Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Del Rosario.
Hi Vanessa, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Even from a very young age, I used to join my mom when she worked out to her Jane Fonda tapes. I loved putting on my tights and leotard, getting my hair up in the highest ponytail possible, and my mom even got me little wristbands so I could match Jane. I knew the choreography so well I could recite it word for word.
Our little routine dwindled a bit as I got older, but when I was 14, my mom came home with a Pilates video set by Mari Winsor for us to try. I immediately fell in love. Even though she couldn’t always find time to do the videos with me, I kept doing them on my own – locking myself in my parents’ bedroom so my siblings couldn’t disturb me. I loved the precision, the grace, the burn, and the novelty of the equipment that came with the tapes: the bands, the magic circle. Pilates helped me navigate my ever-changing body and life throughout high school, becoming a consistent way for me to reconnect with my intuition and my own strength.
After a terrible car accident when I was 17, I was introduced to the reformer and other apparatus. Group Pilates wasn’t really a thing back then, so I used to drive over an hour and pay $200 for private lessons. Once again, I was enamored by the way the method, with the added difficulty of spring tension, quieted my mind and helped me tune into my body. I struggled with disordered eating and body dysmorphia, and found that focusing on controlling the equipment and working against resistance helped dampen the voice in my head that told me lies about my body. I loved it so much that some months I’d save up my entire allowance just to sneak in an extra lesson when I was supposed to be at a supplemental college prep course. (Sorry, Mom!)
It only made sense that once I got to San Diego for college, I’d continue the practice. I found a private studio and worked as many jobs as I could just to afford a weekly lesson. Eventually I discovered a studio with small group classes at a more affordable rate, and realized I’d been missing a huge part of the journey all along: community. Not long after, the studio owner offered to train me as an instructor.
Since then I’ve picked up other comprehensive Pilates certifications and mentorships to round out my training, and even did a 200-hour yoga teacher certification and learned how to teach indoor cycling. I’ve now been teaching happily for 20 years. What I love most is watching someone realize their inner strength and find that Pilates has brought them “home” in their own body – because that is exactly what it did for me. Jane Fonda got me moving. Mari Winsor got me hooked. But it was the Pilates method itself that gave a scared, struggling teenager somewhere steady to land. Twenty years later, no matter how hectic life gets, it still is.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been relatively smooth, but with each call to level up, I’ve encountered new challenges. When I first started teaching, my biggest worry was getting past the nerves to speak in front of a room full of strangers (or worse, people I knew!). I was a horrible public speaker. Even as a child and adolescent, I hated standing out. I didn’t share my passion for Pilates with high school friends, not even my closest ones, for fear I’d have to field a lot of questions about it. I was also deep in the throes of my eating disorder, and as healing as Pilates was, part of my obsession was still tied to the shame I felt about my body.
As I found myself in the public eye more, I realized I wasn’t the only one dealing with body issues. The biggest part of my healing has come from feeling overcome with the compassion and responsibility of helping others heal too. I had to figure out how to become my best self, so I could show people it was safe to become theirs.
Over the years, the hurdles have shifted shape: finding work-life balance while still making enough money to support myself, and, as anyone who’s done shadow work knows, facing inner demons each time they show up wearing a new face.
A couple of years ago, I decided to open my own small studio (Resonance Performance Pilates) and build a teacher training program that actually prepares people to teach Pilates, not just learn the exercises. That training has evolved into something bigger as I’ve watched a troubling trend take hold in our industry: single-weekend certifications that skip the foundational education entirely, leaving new teachers equipped to teach only a shallow version of the method. I kept seeing contemporary studios open with instructors who lacked any real understanding of the system, teaching exercises that happened to be on the reformer rather than a method with actual intention behind it.
So I built a training that marries it all – a solid classical foundation, the tools to bring creativity to contemporary studios without losing the integrity of the real work, and the presence and technique it takes to actually hold space for people. Because that’s the thing no single-weekend training can hand you: the ability to be a teacher someone trusts with their body, and sometimes with a lot more than that.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’ve taught so many different fitness modalities across San Diego, from Pilates to indoor cycling to heated mat Pilates, that it’s hard to say which one I’m most known for. But all of it stems from the same thing that brought me to movement and mindfulness in the first place: giving yourself permission to be fully, unapologetically yourself.
I’m proud of every time a regular client has told me how much my classes have changed their life, that they feel more confident in their own skin or that they finally worked up the nerve to quit a job they hated.
But lately, what’s moved me most has been watching the new teachers coming out of my training programs. I now have graduates in San Diego, Hawaii, and New Jersey and I still get emotional seeing each of them grow into incredible teachers – putting others first and becoming part of something bigger than themselves. That, to me, is the mark of a true teacher – and watching them step into it is proof that everything I built this training to do is actually working.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
I love that I’ve lived in San Diego for over 20 years and still discover new things regularly. I love all the different people that come here to enjoy the weather and the gorgeous beaches. But the thing I like least is probably the parking (or lack thereof).
Pricing:
- Private Lesson — $125
- Duet Lesson — $75 each
- Semi-private (3 max) — $45 each
Contact Info:
- Website: https://resonancepilates.as.me
- Instagram: @resonanceperformancepilates
