I have 5 Gratz Reformers and whenever we have 5 or fewer clients in a mat class, we work on Reformers instead of floorwork. I'm a big Gratz fan because I'm interested in duplicating as closely as possible the feel of Joe's teaching and the results that Joe delivered. I think the equipment we use has a lot to do with that so I've always bought Gratz because they were hired by Joe to manufacture his equipment.
During Mat class in late March, we had 5 of our Mat phenoms on Reformer and we were finishing a super intense "mat class" with some plyometric training on Jump Board.
Before I teach Jump Board, no matter how many times the client has done it, I always show on myself, standing next to the Reformer, how quietly I want them to land. I jump up, twitter my legs about and when all 155 pounds of me comes back to Earth, it's quiet and easy, even on our 100 year old Douglas Fir wood floors. I stress how your energy isn't supposed to transfer into the Reformer and I warn that the first time a Reformer shimmies even a fraction of an inch upon landing, they're done.
Our dear client and friend Alix was delicately leaping and landing softly when the bracket that holds the Jump Board in place fell off.
The bracket fell off, the Jump Board crashed to the floor, it made a heck of a noise and Alix came crashing in.
She instinctively drew her legs up under her for a crash landing with the springs slamming the carriage into the home position.
I was on her in an instant, she said she was fine and I asked specifically about how her feet, ankles, knees and back felt and she assured me she was fine. I was confident that she was but still texted her later that night, the next day and then again a day later. She came in for her regular private the next day and assured Heidi she was fine.
I actually saw her land, sans Jump Board, and because I caught a glimpse of it, I wasn't worried that she was hurt. I am trained through teaching sports like diving, skating and swimming to have what's called snapshot vision. When you're trying to teach someone something and that something, by its very nature, has to happen fast, you've got to be able to see what's actually happening when it's happening fast and, believe it or not, pretty much anybody who cares enough to try can develop the type vision that allows you to see all sorts of things even as they blur through your field of vision. Things like when a skater is on an inside edge. Things like a shoulder dropping too early on a Half Gainer. Things like a pull through the water a bit too far from the body. Things like what hits the floor first, then second, then third when a basketball player hits the court. It's a bit morbid, but when I'm at NBA and WNBA games, I try to predict the injury from watching the mechanism of the fall or hit. I sort of test myself and I'm pretty accurate, if I do say so myself. Goodness me, who else is going to say it?
In Alix's case, I saw the exact position of her feet as they pulled away from the fallen Jump Board and the lowered footbar when the carriage came crashing home. I knew she landed as cleanly as possible and that her feet didn't get caught up in the pieces of fallen Jump Board or go into the well to get torn up on the springs.
This was the third time a piece of Gratz equipment has failed in my studio.
The first time a piece of Gratz equipment broke, a pin sheared out of a stirrup handle not when it was in use but when I was snapping it in my hand to check it's security. I have a habit of doing that, showing my client that I'm serious about safety and showing my client that I care about double and triple checking connections right up to the point I hand the thing over to them.
The pin shearing caused a complete detachment of the stirrup to the leather it's connected to. If my client, who was preparing for Swakate, had been using it, especially under load, it would have been very difficult for him to maintain control of himself and come away uninjured.
Basil Blecher was the main man at Gratz when I first set up my studio in 2001 and it was Basil that worked with me through the first 2 equipment failures.
He not only sent me a new replacement handle, he sent me an extra stirrup so if another one broke, I would still have complete sets to work with while awaiting a replacement. Basil told me that a pin shears at the rate of about 2 or 3 a year.
This is 100% a stirrup manufacturing quality issue; Gratz buys the stirrups already assembled and incorporates them into their finished goods and they cannot be maintenanced, they can only be used and cleaned.
The second time something broke it was a bit more serious.
The foot bar on my Electric Chair fell off while a teacher was doing Crossover. She was fine, I didn't see it happen but heard the bang of it hitting the floor - that's always scary for everyone in the studio.
Basil told me to remove the whole wooden flat plate that the foot bar connects to and send both back to him. He said he'd put it back together so that it would never come apart again which begs the question, why didn't you put it together like that in the first place?
Again, this cannot be maintenanced so there's nothing we as studio owners and shift teachers can do to maintain the safety and security of the Electric Chair foot bar.
Basil said that particular failure is very rare (lucky me) and when he fixed it and sent it back, it's held beautifully and yes, I do check it with greater scrutiny as a result of it having been repaired.
The night of Alix's crash landing, I took a bunch of pictures of the failed bracket, the bare frame end and close ups of the rubber collars that had given way.
When I got home from the studio around 9, I called Gratz but it rang unanswered so I didn't have an opportunity to leave a message. First thing the next morning - Friday - I called and spoke with Karen who, let me summarize here, didn't handle the matter well. When I didn't hear back on Monday or Tuesday, I called on Wednesday and was furious but not rude, direct but not rude, clear but not rude.
I finally got a call back from Michele Rosencrans, her husband Michael runs the Pilates division of Gratz now that Basil has left for greener pastures. Michele was as upset as I was about the lapse in communication and she and I talked for over an hour, right up until she had to dash to her mat class. It turns out that their front person dropped the ball and although everything was proceeding, behind the scenes, to fix the problem, I was left in the dark and had no way to know any of that was happening.
Not only did they send 5 retrofits for the Jump Board brackets but Michele assured me that there had been a design change that replaced the rubber collars with old fashioned screws.
She and I also talked philosophically about the role Gratz plays in our industry and she agreed with me that they should take the word "Romana's" off of the Breathicizer. I told her I would buy 20 from the first run without Romana's name on it. When I talked to Michael at the PMA conference about that very thing, he looked scared and ducked the topic completely.
I don't support what I call "credit shift" where one person takes credit for someone else's work. Romana did not invent the Breathicizer, Joe did. Romana's name shouldn't be on the Breathicizer, Joe's should. When I ordered one and discovered the plagerism or whatever you call it, I told Basil I was sending it back and asked him how it came to be that Romana's name was engraved on it and he said she'd "gotten to Donald Gratz years ago" and had him do it.
Romana is a rock star. She's been an important player in our industry and nobody can ever say she hasn't been an important part of the explosion of Pilates, the world's most famous and beautiful performers of the work are her students and she has tons of brilliant work in her past. There is absolutely no reason for her to lay claim to something like a Breathicizer. I digress.
Michele said they were considering a recall of all Jump Board brackets, sending retrofit kits to everyone who has a Gratz Reformer with the old rubber collars. I hope they decide to do that, and I hope they call it the Alix Palmer Recall.
I completed an equipment failure form and filed it with my insurance company and I also provided a copy of it to Gratz. Whether anyone gets hurt or not, you've got to document every little thing like this and we sure did.
Here's what the report said:
Equipment Failure Report
Date of Failure: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 6:45 pm
Description of Failure: The jump board bracket gave way, fell off of the frame of the Reformer and fell to the floor while in use. The client was uninjured. Here’s a link to the photos showing the failed bracket: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31906189@N06/
I attempted to report the equipment failure to Gratz the evening of Thursday, March 12, 2009 but their customer service number, the only one shown on their website, rang unanswered. I spoke with their sales and customer service rep, Debbie Ingram, on Friday morning, March 13th, and she began the process of having the brackets replaced on all 5 of my Gratz reformers. I have spoken at length with one of the owners of Gratz and I am quite satisfied that they are handling the matter in a professional, appropriate manner.
I followed up with Alix the evening of the incident and again the next day when she came into the studio for a private session. She has been in a couple of times this week and continues to report no issues at all from the jump board failure.
PILATES POWERHOUSE NW LLC
By: Rebecca Leone
Single Member/Owner
The new brackets have arrived and will be installed this weekend and when they are, Heidi and I will test them for a good long while and next time we teach Jump Board, we'll do it the same way we always have, demonstrating a light landing only from now on, we'll say "and you guys, one night the bracket that holds the Jump Board in place fell off so be ready for anything!"
Now jump!
UPDATE: The replacement brackets didn't work. They installed beautifully but installed as directed, were too tight to the frame to permit the sliding in of the Jump Boards. My carpenter said it was clear that Gratz had not calculated the thickness on the lip of the old rubber gasket when designing the metal screw, bolt, washers and nuts fix. He used some washers Gratz provided that were supposed to go outside the frame and moved them inside the frame to make sufficient room so that the Jump Boards could be squeezed into the opening but doing so removed the finish from the Jump Boards and caused divots into the flesh of the wood. I called Debbie at Gratz and left her a voice mail explaining the problem and she got back to me the next day saying they would send 40 more washers and update their replacement instructions. They should be here this week. When they're installed and working beautifully, I'll make a final update.
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