Stefanie O’Rourke,
Owner Chesapeake Pilates Center
Comprehensively Certified Pilates Teacher
National Certified Pilates Teacher #15492
PhysicalMind Institute, Comprehensive 2004
Clare Dunphy Advanced Classical Seminar, 2019
Alycea Ungaro’s Real Pilates Teacher Training, Comprehensive Bridge 2022
Stefanie has over 2 decades of experience in the fitness industry. She applies her understanding of movement to the system of pilates, using all apparatus as needed to tailor an individualized program for each student. “The practice of pilates”, she says, “empowers the student to take ownership of their bodies, understand it’s movement patterns, and apply this to their every day life.”
Always active, Stefanie found that taking group exercise classes helped release the stress of her former career in personnel and advertising sales. While taking a step class in 1995, Stefanie was recruited to teach group exercise which led her to various fitness modalities. In 2001 a friend and colleague introduced her to Pilates apparatus and she was hooked. “Short Spine (a pilates exercise) took me back to gymnastics…so much fun and it felt good!” she says.
After beginning a family, Stefanie retired from the corporate world and decided to focus all her energies on fitness. She became certified to teach pilates mat classes in 2003, completed her comprehensive training in 2004, and opened a fully equipped pilates studio in West Annapolis inside Ridgely Retreat in 2005. Needing more space, Stefanie opened Chesapeake Pilates Center in January 2016. She gravitated to strictly classical equipment and found mentor in Clare Dunphy-Hemani in 2018. In 2022 Stefanie excelled in a bridge program with Alycea Ungaro’s Real Pilates Teacher Training to become a Host Studio.
A native of southern New Jersey, Stefanie has a Bachelors Degree in Communications from New England College in New Hampshire. She has resided in Annapolis since 1999 where she raised her her children with her husband Peter. Their family also includes Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and cats.
