A few years ago, I had a conversation with Howard Sichel about this very issue and Howard told me he realizes it's not ideal but that of all the quickie (my word, not his) mat trainings, he believes Power Pilates is the highest quality choice. I certainly give him that but the fact that Power Pilates offers it does not negate the fact that it is unreasonable as a concept and practice.
Howard also pointed out that the majority of folks who successfully complete Power Pilates weekend mat trainings eventually enroll in their comprehensive training, the implication being that they are eventually rounded out, educationally speaking. I do not doubt that the weekend training serves as an effective feeder for the comprehensive program but that up-sell does not negate the unreasonableness of the weekend mat training.
If the Pilates Nun were prone to sleepless nights, surely these would be the questions keeping her up.
Because nothing is simple and straight forward, at least some portion of this problem can be attributed to the two subject teachers being conscientious students. Good students seek the approval of their teachers and most would never question the authority of that teacher. In fact, good students are often loathe to challenge their teachers even when they suspect something's amiss. It's perfectly understandable that a good student will go through a program thinking everything they were taught is absolutely true and absolutely right and absolutely all they need to know in order to be a successful Pilates teacher.
Sadly, that's not the case.
It's asking a lot of an apprentice that she somehow know these types of things - the push for speed - are going to be troublesome once out in the hour-by-hour studio world. We give ourselves over to these programs, we do what they say, we pass their tests and then, once we begin teaching, we realize we have serious gaps in our abilities. That, dear friend, is a sad day.
And it gets even messier when we realize that - and I can positively assure you of this - the good folks at Power Pilates would cringe at this situation. It is not their intention for teachers to be taught so strictly that the teacher's own in-the-moment judgment is overridden. Even the best programs cannot control every aspect of your training.
Philosophical differences aside, I think Power Pilates is a solid program and depending on the affiliated studio where you train, you'll likely get a great start with them. I also admire and respect the way the folks at the top of that organization, Howard Sichel, Susan Moran Perich and Kathy Moran, care about every single student in their program.
Another great thing about Power Pilates is its adherence to the historic work. This is important because someone has to keep the home fire burning; if we all adapt, modify, morph and evolve Joe & Clara's work into our own fabulous variations on the theme, we'll lose our connection to our roots and soon, we won't know where we came from and as a result, our industry will be weakened in all strata.
And Power Pilates is certainly the 900 pound gorilla in the teacher training industry. Is any other school bigger? I think not.
"Sister, why the push for speed?"
My answer to this question is long because in order to answer it, I cover the modern genesis of the push for speed and I address what I consider to be the shortcomings of teacher training programs that push for speed.
Get another Pellegrino.
Speed + Pilates = Workout + (Workout x Pilates) = Cardio
The push for speed is based on the marketing of Pilates as a great "workout." The average client will define "workout" as any extended activity wherein they move quickly for a sustained period of time, work up a good sweat and feel a bit depleted afterward. Does that sound like your average Pilates session?
I believe we have Mari Windsor to thank for the common misconception that clients can expect to lose weight doing Pilates. In her ads, the print stating that her program includes a restrictive eating plan is very, very small. She flaps a wing and a hurricane blows down the door of our little studios. May there be clarity and truth in advertising lest we make a mess in our own industry nest. P-Nunny busts a rhyme!
The whole mask-on-the-face aerobic tests have been done (including here in Seattle, in fact) and a kick butt advanced reformer wasn't even the equivalent to a jog. In Pilates Style magazine this month, there's an article about Pilates as an aerobic activity and you'll see that, again, Pilates is not an efficient fat burner.
Because it takes so long to get there, going fast enough to use Pilates as a cardio workout is generally out of reach for most clients and if you promise that or use that aspect of it to sell clients on the work, you're setting up false expectations. Repent your sins. Do 10 Teasers.
Rather than type-casting Pilates as a generic workout (aerobic or otherwise), why not stand it up on its own tried and true merits as the supreme mash up of body, mind, strength, stretch, selfish pleasure and life insurance. Can I get a witness?
Let's examine the manifestation of the problem in its significant practical forms.
How Fast is Too Fast: Do We Really Have a Problem with Speed?
I want to be perfectly clear about this: realistically speaking and in direct response to our subject questions, we only have a problem with speed if the following things are happening.
Speed Problem #1. Either the client or the teacher thinks it's a problem.
Teaching or doing Pilates fast is not, in and of itself, a problem as long as you and your clients are happy with the rush and you as a professional teacher are absolutely certain you're not sacrificing safety. Some people go fast, some go slow and all I've got to say about that is vive' la difference. We are all God's children!
There are benefits of going quickly just as there are benefits of going slowly or mixing the pace. Ideally, a good teacher should have the ability to confidently do it all. Let us pray. May we all have the ability to do it all, all of the time, always and forever. Amen!
Speed Problem #2. If your teacher training program did not equip you to teach at various speeds and they did not disclose their bias toward speed.
It's almost impossible for most apprentices-to-be to conduct a proper analysis of what they're getting themselves into when shopping for a program.
I'm working on a long list of questions to post, from my most bossy, protective, detailed and experienced point of view, to help those currently facing this choice. But for most of us, when making our educational choice, we didn't really know how to assess such things and we usually made our choices based on what was possible, convenient and affordable.
Pragmatism is one thing, a quality Pilates education is another. Lord help us.
Your fix for either situation depends entirely on your unique circumstances, your teaching experience and your desire to achieve your teaching potential. We’ll get to the fix in a moment but for now, I’m not done talking about the problem.
Speed - Yes. Technique - No.
An argument can be made- and I'm making it - that the principles of Pilates cannot be adhered to with the average client performing at a fast pace. Certainly, our energy to teach and our skills in teaching are challenged by going fast. We often become a metronome, a counter, a pace car, the rabbit at the track. And for what? To sweat out our client? To make them feel tired instead of exhilarated? To replace a spin bike? Lord, save us from becoming a replacement for a spin bike. Amen.
But problems with teaching fast don't stop there.
Haste lessens sensation.
I didn't make that up just to support my position on this matter - I'll quote my source in a moment - but first, let's practice figuring this out on our own with common sense as our guide.
Think about learning to walk, learning to sew, learning to draw, learning to drive, learning to type, learning to play tennis, play golf or play hockey. These are all tasks that require coordination, concentration, control, awareness, balance, focus.
Now think about how well you would do and how much you would enjoy it if you were made to learn any of those things by going quickly.
Think about learning Pilates.
We know Joe and Clara were sticklers for form. We know that precision and control are important principles of the work. We know that safety is our very first rule of teaching, every client, every session.
If we think about how we learn and we remember how important safety, control and precision are, why, oh why, would we expect our clients to be able to perform these challenging exercises quickly.
Here’s that reference I promised. In one of my favorite books, Trail Guide to the Body by Andrew Biel, Second Edition, on page 18 down at the bottom it says right there, "haste only interferes with sensation." The context of that statement is palpation but it applies to everything about Pilates.
Early in a client's Pilates practice, you must teach slowly to teach well. Should you inspire them to dedicate themselves to a regular practice and should they progress to a solid performer, you absolutely can push for speed as long as you do not sacrifice safety, form, precision or control. Open your hymnals to page 439, rise and sing "Not All Speed is Bad, Embrace Appropriate Speed!" verses 1 - 25.
As teachers, we know how glorious it is to blast through an advanced reformer in 40 minutes but it took most of us years of hard work to get to that point, not to mention perhaps hundreds of free studio hours. Most clients will never be able to safely move that quickly or achieve that level of proficiency.
And although Joe certainly went quickly when appropriate, you simply must buy the footage of him from Mary Bowen and watch the master of all masters teaching and you'll see how carefully he progressed through a session or class, and how slowly he moved from one exercise to the next.
Be Like Joe & Go Slow.
You'll be amazed at what happens not only for your client but for you, too. You'll learn to articulate your wisdom, you'll greatly expand your ability to problem solve and the overall meaning of the work for you and for your client will blossom.
And for what it's worth, I'm probably one of the slowest teachers ever and yet I'm known to give a very, very hard "workout."
But teaching slowly requires much greater skill than push push teaching because how you respond to what happens - what comes out, what is revealed - as a result of teaching slowly is often the most interesting and challenging aspect of teaching.
If you teach slowly, form issues and gaps in strength will be revealed and your clients will rightfully expect you to teach to eliminate those problems. Teaching fast covers a lot of that up.
If it's a can of worms, fast keeps the lid on, slow opens it up.
Sermon: Joe Pilates developed this work as a corrective form of movement that supports whole body health and wellness. By pushing clients to go quickly, we miss the opportunity to most effectively reveal and then correct weaknesses and because of that, we miss the chance to give the fullness of the gift of the work.
Get a vodka rocks, no fruit.
Prelude to the Fix.
To determine your fix for the problem of speed, we need to figure out if you're capable of dealing with what will happen when you slow things down and open that can of worms.
Chops or No Chops?
You've got the chops to teach slowly if you know enough about the work to answer the "how, what, where, why, but now look what happened" questions. Can you gain the buy in of your clients to slow them down and make every session a meaningful physical and mental experience? Chops!
Not all programs are created equal and some have such puny content that you won't clear the program knowing enough to teach slowly. No chops!
Some push for speed as a cover for a lack of thorough knowledge. In other words, they don't teach you how to break down a problem or teach at the slowest common denominator. Instead, they teach you to go fast so your client will be given what is essentially busy work in hopes they'll feel like the effort is so much of a workout that they'll keep coming back. And many of those type programs teach you to ignore client questions by keeping them moving in order to give them their workout. Revenge is mine, saith the Lord!
When a client hears you say "keep moving," that's another way of saying that you don't care enough or know enough to answer. Either way, no chops. Truth!
If your answer is "keep moving," your client will know you've reached the limit of your knowledge. And so will you.
And that's a sad day because at that point, you've turned the corner and are moving away from what is absolutely essential to quality teaching - your ability to confidently answer those types of questions about any exercise you may teach.
And in the context of a single session, all of that, dear teacher, is our fault. We are the boss of the session and we alone bear the ultimate responsibility for its success or failure. Lord Have Mercy.
Watch Out! Here Comes the Cascade.
Remember our East Coast studio owner who solved this dilemma by discontinuing her entire mat program?
We rarely make good decisions when frustrated and insecure; we just want the thing that's uncomfortable to go away and it doesn't much matter what goes with it.
In this case, what went with it was her greatest potential to reach the masses - mat is the least expensive way to practice the work - and one of the most challenging and exciting venues for teachers to perform.
If the choice is between teaching too fast for comfort or discontinuing her mat program, she made the right call. But the true fix is in being confident enough in your understanding of the work and in yourself as a teacher to decide for yourself how you'll teach each and every one of your sessions without being bound by anything other than the safety and progression theories that are inviolate. You should do that even when it's against what your teacher training program encouraged. Righteous truth!
In the case of our subject studio owner, all she needed was a little encouragement from an outsider to see how right she was, how good her instincts were and how wrong her program was. Her particular studio is not a rush rush kind of place and she was relieved to be assured she should do it her way, which is the right way for her to teach and for her clients to be taught. Peace on Earth!
The Fix, Part 1.
If you got chops, solve this problem by simply becoming the master of your domain. Take charge of each session and teach at the pace your in-the-moment wisdom tells you to, even if it's in direct opposition to what your program taught you to do. You are the boss of the session. Take Charge Marge! Rejoice!
Chops on Backorder.
Now let's talk about what to do if, in fact, you cleared your primary program and still do not have teaching chops. In that case, we have an entirely different set of problems that we can't begin to specifically address here.
At the risk of appearing self-promoting, the short answer to this problem is for you to enroll in my Pilates Excel program (www.PilatesExcel.com or call me at 206-525-7769 ) and we'll finish what your primary program didn't. The long answer is, see the short answer.
The reality is that if you stay in the industry, you'll eventually have to fill in the gaps and that's precisely what my program does. There are a couple other "after market" programs but they are for seasoned teachers. Pilates Excel is for newer teachers who lack the necessary skills to do their best work, day in and day out.
Realizing you’re not sufficiently prepared to slow things down is a tough pill to swallow and Mother Superior feels your pain. Here's something to try that will buy you some emotional time and give you a chance to stay on the sunny side of the Reformer while you detail out your personal path to teaching excellence.
Make a plan. You can either piece-meal it, enroll in a secondary program or gut it out by self-educating your way to learning what you need to know. One is more efficient than the others but all will eventually complete you.
Be warned: without a plan, you might become discouraged to the point that you stop teaching or lose your passion for it.
Let's work together to avoid that.
Blessings on those who plan for a better future. Blessings on us all.
Future Teachers Beware.
When we combine the lack of minimum standards governing our industry with the fact that our individual value systems are as unique as our personalities, we end up with an unregulated educational industry where it's hard to tell which schools any one person might consider lousy and which might be considered as excellent. Talk about subjective - sheesh!
The curriculum of any school only poses a problem if the curriculum is misrepresented or what's promised isn't delivered.
That's why it's helpful to have a resource who knows who's who, what's what and what you can expect, really and truly, from any of the major programs. A reputable program should happily provide you with a long list of references that include past and current apprentices and clients of their progeny. And there's always me. The Pilates Nun serves the entire community without bias and will always tell factual truth and cite her sources! Praise and glory to the word of truth!
If you've come out of a substandard school, you have every right to be upset and disappointed but . . . don't go there, and if you do, don't stay long. Lingering in those dark and lonely places robs you of your momentary joy, and you know that momentary joy adds up to sustained joy and, pretty soon, you're just a joyful person and once that happens, pretty much nothing can knock you off the top of your Everest of Joy. Make a joyful noise!
We find peace in the truth about schools not in the hope of eliminating the schools providing what most would consider an incomplete education. Not everyone, and sometimes hardly anyone, thinks the same as you do or as I do about such things and we cannot front our own ethics to support cleansing our industry of bad schools. It's a free market, it's a vast market, it's a rapidly growing market; there's room for everyone.
Our best efforts and highest concerns are most effectively invested in helping struggling teachers get better, helping bad schools offer more, and doing everything we can, each and all, to guide prospective apprentices to quality programs. Do 3 Roll Ups and take a nap!
Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life
On that note, let's start a movement, a Pilates slow down movement. No big formal plan, no strict schedule to follow, let's co-opt Nike and just do it. Do it on your next shift, if not a whole session at least a few minutes somewhere along the way. Trust yourself, stick to what you know, prepare your client, teach slowly and then tell me what happens.
I can't wait to hear.