Westside Pilates Center: Classical Pilates in Missoula
Last Updated on 31 August, 2026
How a Master Instructor with nine years of teaching built her first studio in Missoula’s historic Westside Theater — and chose WellnessLiving to run it.
Nine Years of Teaching. Now Her Own Studio.
Joy French has spent nine years teaching Pilates before she opened a space of her own. She is comprehensively certified through Peak Pilates and holds a Master Instructor designation from The Pilates Academy of Strength & Transformation. That is not a typical credential combination for a first-time studio owner. It reflects someone who spent nearly a decade going deep before going wide.
Westside Pilates Center sits at 1200 Shakespeare Street, Suite 2 in Missoula, Montana — upstairs in the historic Westside Theater. The address is not incidental. Missoula is a university city with an arts-forward culture, and a Pilates studio above a neighborhood theater fits the kind of community Joy is building toward.
A Studio Built for Multiple Kinds of Students
Westside Pilates Center runs a multi-format model. Every session type reflects a specific kind of student and a specific kind of learning.
Private sessions come first. Solo sessions give a student the full attention of a Master Instructor. Duet and trio formats extend that quality of instruction to small groups without losing the thread of individual coaching. These are the studio’s core revenue line.
Small group class series and an open gym-style membership give students more flexible access. Clients who want consistency without committing to private appointments can train on their own schedule within the studio’s hours.
Pre- and post-natal small group mat classes serve another population that needs specialized instruction. Teaching Pilates to pregnant and postpartum students requires different cues, modifications, and attentiveness than standard classes. Joy’s training makes that possible.
Joy also plans to host instructor trainings, building the studio into an educational hub for Pilates professionals in the Missoula area. Studio rentals let other local instructors use the space when it is available, keeping Westside active and building a professional community around the practice.
Why Joy Chose WellnessLiving
Westside Pilates Center is Joy’s first studio. She had no existing client data to migrate and no legacy system to replace. The decision was about choosing the right foundation from the start.
Her model required more than a basic booking tool. Private appointments, small group sessions, memberships, teacher trainings, and studio rentals each follow different booking rules. A visiting instructor books space differently than a client booking a solo session. WellnessLiving handles both without forcing Joy to maintain separate systems.
She also needed client-facing essentials in place before she started promoting the studio publicly. An online waiver, a booking flow that reflects her cancellation policy, and a clean digital presence were priorities. Her cancellation policy is clear: clients must cancel at least 24 hours before their appointment or pay for the session. WellnessLiving enforces that automatically.
Joy wanted to launch efficiently without overbuilding. She configured what she needed first, with room to expand as the schedule fills. WellnessLiving’s flexibility let her move quickly toward opening without committing to complexity she did not yet need.
What Missoula Gains
Missoula is a city that takes movement seriously. It is also a city where deep, classical Pilates instruction from a Master Instructor has not always been easy to find.
Westside Pilates Center changes that. Students who want private sessions with someone who has spent nine years developing their craft now have somewhere to go. Pregnant and postpartum people who need specialized mat instruction have a class built for them. Instructors in the area who need studio space have a rental option. And Pilates professionals who want to train under a Master Instructor have a teacher training to look forward to.
Joy French spent nearly a decade earning the right to open a studio like this. The building she chose, the credentials she holds, and the range of students she serves all reflect that preparation. Missoula’s Westside neighborhood is a fitting place for it.
Want to see more of their journey? You can follow them on Instagram!
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