A Letter to Amanda, and the Community That Helped Us Build This
Five years ago, Amanda and I were riding a scooter through Oak Cliff.
That sounds like the beginning of a romantic comedy, but it was actually the beginning of one of the most terrifying decisions of our lives.
We had just been given an ultimatum by a business partner. One of those moments where your stomach drops and you realize someone else is trying to decide your future for you.
We were angry.
We were scared.
And we were completely unqualified for what we were about to do.
As we rode through Oak Cliff, we made a decision.
We’re doing this ourselves.
No investors.
No trust funds.
No rich uncle writing checks.
No backup plan.
Just us.
Amanda, this story started long before Oak Cliff Pilates.
It started on Halloween night in Tempe, Arizona.
A crowded bar.
A quick conversation.
A phone number exchanged.
And somehow, a feeling I still can’t fully explain.
I could feel your smile from across the room.
A year later we were married.
Almost twenty years later, here we are.
A lot of people think the story of Oak Cliff Pilates starts with a studio.
It doesn’t.
It starts with two people learning how to build a life together.
You spent nearly two decades doing hair.
Building relationships.
Creating community.
Making people feel seen.
I built websites and logos for small businesses and eventually led digital marketing teams for companies much larger than anything I could have imagined when I started my first company out of college.
We were always working.
Always hustling.
Always figuring it out.
We built a good life.
We were also terrible with money.
That’s important to mention because entrepreneurship stories often skip the messy parts.
The truth is we have funded this dream with credit cards, refinanced homes, drained retirement accounts, taken loans we should never have taken, and spent countless nights wondering how we were going to make everything work.
There were no shortcuts.
There was no safety net.
There was only belief.
The original vision wasn’t even a studio.
Back in 2016, Amanda wanted to stop doing hair and teach Pilates.
Simple.
Pilates in the Park.
Private sessions.
A few clients.
A slower life.
The first Pilates in the Park class happened on May 30, 2016.
If you had told us then that thousands of people would eventually attend those events, we would have laughed.
If you had told us we’d someday have three studios, nearly fifty trainers, and almost one thousand members, we probably would have laughed even harder.
Yet here we are.
The thing I admire most about Amanda is her courage.
People see the finished version.
They see the studios.
The classes.
The community.
What they don’t see is the woman willing to bet everything on an idea.
When we opened our first Oak Cliff Pilates studio in June of 2021, we maxed out our credit cards.
We ordered reformers.
Signed a lease.
Crossed our fingers.
And hoped enough people would show up.
The studio sat on the second floor of a hundred-year-old building.
It was tiny.
It was imperfect.
It was absolutely perfect.
It felt like us.
The funny thing about building a dream is that nobody prepares you for what comes after.
The threats.
The setbacks.
The walls literally falling down.
One year after opening, part of the building collapsed and we lost power for nearly three weeks.
Most businesses would have shut down.
Instead, we powered the studio with a gas generator.
Four trips a day to refill the tank.
Every day.
For weeks.
Because quitting wasn’t an option.
It never has been.
We survived COVID by teaching free Zoom classes.
We survived expansion by scraping together money wherever we could find it.
We survived opening a third studio in one of the most competitive markets in Dallas.
We’ve survived debt, stress, uncertainty, and more sleepless nights than I can count.
And somehow we’re still standing.
Actually, we’re growing.
The thing I’m most proud of isn’t the studios.
It isn’t the member count.
It isn’t the Instagram followers.
It’s us.
Because building a business together isn’t romantic most days.
Most days it’s difficult.
It’s stressful.
It’s exhausting.
Our marriage has felt every bit of it.
But it has also made us stronger.
We’ve learned how to communicate.
How to ask for help.
How to share responsibility.
How to forgive mistakes.
How to remind each other of the good when all we can see is the bad.
We’ve learned that success isn’t what creates happiness.
Partnership creates happiness.
Having someone willing to walk through uncertainty beside you creates happiness.
The business is simply the classroom where we’ve learned those lessons.
I often think about a video I recorded the night before we opened.
I was sitting alone in the studio.
Exhausted.
Covered in dust.
Wondering if we had completely lost our minds.
I recorded a message for Amanda and said something I’ll never forget.
“This is going to be the most important thing we ever do.”
At the time I thought I was talking about a Pilates studio.
I wasn’t.
I was talking about what happens when two people decide to believe in each other completely.
Five years later, Oak Cliff Pilates has become so much bigger than either of us.
It belongs to the trainers who have built careers here.
It belongs to the members who have taken over 1,200 classes.
It belongs to the people who have lost hundreds of pounds.
The people who found confidence.
The people who found friendship.
The people who found community.
The people who discovered that movement could change their lives.
It belongs to Oak Cliff.
A neighborhood that welcomed us.
A neighborhood that feels a little hip hop, a little bohemian, a little rough around the edges, and completely authentic.
Just like us.
To our trainers, thank you.
To our staff, thank you.
To our families, thank you.
To every member who has walked through our doors, thank you.
You have trusted us with something incredibly important.
Your time.
Your health.
Your community.
Your stories.
As we celebrate five years of Oak Cliff Pilates, two years in Uptown, one year in Lower Greenville, nearly one thousand members, and ten thousand followers, I don’t feel successful.
I feel grateful.
Because this was never about Pilates.
It was never about opening studios.
It was never about growing a business.
It was about building something significant together.
Amanda, if I could go back to that Halloween night in Tempe, Arizona and tell my younger self one thing, it would be this:
Take her number.
Trust her instincts.
Follow her dreams.
You’re about to build a life neither of you can imagine.
And five years from now, you’ll look around a room full of people whose lives have been changed because the two of you were crazy enough to believe you could do it.
Happy Anniversary.
I love you.
And we’re just getting started.
— Kiel
