It’s Not What You Do, It’s the Way That You Do It

Practice doesn’t make perfect: practice makes permanent, and if you practice doing something wrong, you do it wrong forever. To benefit from Pilates it’s not enough to go through the motions: you have to do it right.

There are, of course, different levels of precision which are appropriate at different times – it would be foolish to give someone in their first lesson an advanced correction. I recently was told to “drop the part of your mid right back which is below your shoulder blade, but not your wing, no, a bit to the left”. Some people have difficulty locating their back in the first class.

Precise Movement is Pilates Movement

Pilates is corrective exercise: it has as its goal to teach the body to move in an efficient and beneficial manner. For this to work we have to be precise. Some people can get this out of proportion and their focus on precision becomes obsessive, but Pilates can never be sloppy.

One of the things we are most picky about is alignment, because, unless the body is aligned in its movement, it won’t use the right muscles for the right jobs. It is important if you want to see real results that you do the real work of the exercise, not just an approximation

The Real Advantage of a Teacher Over a DVD

One of the advantages of having a trained human teacher over a DVD is that the human teacher can make sure that you are doing the exercise precisely. Of course there are other advantages, but a video, as good as it may be, can’t check that you are really pulling your stomach in, relaxing your legs and lifting your head properly.

This is the benefit of doing pilates over a general fitness or sculpting class at the gym. The precision, and, specifically, the precise corrections that you need as an individual are what makes good pilates stand out from other kinds of exercise.

Priorities for Movement

Back in 1980 Philip Friedman and Gail Eisen, two students of Romana Kryzanowska, published the first modern book on Pilates, The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning. This was, as far as I can tell, the first place that the "principles of Pilates" were set down in any formal way, though the ideas had certainly been circulating around Pilates studios for the previous 50 years. 

These principles are priorities for how the body should move, which is what Pilates is all about: Pilates is flowing movement from a controlled centre. 

Beyond “Core Strength” with Pilates

The term that is popular now is “core strength”, which is part of what we mean by “centre”, though there is more to it. The point is not simply that your “core” is strong or that you have abs, but that you move from the centre outwards. 

Two of our key concepts in Pilates are the “box” (which is really the rectangle of the torso from the two hips up to the two shoulders) and the powerhouse (the muscles at the core of the body: the abs, the back muscles, the back, inside and outside of the legs). Both "box" and "powerhouse" are included in what we mean by “centre” in pilates. 

Movement From the Centre Is Pilates Movement

Pilates movement comes from the centre, the strongest part of the body. The arms and legs (the “appendages”) are not the focus of attention, even though pilates has a noticeable effect on them. When we use the arms or legs they do not do the work, they enable the work which is to strengthen and deepen the powerhouse.

Learning to move from your centre will make a difference to your body. It is one of the ways that we work with people who have RSI, and it brings a totally different quality into all of your movement, whether that be dancing ballet, playing tennis, or lifting shopping bags and babies.

Movement from the centre is pilates movement.