Signature: Baton Rouge Pilates instructor Cecile Bankston

Age: 50
Occupation: Pilates instructor
Hometown: Baton Rouge

Cecile Bankston is petite, with short, platinum-blonde hair, a kind smile and a calmness that immediately makes you feel at ease. The well-traveled Pilates instructor loves to cook and names Italy and Santa Barbara as two of her favorite destinations.

But today? Today, she is glad to be back home.

Bankston is a Pilates prodigy with ballet beginnings. Her journey around the world started when she was 17. The St. Joseph’s Academy alumna left Baton Rouge to dance professionally across the U.S.

A classically trained ballerina, she traveled with the Broadway production of Carousel and performed for then-President George H.W. Bush, First Lady Barbara Bush and the Prime Minister of Japan.

Bankston soon discovered Pilates because she needed a cross-training exercise to supplement her dancing.

“It was an exercise that created the same body as a ballerina,” Bankston says. “It was created for men by a man, but now it’s practiced more by women.”

German Joseph Pilates invented the exercise during World War I. He taught his fellow German soldiers the movements in an effort to keep their minds and bodies connected and ward off illnesses.

“When I practice Pilates, it calms me,” Bankston says. “It’s my sanctuary, a time I can devote to centering and calming down and relaxing. It’s the only thing besides dance I found that I enjoy doing.”

Bankston took what she learned through her travels back to Baton Rouge in 1991, when she led the first-ever Pilates class in the city.

Today, she has more than 30 years of Pilates experience. She learned from the best—her teachers were former students of Joseph Pilates. She has appeared in more than 20 fitness DVDs and has traveled the world teaching Pilates. Locally, she helped introduce Pilates to LSU’s athletic training department and the women’s tennis team, and nationally, she has trained with the Cincinnati Bengals and the San Francisco 49ers. She has also started a Pilates by the Sea studio in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

She has even worked one-on-one with Emeril Lagasse. Yes, she says, the energetic “Bam!” chef does Pilates.

“He’s so enthusiastic and so into what he’s doing,” she says.

Now, Bankston is back home, teaching and managing Walsh Pilates, a Towne Center studio that uses Joseph Pilates’ methods.

The mother of four loves teaching a few miles from her home off Perkins Drive, which she also shares with her 3-year-old “baby,” a 120-pound Bullmastiff named Juno.

“I haven’t taught in Baton Rouge for 12 years, but it feels good to be back,” she says. “I enjoy helping people reach that mind-body connection and teaching every day.”