Teresa Malins: June 2007

Here are some photo's and some quotes written by Joseph Pilates...

This is Joseph Pilates in his late 70's performing a perfect squat!

"I must be right. Never an aspirin. Never injured a day in my life. The whole country, the whole world, should be doing my exercises. They'd be happier." - Joseph Hubertus Pilates, in 1965, age 86

The Pilates Method: "my work is 50 years ahead of its time".

Here's Joe at the age of 59!

"A few well-designed movements, properly performed in a balanced sequence, are worth hours of doing sloppy callisthenics or forced contortion."

"Patience and persistence are vital qualities in the ultimate successful accomplishment of any worthwhile endeavor."

Pilates aged 82!

"the attainment and maintenance of a uniformly developed body with a sound mind and the ability to perform life's daily activities with zest and ease."

..."I invented all these machines. Began back in Germany, was there until 1925 used to exercise rheumatic patients. I thought, why use My strength? So I made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it."

I think it's obvious to see that Pilates plays a pretty big part in my life and a big part of my Pilates life include tutoring students to become Pilates instructors.

Passing on my knowledge of Joseph Pilates brilliant method of exercise is one of the most rewarding things I feel I can do as an instructor. With every course I teach I'm always amazed at how many people are taking a career change from maybe a 9-5 office job to focus on teaching Pilates as a full time career. It puts me in the mind of one of my favourite books Running in Heels by Anna Maxted which tells a hilarious story of a woman who decides to do the same herself.

If only Joe could see us all now I'm sure he'd be smiling!

What also never ceases to amaze me is the amount of students I teach that have NEVER taken part in a Pilates class before attending a teacher training course.

For me, I started to attend Pilates because I was encountering back problems and the Pilates method allowed me to still exercise, but in a pain free way. I got used to the exercises and 'idea' of Pilates before thinking about teaching it.

It's a pretty tough and a very brave thing to do to learn to teach a method of exercise and movement in which you have no experience of. How do you know that you are going to like it for starters?

However, if you have decided to do it this way, here's some valuable pieces of advice to help you on your way:

PRACTICE.
Practice on your own, practice in classes and use books and DVD's to get as much information about Pilates as you can.
Embody the exercises yourself and this will enable you to give more precise teaching points throughout your classes.
In your own practice, mimick the habits of your participants to get to understand their shortcuts and easy way outs of doing the excerises with precision.
Once you've finished practicing, practice a bit more!

Doing Pilates is one thing, teaching it is another. As an instructor you will be correcting, watching and instructing more than you will be actually taking part in the class and before you know it your participants will become stronger than you.

A class will very rapidly lose faith in an instructor who cannot demo an exercise correctly and if it's a beginners class that you're teaching and you're demonstrating exercises incorrectly, you could end up with a bunch of injured people or a class full of Pilates enthusiasts who are getting no results!

So no excuse, get to it straight away; Practice makes perfect remember!