Through the eyes of your Pilates instructor

How many of you have walked into a Pilates class and thought to yourself – well this is going to be lame?

Come on be honest, I know who you are! I can sniff out the non-believers a mile away 🙂

My husband calls me a sniffer dog; I see and hear everything. Let me tell you, it is a blessing and a curse!

How can such slow controlled movements actually tone my body, improve my flexibility and core strength I hear you say?

Well I am glad you asked!

While the non-believers are busy non-believing I am busy noticing (not in a creepy way) the bodies of many of the Pilates instructors they are lean, toned and healthy looking. That surely is a positive endorsement.

As I teach, I observe, not just to check that people are performing the exercises safely and correctly, but watching human behavior during exercise is fascinating.

I see some  high school girls rolling their eyes and their heads, giving me a little ‘ this is going to be totes lame look’.

I see you, I was that girl once!

I see you lifting your leg up and down, showing off your mad flexibility cheerleader like skills, I see you roll your eyes when I tell you that you don’t need to move that fast, or lift your leg so high.

I make you slow it down, then I smile as I see the effects of the workout done correctly.

Not so totes lame now is it?

I see you, shy girl in the back row, overweight girl in the corner and I smile at you, quietly plodding along, struggling to keep up but doing it correctly and refusing to give up, I see you shy girls, I see you overweight girls and I salute you!

I remember high school, the competitiveness, the need to fit in, the struggle to be part of a group, yet maintain a little piece of independence, to maintain a little piece of you. I remember the ups and down of teenage years.

I see the cool girl now struggling for composure and I feel for her too (I am a ridiculous softy), but at the end of the day, everyone is fighting their own battles, and sometimes that cool exterior is merely a front for some hidden away fears.

I see the older ladies attending week after week, with their dodgy knees, their bung hips and their sore necks. Their bodies may not be what they used to be, but their pelvic floor is strong and their mind power can blow my mind away.

Whether the occasional fart like sound during crunches is the rubber mat beneath them or an actual fart no body cares.

While they might need a little rest in-between exercises, they always give 100%, they are fit, they are slim and they are strong in body and mind, and I am in awe of each and every one of them.  Continuing to move your body as you age, is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself.

I see you strong muscly six-foot tall guy being dragged in by your girlfriend, I see your cynical look even from my five foot small stance and I have to be honest, I see you and I think – game on!

I give you the hardest options, I know you think it won’t be strong enough for you when you look at my petite frame, but when you collapse on the floor and I am the last man (little tiny Pilates instructor with a core of steel standing) I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little smug.

I see my class of predominately non-English speaking people looking up at me, not understanding a word I say, returning week after week and I think how incredibly brave they are.

You see, I see everything and I love what I see.

Those smiling those frowning – smiling through the pain, frowning through the concentration, or frowning at my sometimes non funny – tumbleweed type moment jokes.

pilates blog

I see you holding your breath in, I ask you if you are all breathing, you nod, I know that you’re not breathing properly. I remind you again to breathe, you smile as though as I am crazy – of course I am breathing you think.

Yet I see you concentrating and trying so hard that you hold your breath in, I know this as we finish and I hear the group exhale.

I know this as that large loud exhale fills the room and we all collapse on the floor and laugh.

I see the supersized bodies, the undersized bodies and everything in-between.

I see the looks on your faces as I have suddenly forgotten how to count, I see you leaving with a slight limp as I have got caught up in the moment and have done 12 reps on one side and 25 on the other. during glute exercises.

Joking, or am I?  hehe!

At the end of the day I am human, just like you, I have my good days and my bad days and my somewhat ridiculous days. I have days just like you when you just wake up feeling blah.  We are all human and we feel how we do and I am here to tell you that its ok.

I see those of you attending Pilates for rehab and I know how difficult it is for you. Those simple movements that are no longer so simple to you. The once effortless movements, requiring more effort than you ever dreamt possible. I see you and my heart swells with a mixture of pride and pain for you.

I see you for the simple fact that you are there. You could have given up, but you didn’t. I see you and I am so grateful to be a part of your healing journey.

I see you ALL, because you are there, you are trying, you are moving, you are trying something new or simply trying to improve, and for that alone you should feel as proud of yourself as I feel of you.

You turned up, you stayed to the end of the class, you stepped outside of your comfort zone for a whole hour and that is not an easy thing to do.

Whatever the end result is, hold on to that, remember that, use that to find the courage to do your next class.


The emotional side of exercise

It has been an oddly emotional week, for myself and others around me. I have had a few people cry in my classes and this of course has made me think more deeply about my life, and my classes.

Emotions are a funny thing, they can be pushed to the background for so long, before all of a sudden they explode when you least expect it.

Exercise releases endorphins we all know about this, it makes sense then that emotions can be released as well.

While you may feel more comfortable crying during relaxation or a hip opening yoga sequence than pumping weights or running on the treadmill, don’t be surprised if halfway mid squat you suddenly feel overcome with emotion.

Here is where all the guys are puffing their chests out saying whatever lady, well guys it happens to you too, I know this, I have seen it.

While you may disguise (or bury) it better than the ladies, it does happen to you as well 🙂

Think about it, when you are exercising, you are away from your life so to speak; no wife, husband, children, work, deadlines, chores before you – just you and your chosen exercise.

Your mind is now focussed, your breathing has most likely changed, without these other external factors what are you left with?

Your thoughts!

Your emotions!

Now for my yoga, pilates, body balance people; relaxation is confrontational, being left quietly alone with yourself and a potential racing mind can be daunting, so I am here to tell you that it is ok to feel whatever it is you are feeling.

It is ok to let some tears flow silently down your cheeks, and if you end up a blubbering puffy face mess then that is ok as well.

We tend to hold a lot of emotion in our hips, so if you are in the midst of a deep hip opening sequence then it is quite natural to start to feel an emotional release during this.

How you feel is how you feel, so recognise this, accept this and embrace it.

Release what needs to be released and I am confident you will feel a million times better for allowing yourself to do this.

20140207-165351.jpg


Resting your body is just as important as moving it – true story

Anyone reading this post who knows the amount of classes I have already done this week, may find this hypocritical and as my mum reads my blogs and always worries I am overdoing it (hi mum, love you) I am not going to actually tell you how many classes I have done.

What I am going to tell you is how I am coping with doing x amount of classes.

Aside from walking like a zombie, speaking as though English is my second language and spilling things all over myself frequently I am in fact coping!

I am coping by resting in-between classes.  In fact this week has felt like a crazy blur and I think on Tuesday I had convinced myself it was already Thursday.

I have been doing 5:45am classes, I will then come home and sleep for an hour or two then do my next class, rest, eat, teach again and repeat the process all over again.

As much as we all like to think we are invincible, and as much as I promote the theory of pushing and challenging yourself, there are limits.

We are human, we need rest, our muscles need the correct nourishment to thrive, and that nourishment comes in the form of eating well, drinking water to re-hydrate and resting.

It is counter productive not to do so!

As always I learnt that the hard way.

If you are exercising frequently you NEED to eat and rest frequently or I dare say you are without knowing it, undoing all the good work you set out to do.

Think about your computer, your smart phone – they perform well until they don’t! We reboot them and then wallah, they leap back into action refreshed reawakened.  Our bodies are the same!

The more we work them, the more we need to treat them with the rest they deserve.

Resting your body is just as important as moving it!


The benefits of child’s pose

20131127-234931.jpg

The benefits of child’s pose:

Releases tension in the back, shoulders and chest.

Recommended if you have dizziness or fatigue.

Helps alleviate stress and anxiety.

Flexes the body’s internal organs and keeps them supple.

It lengthens and stretches the spine.

Relieves neck and lower back pain when performed with the head and torso supported.

It gently stretches the hips, thighs and ankles.

Normalizes circulation throughout the body.

It stretches muscles, tendons and ligaments in the knee.

Calms the mind and body.

Encourages strong and steady breathing.

20131127-235141.jpg


You are stronger than you think

I spend a lot of time thinking about my body, not in the conceited does my bum look fat in this way (although I am a girl so of course I do this as well) but what I am talking about here is just how amazing our bodies are and just what they are capable of.

We are all stronger than we think we are; we are always capable of pushing ourselves that little bit further, yet sadly there is something within most of us that allows us to give up sooner than we should.

Our bodies are designed to move not sit dormant, we are meant to be active, we are flexible as kids yet this seems to fade over time.

You can change that!

You are stronger than you think you are!

Last night, I tried a little experiment in one of my classes; I lied -something I don’t normally do, but stay with me here, as I lied for good not evil purposes!

During a particularly strong leg track, I lied about the duration. You see the class before I told people how long we were holding the poses, hearing the duration, the mind for some people immediately told the body it couldn’t possibly hold for that long, the result -people gave up!

Class two, same poses, different result; I told people they would be holding for a shorter duration, they held they stayed, they achieved more than they may have believed was possible.

You are stronger than you think you are!

Next step is believing it!