I had an epiphany this weekend as I was teaching a group of Pilates Teachers about client assessment, and how to teach the body in front of them. Inevitably as we were talking about protocols for assessing, comparisons between our approach as Movement Educators and that of the medical community inevitably arose. What came out …
How do we get them to stay? Exercise adherence and client retention
We have all had those clients that come to us in agony with the goals of getting moving and staying moving. In their first session, they say that they realize that the reason for their pain is because they haven’t been moving enough or not in the right way. If they could just get back …
How do we get them to stay? Exercise adherence and client retentionRead More
The New Age of Pilates: What is the disconnect?
In my 15+ years of teaching and owning a studio, I have been advised over and over that if I want to be successful in this industry, I should avoid using the word Pilates in describing or promoting my business. This advice, of course, comes from those who do not understand Pilates or the philosophy …
Stack your Boxes: Strategies for Standing and Walking
One of the most common physical complaints clients bring to us is pain in their back and knees when they are standing and walking. I personally live in a very hilly area so add to that the extra exertion and the challenge on my clients’ joints when walking up and downhill. This is one of …
Stack your Boxes: Strategies for Standing and WalkingRead More
Between the Cues: The Magical Sound of Silence
Whether you are teaching a private session or group class, there are so many moving parts to observe, assess, and instruct. As teachers, we all have different strategies to manage this, whether through the use of cueing, hands-on adjustments, or breaking down movements into incremental parts. It is easy to get caught up in the …
Cueing the Breath: A Blessing and a Curse
One of the quintessential Pilates Principles is Breathing. Seems like an obvious task, but amazingly a significant challenge for many, especially with the amount of focus asked of them in a typical Pilates session. Joseph Pilates himself explains in his manifesto, Return to Life Through Contrology that to breathe properly we should “SQUEEZE EVERY ATOM …
Finding your Teaching Voice
Making your way through your Pilates Teacher Training program is an exciting and overwhelming time to say the least. There is an incredible amount of information thrown at you all at once, and you are expected to retain it all in a very short period of time. At a minimum, the initial certification part of …
You know how to move bodies, but do you know HOW the body moves?
The human body is an exquisitely complicated piece of machinery made up of a complex web of muscles and tissue that support and move its bony structure. Every single day, you work with bodies of all shapes, sizes, and abilities, but how well do you know the intricacies of how the body functions to produce …
You know how to move bodies, but do you know HOW the body moves?Read More
The Fear Factor: The Anticipation of Pain in Movement
As we all move through life, we don’t really think of the hundreds of coordinated movements that our body makes each day, let alone how they feel. When a person is in pain though, every single movement can bring on a landslide of feelings, both emotional and physical. When pain persists over a long period, …
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Clench it or Move it? That is still the question.
Since the exercise craze of the ’80s, we have seen many variations of the “Butt Crunch”, “Ab Crunch”, anything you can crunch–and the more the better, right? The action of a Butt Crunch is a repeated squeeze of the buttocks while sitting or standing–and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. With the promise of a more …