline useful to people who may never stand on a stage.
The next chapter of Pilates & Or is deliberately international: new licensed studios, deeper teacher development, training in Europe and Armenia, expanded digital access and reformers reaching homes and studios worldwide. Yet the central proposition remains intimate. Pay attention. Understand where movement begins. Refine it until strength and expression no longer feel like opposites.
For Kahlon, transformation is not measured only by what the body can do. It is measured by how fully a person can inhabit it. That is the idea connecting the stages of his past to the studios he is building now – and the reason Pilates & Or feels less like a fitness concept than a language still being written
Explore Pilates & Or, train through the on-demand library or follow @pilatesandor for studio, education and international training updates.
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Aditi Goyal is a Relationship Manager at UAE Stories, based in Dubai, with over a year of experience in connecting people and narratives. She focuses on business, real estate, lifestyle, startups, and human stories, bringing each profile to life with clarity and purpose. Aditi believes every journey has value, and her work reflects a genuine effort to highlight growth, resilience, and real experiences. Through her contributions, she aims to create meaningful content that informs, inspires, and builds strong connections with readers.
