I hear and read a lot from Pilates instructors about how to move the body in an anatomically correct way. What “cues” to use while they are explaining to their clients how to “properly engage the transverse abdominus with the multifidus, while we are engaging the glutes,” etc. etc.
That is great. We must all know anatomy and how it functions. However, be careful not to show your “cueing slip” to show “how much you know.” A lot of teachers just love to impress their clients with their knowledge of every aspect of anatomy. Usually you are met with the eyes of a deer in the headlights. The client doesn’t really care how many fancy words you know. They just want to feel safe, taken care of, and given a lot of tender loving care. A client named Allen once told me, “Everyone just wants to be adopted.” I agree.
I must admit I taught Pilates for many years, using only my intuition with each client. I try to teach my teachers how to develop that intuition, and to help clients move in a graceful, strong and flexible way. I am self-taught when it comes to anatomy. We were not taught anatomy in the early days. It just came naturally by noticing how each person used their bodies and moved. I realized one day that I would like to know all the muscles of the body. When a client told me what their doctor had diagnosed them with, I made a mental note and made a trip to the library (no computers back in the 70s). I looked up the particular symptom, and related it to what I knew about Pilates and the individual person.
That is what I feel is missing today. There is no cookie-cutter way to heal a client of a particular symptom. You must take the symptom, relate it to the individual, with his/her own unique emotional make-up, and then decipher what is best for the client. It takes a lot of natural talent and years of study to develop and discern what is appropriate for the client. That is what teaching Body Contrology is about. Not just choreogrophy. Not just a regimen of exercises. That is what, I believe, is what Joe Pilates did. If you were a carpenter, he taught you as a carpenter. If you were a dancer, he taught you as a dancer. A housewife, a housewife. That is what “Body Contrology” is all about. I have worked with many clients who are doctors and physical therapists. I taught them how to move, and they taught me what muscles were being used to move. I found it interesting from a practitioner point of view. But I doubted the client would.
I worked for many years in a Beverly Hills orthopedic office, and I saw countless patients, and worked them through what they were dealing with using Pilates principles, along with my knowledge of physical therapy. Do we need both? Yes. But there is overkill. We are not grooming medical doctors. We are not training professional dancers (unless that is your niche). It is not about your choreography, and how fancy you can make the move. It is not about how much you know. Frankly, it is not about you at all. It is about the client you have in front of you. It is about healing them. It is about helping them. It is about developing an intuition about each and every person. It is about making them feel emotionally and physically better about themselves and their place in the universe. It is about loving. Loving helping people, loving each other, loving movement. It is about moving through space, moving beyond our limitations, moving beyond what we have done before. It is about doing something we have never done. Thinking outside of the box. Thinking beyond the box. That is what Pilates is to me. It is not about the hip flexor muscles and how they move the thigh muscles as the QL is being engaged. This is good to know, but we must translate our knowledge to a common language that our client will comprehend and translate into a moving experience that will enhance their lives and give them the impetus to continue to work with you, and feel confident and comfortable with their movements. Let your client know when they are able to move in a way they were not able to before. Let them know when they appear stronger, and can perform a movement that they could not before. That means more than your knowledge of body anatomy. Your clients just want to know they are better off than when they started. And when they know and feel better than before, even if they don’t know why, they will continue to work with you because you are coming from a place of love. Not ego.
