Marcia Donald, Founder and Owner of Bon Temps Classical Pilates, became a resident of Northern Louisiana in 1995, where she has worked alongside her husband, Dr. Lance Donald, in helping to run his highly regarded endodontic practice and raise two beautiful children, Katelyn, and Conner.

Marcia’s athletic interests and passion for health and wellness kept her fit and energetic until she sustained a serious knee injury requiring meniscal repair surgery. It was her good fortune to find a classically trained Pilates instructor who introduced her initially to its healing benefits and subsequently to the total mind, body, and soul transformation offered by the Classical Pilates System.

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She was still recovering from surgery when she embarked on the rigorous, comprehensive, 600-hour Power Pilates Classical Certification. Her dream to offer the tremendous benefits of Classical Pilates to her beloved Northern Louisiana community has been realized in the opening of Bon Temps Classical Pilates Studio!

Lia Cannon is a long time resident of Monroe. She and Ed, her husband of 47 years, are parents of two adult children, Jay, and Corey and proud grandparents of a wonderful granddaughter, Mary Ava Cannon.

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Lia's love of movement has led her to achieve an enviable balance of a healthy body and an illumined mind. Since 1985, she has been a group fitness instructor at several local fitness facilities, consistently maintaining a loyal client base. She is a 200 hour registered yoga teacher.

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Well known as an avid runner, Lia has completed 24 full marathons, countless half marathons, 5K and 10K races. She is a competent cyclist and is a veteran of many long distance cycling events. She loves long-distance hiking and trekking and has trekked Kilimanjaro, hiked to the Everest Base Camp, walked the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu, and completed the 500 mile Camino de Santiago across Northern Spain.

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Lia understands the challenges of attending to one's body while maintaining a demanding lifestyle. She believes that we should move to nourish our bodies rather than to punish them.

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Her 40+ years as a dental hygienist in a busy practice can cause muscle strain and changes in posture from maintaining positions required by her profession. She understands, too the abuse of one's body by sports, sedentary jobs, or hours spent on computers. As she experienced healing effects in her body through breath, fluidity of movement and proper alignment in her own practice of yoga and Pilates, a passion began to blossom.

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In 2019, she completed both Core Mat I and Core Mat II, and a 600 hour Classical Pilates teacher-training course. She guides her clients in safe and effective movement with an emphasis on injury prevention, encouraging them to reconnect with their bodies through movement and dynamic alignment. She is particularly interested in sharing her love of movement and helps her clients understand that stress and pain can be controlled and managed in order to maintain active lifestyles. Lia continues to attend workshops, courses and classes to keep her knowledge current and her routines fresh. She enjoys studying human anatomy and the biomechanics of movement and proper body alignment. She teaches with positivity and encouragement and is rewarded when her clients experience the profound effects that their own practice of yoga and Pilates has on their physical and mental well being. From the restorative qualities of yoga to the undeniable results achieved by practicing Pilates, her clients gain strength and increased flexibility as they connect with their bodies through healthy movement.

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Phyllis Sampognaro is an apprentice at Bon Temp and is currently enrolled in the Peak Pilates Comprehensive Certification program.  Phyllis is a lifelong resident of North Louisiana and is married to Charlie Sampognaro.  They have four children: Sarah, John Charles, Anna, and Gabe.  Even though her educational background is in business, Phyllis has always been interested in fitness and enjoyed running and group workout classes.  When a neck injury starting limiting the type of exercise in which she could participate, she began searching for something she could do to stay active and allow for her body to heal.  Pilates not only fit the bill perfectly, but exceeded her expectations.  Phyllis is looking forward to receiving her certificate and sharing the many benefits of Pilates with others.

Monica Mobley is an apprentice at Bon Temps and is currently training to receive her level 2 certification of the Peak Pilates comprehensive program, the highest quality authentic Pilates education, covering the mat, reformer, tower, chairs, barrels and auxiliary equipment. 

She has lived in many places due to the nature of her father's job growing up. She found her way back to Northern Louisiana in the fall of 2015 visiting family and inevitably stayed. After graduating high school in May of 2015, Monica enrolled at Louisiana Tech University in 2018 and is expected to receive her BFA in Graphic Design in 2023. 

She was introduced to pilates in 2018 after taking a contemporary hot pilates class elsewhere and loved the way it made her feel. Since then, she took many yoga classes and relied on YouTube for guidance with pilates, which is where she discovered classical pilates. Loving the way both made her feel, body and mind, she wanted to gain more knowledge of the benefits for herself and others. After taking her first group pilates mat class in 3 years at Bon Temps in 2021, she made the decision that pilates was ultimately the route she wanted to go. 

We are excited to have Monica on the Bon Temps team and look forward to her continued journey to become a certified instructor!