WEEKLY STATS  Weight: 151.5   Waist:  32.5″  Hips:  40″  Thighs:  22.5″

This week’s food for thought, at least in my little world, is weighing the benefits of self practice vs having regular lessons.  Sometime in the past few days, I had a look at this post and I totally agree when one is laying the foundation for a personal Pilates practice or a teaching practice – this will take about ten years, by the way.  And I myself spent just about ten years adhering to Andrea’s line of thinking.  But then my life happened.  Mainly, I had a kid.  And everything changed.  Except my passion for Pilates.  (And a few other things but I will resist the temptation to digress).

I’ve come to see Pilates as far more accessible that I did before, because now I think of it so much more in terms of movement rather that a precise expression of an ideal form.  If I think about how the original Pilates’ studio operated, I imagine the work infused with a different sort of zeal than how it is performed today (instructor-supervised, rather than instructor-guided workouts).  I know that there are very good reasons for having individual attention and for how we have evolved to the point that we are at now with Pilates – but clients always received individual attention in Pilates.  Now it’s just undivided attention for at least forty five minutes, which frankly, is pretty intense.  I know that in many ways we are each desperate for attention and individual lessons give us that.  But we are also desperate for movement.  And we are also desperate for being more of who we are.  When I teach individuals, I have trouble keeping people moving at the more vigorous pace that they can maintain when movement is the initial focus and I tend to dominate the arena.  That’s me, my style, my personality, etc.  And it’s my job to keep myself in check to be the best that I can be.

When I talk to clients who have had lessons for years and still feel incapable of putting together their own workout I have the sense that they haven’t really had the benefit of learning Pilates.  While clearly they were experiencing benefits from their lessons (they would not have continued otherwise), I think that perhaps the forest was lost for the trees.  There are pitfalls in any methodology of learning.  Knowing the pitfalls and employing a method of checks and balances is the key to overcoming them.  In my teaching practice, it was time for a change.  It was time to focus on movement.  It was time to focus on the learner.  It was time to put each and every client in charge of their workouts.  Eventually things may swing back the other way.  But for now this is working.

While I can completely understand the assertion that books and videos are not the best way to learn, we are living in a world where many people are doing just that and thriving.  I find it remarkably exciting.  Given that these days I’m mostly in home, but also highly motivated and engaged, learning over the internet is great for me.  I read a lot, and it affords me the opportunity to engage with what I’m reading personally and integrate the material into my life in a way that is appropriate for me.  When we learn from another person, in person, their persona is part of the equation.  It is easy to lose ourselves in that experience.  Especially if we admire the teacher.  While this makes for a really wonderful experience that is bursting with enthusiasm and love, it can be limiting in terms of how deeply the work can really effect us because while we are in the presence of brilliance, we are effectively in the shadow.  Pilates is full of brilliant stars, people who came to the work after careers in the limelight.  These beautiful people offer us lots of wonderfully useful information and inspiration, but they can also outshine some of us who don’t burn quite as bright.

In terms of my work having a kid did three things for me:  I completely revamped my teaching format, my self-practice became my only practice, and because it quickly became clear that I was at risk of losing my mind, I began writing regularly.  These three changes have all had a tremendous impact on how I look at Pilates because more than ever before I am in the power seat.  (I also believe that becoming a mom called me to be everything that I am which is also a contributing factor to putting me in the power seat when it comes to living my life in general.)  When we teach, we learn, so revising my teaching practice and writing about Pilates also keep my personal practice stimulating.

I had to reorganize how I teach because above all I want to be a hands-on mom.  I gave careful consideration as to how I could do both the work of my profession and the work of being a mom well.  I thought long and hard about how to optimize my teaching practice.  I managed to eliminate what was draining and challenging to me and maximize what I feel is most important about Pilates:  empowering each and every person who practices the method to be more fully alive.  This meant emphasizing the learner and de-emphasizing the teacher.  In my studio, everybody learns the system from day one.  This means that within a fairly short period of time, clients know the exercises, the order, the set up, and they can perform them all in the desired amount of time.  With all that out of the way and with their bodies trained to move, I can do my real job which is to continually introduce concepts which help each person to refine their workout.

Taking lessons is costly in time and in money.  While I have enjoyed the benefits of individual lessons for years, at this point in my Pilates practice, I know enough to give myself a proper workout.  It’s more important for me to be close to my boy than to have a lesson.  What’s more is that I have hundreds of pages of notes to peruse.  I am not without information to constantly be improving my Pilates practice.  Additionally, I’ve dabbled in other methods recently which has enhanced my understanding of Pilates.  I took my first Pilates lesson in August 2000.  I truly have not been bored since.

There is one aspect of lessons which is quite important and that cannot be replaced by any amount of knowledge or enthusiasm:  the external feedback.  Frederick Mathias Alexander was a contemporary of Joe Pilates and in his studies he came to realize that our sensing of our bodies is woefully inaccurate.  I am missing that piece for now, I rely on my memory and notes from hundreds of lessons, and I have mirrors when I really need to have an accurate idea of where I am in space.  Because of my injuries and perhaps just because of who I am, being a mom involves a considerable amount of physical strain.  Keeping myself relatively pain free and optimistic was the mainstay of my practice until I started My Pilates Body Boost.  I was not trying to constantly get better with Pilates, I have been doing that sort of expansion in my family life.  For now Pilates is my source of personal comfort, it is not my cutting edge.  But as I said, it still affords me daily inspiration which is part of how it comforts me.

Writing generally really has pulled me back from the brink many times over the past year.  Now that I’m writing more consistently about Pilates, I’m enjoying another expression of that age old truth that we learn as we teach.  Putting my ideas about Pilates into writing, with the hope that some others will experience some benefit from my thoughts, gives me a structure for my work in the studio.  Given that I do not work amongst other teachers, it keeps me engaged with broader world of Pilates in some small way which is good for morale when I have a sense that my career is on hold while I do the very important – but shamefully under-acknowledged – work of mothering the next generation.

All this is to say that there is not one way.  This is a most exciting time in the world of Pilates, the work has been shared with so many wonderful people that we each have many ways to access this amazing method.  We can put together a personal practice that is enhanced by a wide variety of informational sources.  The most important thing is always that we honor ourselves, reflect honestly on our work, and allow our practice to evolve as our lives unfold.  With those cornerstones, a Pilates practice can help us to be more and more of who we are.  I can’t imagine a better result than that.

In my little world of possibilities, my small studio, people will often bring in pieces of advice that they’ve been given with respect to their body.  Such as, when you have an injury, don’t move!  This one really gets my goat.  Try to not move.  Just try.  Are you still breathing?  You’re moving.  We are made to move.  Movement is synonymous with being alive.  So I modify the don’t move advice in practice as such:  when you have an injury, move correctly.  Pilates helps with that.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Pilates as layers of movement.  To get the most out of a Pilates practice, one has to master all levels of movement.  There is the first and most important layer, the choreography of the exercises.  Just that layer of movement is genius.  There are lots and lots of good reasons for the moves that make up the Pilates system, which is why they yield such great results.

Then there are the layers of movement beneath the surface, the coordination that eventually turns any move you do into a Pilates move.  I often refer to this as using the “Pilates muscles.”  In Pilates we have a standard coordination which many call the two-way stretch.  Beyond that universal muscle coordination, we have many more intricate coordinations that are specific to certain exercises.

Pilates has taught me so much and I look forward to all that it will teach me in the future.  For now I’m grateful for this pearl of wisdom (I will always think of Trish Garland when I use that sweet phrase):
The one thing you can count on in life is movement, so make every move count.

I’d been hearing about this book for a while (and just checked it out from the library) so when I saw that the author gave a TED talk, I was eager to watch.  As I am forever drawing links between Pilates and my life as a whole, I got to thinking about why Pilates is such an ideal form of exercise for introverts.  One of my tried and true clients is a self-professed introvert and she’s been giving me some insights into this topic as well.

One of the characteristics about Pilates that I first noticed when I started teaching is that it has a repetitive aspect to it.  Even though the system is made up of several hundred exercises, the way to approach it is to do a (mostly set) sequence of exercises.  From day to day there are certainly little changes that get made for a wide variety of reasons, but mostly it’s a set sequence.  It is a practice which has many connotations, in this case I’m focusing on the mental aspect of it.  While the same sequence is performed regularly, the experience of it is never the same.  Because the body is never exactly the same.  But in order to recognize the subtle differences from day to day, a person must be turned on mentally and focused inward.  If Pilates is just moves, then it will get boring really fast.

I learned this because I had some clients who did get bored and so I was constantly grappling with their experience, trying to understand why they were bored.  I, on the other hand, was never bored.  I continue to be surprised with what I learn every day with Pilates, be it in my own practice or in my teaching practice.  And I am constantly amazed at how this work that in some ways is so simple can constantly draw me into new ways of seeing bodies and experiencing my own body.  While I don’t really know for sure, the conclusion that I eventually reached about these folks who get bored with Pilates is that they are engaging with the work at its most outward levels.  As I already pointed out, at that level, the work is fairly repetitive and it seems like no big deal.  But layer those moves onto a precise and continuous flow of internal coordination and wow, you’ve got something special on your hands.

Which is why I think introverts can grasp the magic of Pilates a little quicker than extroverts.  If a person comes to Pilates with a comfort with the internal terrain of their body, with the inner workings of their mind, with a quietness of soul, then Pilates offers layer upon layer of material for exploration instantly.  On the other hand, if a person is more comfortable in the outer, social arenas, they will be more likely to initially engage with the moves and the apparatus rather than with their own inner workings.  True, the moves themselves, and the apparatus are pretty cool and so they are a great “hook” into the work.  And I am not in any way trying to get in between any person and their relationship to Pilates.  We are each a unique balance of so many characteristics, introvert and extrovert being just one of many spectrums that we all fall upon.

This is more just to offer another way of understanding Pilates.  We all have a bit of introversion in ourselves.  If, upon beginning a Pilates workout or lesson, we remind ourselves to let that part of ourself fully express itself, we will get just a little more juice out of our Pilates workout.  And in doing so enjoy it all the more.

Here’s to embracing your introverted self – even if it’s just a wee bit – with Pilates!

In my many years of listening to interviews on NPR I began to notice something of a trend.  Experts tend to speak more cautiously and less definitively about their topic of expertise than lay people do when speaking about the same topic.  I began to think that this happens because an expert knows the complexity of their area of expertise far more intimately than a novice does.

In the world of Pilates we have a few teachers who studied with Joseph Pilates.  One woman, Romana Kryzanowska agreed to uphold and defend his legacy.  She has dedicated over sixty years to that charge.  Romana is a brilliant teacher who I have had the benefit of learning from, both in person and via many other wonderful teachers who have invested years in their lives to studying with her.  One teaching method that Romana almost universally applies is that she addresses every question with movement.  If you ask her a question, she puts her answer in motion, within the actual material of Pilates.  For those of us who tend toward the intellectual this may be challenging.  Or it may be precisely what we need:  to work in our bodies, integrate first on the physical level in the present moment, analyze on the intellectual level afterward.  I’d go so far as to say that for us living in this hyper-intellectualized world this may be the best possible medicine for each of us.  Our bodies are starved for movement.  Well-designed, carefully executed movement is all the better.  But movement of any kind opens up possibilities that we lack in our contemporary, sedentary lifestyle.

There are, of course, media savvy experts.  People who have figured out how to bridge the gap between the 24-7 world of sound bytes and the world that those of us driven by passion of some kind inhabit.  Neil deGrasse Tyson comes to mind.  He has mastered the art of the sound byte.  But his point was and is always to lead people into his world.  The sound byte is merely the portal.

This NYT article amounts to a sound byte.  It introduces readers to yoga and Pilates.  But, as with all courses of study worth investigating, anybody who choses to delve into either, will find a lifetime of interesting material.  Any physical discipline offers its students this.  It is our bodies and our lives that make the material come to life.  Clearly yoga has some substance to it, it’s been practiced for centuries and the number of people practicing steadily increases.  Pilates, while a contemporary technique, is on par with yoga.  It is a brilliant system of exercise for the entire body.  It was conceived in response to the industrial lifestyle.  It is an ideal form of exercise for people living in western society.

But, Pilates is a legally a generic term.  It is up to the consumer to determine how to learn Pilates, what lineage to grow from, what teachers to study with.  Those choices will determine a tremendous amount of a person’s experience with Pilates.

The deeper a person journeys into their own path of self discovery with Pilates, the more absurd articles such as this one seem.  To read of Pilates being described in such trifling terms is upsetting to those who are passionately invested in a lifetime of study.  And yet, every conversation, every mention has its purpose in the evolution of a body of work.  Even that which seems so lacking in substance and depth, serves a purpose.  Pilates, like yoga, helps millions of people.  Pilates is here to stay.  And those of us who love it are here to make sure that it does in its beautiful and complex entirety.

An idea that has slowly emerged as a rule for me in my years of practice as Pilates instructor is that the each body has one and only expert, him / her self.  Clearly there are many body experts in the world, folks who have dedicated years of study to the human body.  But the real buck-stopper is the person doing the work.  In Pilates (as in everything, really), the doer is the worker, is the learner.  As the instructor, I can say what I want, yell, jump up and down, whatever.  None of it means anything if the person moving isn’t engaged with the work.  Pilates is the definition of DIY exercise.

Most of us have no idea how to be the expert of our body.  We have given up something that nobody else can do for us.  The only way to regain that control is to learn about our body; how it works ideally, what is less than ideal, how to bridge the gap.  Pilates is designed to help us do this.  Pilates is designed to put us in our proper place, in control of our body.  So that we are empowered to live our lives to the fullest.  It’s a marvelous opportunity.

Pilates has taught me so much and I look forward to all that it will teach me in the future.  For now I’m grateful for this two pearl of wisdom (I will always think of Trish Garland when I use that sweet phrase):

The only expert about your body is you.  Train yourself to be the best expert you can be.  Your body will thank you! 

WEEKLY STATS  Weight: 151.5   Waist:  33″  Hips:  40″  Thighs:  23″

This week is proving my previous point, sometimes the important work that is happening inside doesn’t reflect in measurements.  While I’ve actually put on a little weight and failed to lose much in inches this past week, I’ve turned a real corner in another area of my life:  my self-confidence is making a serious comeback.

This is very good news.  As I’ve written before, the past two years have been very challenging on a personal level for me.  The biggest outward expression of that has been my sense of confidence and how I interact with the world.  I’ve been addressing this all the while that it’s been happening, but only now have I turned a corner.  Was my Pilates Body Boost the tipping point?  I can’t know for sure, but it certainly is feeling like a worthwhile venture.  I’m feeling increasingly better in every possible way.  While I am just as determined to slim down simply because I feel that it is important to maintain a degree of control over my weight and in doing so, uphold a normal level of health; the fact that I’m feeling less depressed and more optimistic is huge.  It is as if my personal storm clouds are finally dispersing.  Having a more positive outlook overall means that I don’t get so down and out every time I consider my extra bits.  To me, that is a preferable way to be in my body.

When I was working with my teachers regularly, many made note of the impact that Pilates has on our sense of confidence.  Sometime back I wrote about this idea of physical confidence.  This week as I was marveling at my own switch over to the sunny side I realized that this is probably a big part of the reason that people fall in love with Pilates.  Yes, it makes us feel great on a physical level, and yes it makes us look great too.  But there is the less tangible greatness that may be even more captivating.  Because no matter how you look or feel at the physical level, if you feel good at an emotional level you are so much better off.

Pilates is just all around good and I am so grateful to have it in my life.

In my early years of Pilates training I was working with people who had criticisms of the original work.  One such criticism echos in my head all these years later especially these days as I’m performing some Pilates exercises that are less commonly performed:  regular people can’t do all the exercises.  What follows out of that criticism is invention of new more “accessible” exercises and a dilution of the original work.

As I was working out one day this week, paying special attention to my personal body issues with every move that I made, I realized that the only reason I can do these moves is because I want to.  Were I to ask the advice of certain people I would most likely be advised not to.  Which reminded me about one of my favorite things about Pilates, it’s all about what is possible.  And there is always more that is possible than is impossible.

I got to where I am on this Pilates Body journey of mine by focusing on what I could do and always finding ways to do more.  And there are ways, for any person, with any set of limitations, there are ways.  The will is the important ingredient.  The will to live ones dreams, the will to follow inspiration, the will to continue pushing the frontier of possibility forward.  Pilates is all about Possibilities.

Pilates has taught me so much and I look forward to all that it will teach me in the future.  For now I’m grateful for this pearl of wisdom (I will always think of Trish Garland when I use that sweet phrase):

Real people can do whatever they believe is possible.