Pilates Style

Welcome to the Pilates Style monthly newsletter. Each month we bring you a calendar of the must-know Pilates events around the country, updates on our conferences, Pilates-related news, original feature articles and bonus material from the current issue of Pilates Style magazine. We want to hear from you! If you have, or know of, a Pilates event, or have news to share with your community, email us at newsletter@pilatesstyle.com.

Mark Your Calendar: Functional Anatomy for Movement & Injuries (FAMI) Workshop

Designed exclusively for fitness and movement professionals and held within a medical school, the FAMI Workshop is an intensive 4-day course on anatomy and injuries. This powerful resource, created by a team of clinical and fitness experts, brings the best of medical education to movement world. In the gross anatomy lab, fitness professionals get up close and personal with the human body through hands-on experience with cadaver prosections. You’ll touch the inside of a shoulder joint, feel a knee replacement, see the spinal cord and glimpse 3-D views of the pelvic floor. In the lecture hall, gain new insight on the human form from distinguished anatomists and get your questions about injuries answered by physicians. The workshop also includes practical integration sessions where you can apply your new knowledge to client scenarios. The course is suited for anatomy novices and advanced students alike and is targeted to all fitness professionals, including Pilates instructors, personal trainers, yoga instructors, bodywork therapists, physical therapists, GYROTONIC® instructors and dance educators. Ultimately, the FAMI Workshop bridges the gap between movement and medicine, providing fitness professionals with the knowledge and resources needed to master the body and train clients safely and effectively.

Roll With It

Twenty-eight years ago, Yamuna Zake, a yoga instructor, massage therapist and herbalist, recognized that her clients needed help getting deep into their muscles to heal their injuries. That’s when she developed her self-therapy method, now called Yamuna Body Rolling (YBR), to do just that. It started when she substituted balls of varying size and density for her hands-on therapy. The balls helped facilitate rapid healing and develop mind-body connections. In the March/April issue of Pilates Style, Zake offers up a YBR workout—specifically for Pilates enthusiasts—to increase range of motion, enhance flexibility, improve circulation and reeducate and strengthen muscles to help them fire properly and elongate. We asked her to design an exercise just for our newsletter readers. Here it is.

Purpose: Realigns the shoulders and helps with your overall posture.

Setup: Lie on your side with the ball underneath your shoulder. Making sure your legs are extended straight out, scissor your top leg behind you. Place your back arm on the floor behind you and your other arm in front of your body. Bend your front elbow and press your palm into the floor for support, while slightly pressing your shoulder into the ball.

1. Placing your top hand behind your head for support, twist your body backward as you roll the ball in increments under your shoulder. Roll forward and backward, side-to-side, clockwise and counterclockwise, massaging your muscle fiber deep into the ball.

2. Continue to roll the ball under your shoulder as you transition to lying on your back.

Flower Power

In the March/April issue of Pilates Style, we explore how flower essences can enhance your Pilates practice and your life. But trying to choose a remedy from the thousands that are out can be daunting. According to Isadora Tavens, a practical nurse who uses flowers in her healing practice in Chicago and Jamaica, 80 percent of people could benefit from the same one to two dozen remedies. We asked three experts: Patricia Kaminski, director of the Flower Essence Society (FES; fesflowers.com), a nonprofit education and research organization in northern California that makes and sells North American essences, creams and oils; Molly Sheehan, who makes and sells remedies from her home, Green Hope Farm, in New Hampshire; and Tavens to share with us the remedies they most commonly prescribe. Here’s their top-10.

Single Remedies

Mariposa Lily (FES): A fundamental remedy for feminine soul consciousness; promotes warmth and nurturing and brings healing to the reproductive system and related emotions that stem from early mother-child experiences.
Bleeding Heart (FES): Balms a broken heart after the loss of a loved one and helps us to love unconditionally.
Buttercup (FES): Imbues positive self esteem: “Build me up, Buttercup, baby...”
Scarlet Monkeyflower (FES): Helps resolve current or old issues of anger and powerlessness.
Star Tulip (FES): Remedies the feeling being cut off from dreams, prayer, intuitive inspiration.
Holly (Bach): Bach’s most important remedy for developing compassion and for healing core relationship traumas such as jealousy, envy, suspicion or anger.

Combinations

Five-Flower Remedy (Rescue Remedy in Bach’s system): A must-have for every medicine cabinet and purse. Eases any kind of acute condition, trauma or panic.
Yarrow Environment Solution, or YES (FES): Builds vital energy field in response to environmental stresses and stabilizes allergic hypersensitivity.
Golden Armor (Green Hope): Helps the oversensitivity, overstimulation, anxiety and disorientation that come from the electrical dissonance of the modern world.

Grounding (Green Hope): Grounds us in our bodies and in the now. It is made with many tree flower essences, because trees are incredibly grounded.

Pilates Studio Works to End Violence Against Women

In March and April, Atlanta’s Body Awareness Studio will be working to raise awareness about violence against women and girls around the world. This year is the 10th year of V-Day, a global movement that promotes creative events to stop abuses of women including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery. In commemoration of this anniversary, V-Day is hosting “V to the 10th” at the New Orleans Superdome, April 11–12. The event will feature international performances of The Vagina Monologues, musical guests, V-Day activists from across the globe, men standing up for women and much more.

To promote this event and raise funds for V-Day Atlanta and the New Orleans Metropolitan Women’s Center, Body Awareness Studio is putting on a 3-hour Pilates extravaganza March 9 at 1 p.m. at the Studio Atlanta Dance (Buckhead). Attendees will enjoy a playful journey exploring many different ways to have fun with the Pilates method. Call Body Awareness Studio to reserve your spot: (404) 252-7550; requested donation: $50.

In addition, Body Awareness Studio will show the film Until the Violence Stops, an empowering and funny chronicle of how V-Day grew out of Eve Ensler’s hit off-Broadway solo show The Vagina Monologues. Call to reserve your seat; space is limited.

The film will be shown March 4th and 18th at 10:30 a.m. at the Horizon Center for Intuitive Awareness, 5549 Roswell Rd. Atlanta, GA 30342 (located downstairs from Body Awareness Studio). For more information, visit bodyawarenessstudio.com.

Close-up: Inner Thigh Lifts and Circles
By Linda Farrell (lindafit.com)

Inner Thigh Lifts and Circles strengthen the adductors while maintaining stability in the support base. They teach you how to differentiate movement of the leg from the spine and pelvis and, because of the reduced base of support provided by the side-lying position, the moves enhance the stability challenge for the trunk and pelvis.

Set-up: Lie on one side in neutral spine with the shoulders and pelvis vertically stacked. Tip: Lining up the body parallel to the back edge of the mat is a good way to help find neutral spinal and pelvic alignment. Place your top hand in front of your navel, fingers pointing toward the top of the mat. Prop yourself up on your bottom elbow with your hand holding the back of your head. Bring your legs slightly forward on a diagonal without letting the pelvis tuck under. Turn out your top leg and bend the knee, placing your foot flat on the floor in front of the bottom knee. Then take your bottom leg and bring it directly underneath the pelvis, extending the hip so the entire body is in a plumb line from head to bottom toes. Contract your abdominals, back extensors and lateral trunk flexors so the trunk is in neutral extension with the sides of the waist narrowing. As your spine lengthens up from the pelvis, reach strongly down through your bottom support leg with a balanced action.

Beginner Modifications:

Lengthen your bottom arm down to the floor, letting your head rest gently on top of it. If necessary, place a towel under the neck for extra support.
Your top leg can simply come forward to rest on the floor, with the knee slightly bent. Your bottom leg can remain slightly in front of the pelvis instead of in extension.

Advanced Modifications:

Prop up onto your forearm, keeping your shoulder directly over your elbow at a 90-degree angle.
Bring your top arm up to hold the top of your head.
For more challenge, loop a resistance band around the foot of the working leg and secure the band with the top support foot, anchoring it to the floor.
As a variation, turn out your bottom leg to add external rotation to the mix.

Begin the Move: Inhale to engage your abdominals and lengthen your bottom leg straight out and up, pressing the bottom inner thigh toward the top inner thigh. Exhale and slowly pulse up, emphasizing the lengthening and “up action” of the movement, while resisting and controlling the downward part. After 8 to 10 pulses, hold and circle the leg clockwise, fluidly and with grace and control, not letting the pelvis move or the working leg drop precipitously as it traces the bottom of the circle. After 5 to 8 circles, reverse and circle the leg counter-clockwise for the same number of reps. Breathe deeply throughout. Repeat on the other side.

Visualization: Imagine two cups of tea, one balanced carefully on your upper inner thigh, the other on your inner ankle. Can you balance the cups as your thigh presses up or circles in the hip socket without spilling the tea? Finally imagine a third cup of tea perched on the top outer hip. Can you keep the cup still and stable as the bottom thigh moves on the pelvis?

For a resistance challenge, imagine doing the exercise in a swimming pool, with the working leg pushing and pulling through the weight of the water as it presses up or circles.

Tips:

Don’t allow your head and chin to collapse and drop forward. Maintain proper cervical form and axial length. Let the top shoulder relax away from your ear, with the shoulder blades gently gliding down your back. Maintain shoulder-over-shoulder alignment throughout.

Maintain vertical stability between your ribs and pelvis. Make sure your ribs don’t stick out and your pelvis doesn’t tip forward, indicating hyperextension. Conversely, make sure your ribs don’t collapse inward and the pelvis doesn’t tuck under, indicating too much flexion. Work to maintain a balance between the two actions so the spine and pelvis remain in neutral. Moving the working leg slowly and initially through a small range of motion will help promote stability.
For lumbar-pelvic stability, imagine a corset of support around the lower back and abdomen. Keep your front hip points narrowing, pull the navel in toward the front of the spine, and maintain the lift and neutral placement of the lower back curve. The sides of the waist should engage equally throughout, with the bottom waist slightly raised. Do not let the bottom waist collapse to the floor as your working leg adducts.
Keep your hips stacked and still. Press your top foot firmly to the floor to aid stability. Hold and secure your top foot with your top arm as another way to enhance stability. Stretching the spine up and out of the pelvis while reaching down and out through your working leg with a balanced action will lend more dynamic stability to the movement.

Initiate the movement of your working leg from the inside thigh, not the foot. Make sure your foot does not sickle. Face your inner thigh and calf toward the ceiling throughout. On the pulses, move your thigh straight out and up, not forward from your pelvis. This ensures the adductors are working and not the hip flexors. Make sure your bottom hip stays extended.

What’s in Your Gym Bag?

Kristin McGee’s acclaim as MTV’s fitness guru—and star of the network’s yoga and Pilates videos—makes her a sought-after teacher. When she’s not working on a new release, Kristin teaches at some of New York’s finest health clubs, schools and community centers, as well as offering private lessons. That all translates into a lot of subway time, so this girl always leaves the house prepared. We peeked inside her Timbuktu messenger bag (which spends equal time on each shoulder—after all, it’s all about balance, right?), and this is what we found:

Magazines—Pilates Style is on the top of the stack, of course. Also in there: New York Magazine, with its crossword page dog-eared.
Pencils, pens and a day planner to stay organized.
Extra hair ties.
Fresh makers: mints, gum and Listerine strips.
An Altoid can full of almonds. “I once read about this as the perfect portion size of nuts; it is so convenient,” says McGee. An accomplished snacker who needs to keep her energy up throughout her busy days, McGee also carries nutritious treats like Larabars, ostrich jerky, apples, oranges, peaches and oatmeal packets.
A strap, which she uses as a stretch aid for tighter clients.
Tiny container of Acquaphor to moisturize her hands after frequent washings.
Small bottle of hand sanitizer. “I come in contact with so many people throughout the day and it’s the best way to ward off sickness,” she notes.
Wallet and unlimited Metro Card to take her all over NYC on the subways if she can’t walk to her destination.
Cell phone.
Journal to write down inspirations and thoughts throughout the day.

Large water bottle—hydration is key!