Earlier this year, I received a email from a lovely Pilates teacher & studio owner who lives in Australia. She'd found me online, buried deep in search results for the words Applied Pilates, which she and I both use in our web materials. Yet again, the internet brought a wondrous delight of a Pilates person into my life.
This gifted and beautiful woman is on a mission to learn as much as she can from those she believes are in the best position to teach and it turns out that she, glory be, would be visiting the US soon and we began making a plan.
On her month long trip to the US in conjunction with her husband's medical convention in San Francisco, they brought all four of their children and had the trip of a lifetime visiting several US cities including taking the kids, for their first time ever, to New York.
She asked for my input as to what Pilates training she should take while in the US and I recommended both a Fletcher Spine Corrector and Towelwork course, she attended the Body Mind Spirit conference and she spent a week in my Seattle studio, taking daily 90 minute privates, mat classes and observing Heidi and I teach through our usual schedules.
She's given me permission to write about her and to use the pictures of her I've put on Flickr (link is below) but she asked that I not use her name because she doesn't want Google searches to link to the photos. She did give me permission to mention and link to her website, so here you go: http://www.appliedpilates.com.au/index.html
Prior to her first private, and just like we have for every client through our door, I put her through my Pilates 101 lecture which covers the anatomy of the work, the benefits, concepts and commitment it takes for Pilates to change your life. Then, she had some specific objectives for our sessions and we set about achieving them.
But, as soon as we started working through some exercises, I couldn't help but notice that there was something about her back that was special.
Something super interesting.
Something crooked.
Her back has an slight S curve in it and her ribs are slightly rotated.
And, it turns out, she was the last to know.
During our first session, I talked to her about what I was observing, telling her that there were some curves in her back that I wanted her to see. I suggested that we spend her second session doing a postural analysis using my digital camera and my trusy Align-a-bod (http://alignabod.com/). She agreed and the next day was pretty amazing.
I've posted the pictures on Flickr, here's the link to them.
http://flickr.com/photos/26618483@N08/sets/72157605050164413/detail/
Be sure to read the tags on each picture because that's where I've shown the comments she and I made as we both reviewed these photos on my big 22" computer screen.
Once she was able to see her back and how it's developed, a whole lot of things made sense that were previously a bit mysterious about her performance on certain Pilates exercises. We came up with a ton of exercises she will do to try to even herself out and, not surprisingly, her progress was immediately evident to both of us. The remaining sessions we had before she flew out of our lives were very much different than our first.
Does that seem difficult to believe? Please allow me the opportunity to convince you that it's not only possible, but you can almost always bring that type of awareness around in most of your clients if you approach the body through the brain.
When we work with people who are accomplished at Contrology and who know biomechanics, our work is easy; mine certainly was with this lovely woman. When working with the general population, we can still achieve that instantaneous improvement when the issues are fully explained and the solutions clearly identified and well understood by all.
This gal is the perfect example of how important it is to work through the brain, not just the body. She, after all, has been in the business for years, she's been through a couple of training programs and knows a tremendous amount about how exercises are properly performed. Yet, she was off on several things with no way to go about fixing them. That is, until she saw her back and we, slide by slide, observed the differences and correlated them to her experience within specific exercises.
Once her brain knew it, her body knew it. Before her brain knew it, her body was unable to solve the dilemma.
In well-taught Pilates, we approach the body through the brain. Trust me, please . . . it's so much easier on everyone when we do it that way!
In a perfect world, these matters would be revealed and worked on prior to our entry into a training program. In a perfect world, there would be a broad enough scope and sufficient time in a proper training program for alignment like hers to be case studied to death. In a perfect world, this would not have been a surprise to her.
I work to make that perfect world a reality and I know you do, too. Until we get there, all we can do is all we can do, session after session after session.
This is why I believe in the power of one. This is why I'm so thankful for the internet.