My first-ever Pilates experience was sometime in the summer of last year. I’m a member of the tech team who handles all things Internet for the Dynamic Fitness studio, and had recently been asked to keep the Dynamic Fitness blog updated. Apparently it’s kind of tricky to write fun, informative blogs about the Pilates fitness system if you’ve never done a lick of Pilates in your life. Go figure!
Now, if you’re a Dynamic Fitness client, you know Kathy. You know how incredibly kind and encouraging she is. After my first few articles (a generous term) were submitted (and edited, and re-edited), Kathy came to me with a proposal: How about I actually try a few Pilates sessions? Did I think that might benefit my writing on the subject?
Bless that woman.
On my first day of Pilates, I was a reasonably fit twenty-something, equipped with a twenty-something’s metabolism, but a self-described laptop jockey nevertheless. I didn’t play sports. Joggers and the morning yoga set baffled me. I play violin in a folk band, so the concept of “mind-body integration” was not wholly foreign; I grasped how the application of concentration and mental focus to a physical exercise could render some pretty complex feats. But on that first day, I had no concept of the dialogue that mind-body connection could become.
I stretched out on the reformer for the first time, I’ll admit, a little fearful — my mind’s go-to response when it’s not sure what the ol’ body is about to do, exactly. As Kathy cued me through a beginner’s routine, my nerves relaxed, thanks to her coaching, but everything still felt very — weird. It’s a common first-timer feeling, I know now. More than a year later I realize my general bemusement was a symptom of my body and mind failing to fully connect. And somewhere around the Tree, things got even weirder. My body started talking to me.
Excuse me, um, Mind? it said. Never, not in all twenty-something of our years together, have you ever asked me to do anything like this before. What’s going on up there?
Mind: Hush, Body, I’m trying to remember to keep you breathing, here. Keep scooping those abs! In and up! Articulate each vertebra! Are you doing it? I think I feel that … are y–
Body: Look, Mind, you don’t need to boss me so much. You just listen to Kathy, and let me do some of the talking.
Believe you me, the next day my body was talking up a storm. Sore? I was sore in muscles I didn’t even know existed — my ribcage, my armpits, the hollows of my shoulder blades. I’d reach for my cell phone or climb out of my car and I’d hear my body say, Well, heeee-llo there! But it was a good, almost delicious kind of sore, one that subtly altered my entire carriage. I instantly felt taller, stronger, more graceful, simply because I was paying extra attention to internal feedback.
Now I look forward to that feeling after every session with Kathy and Heather. After a year of training I don’t often get sore anymore, but my body talks to me all the time — when I’m playing fiddle, when I haul groceries into the kitchen, even just walking downtown on my lunch break — and I truly love the conversation we’re having.
As the Dynamic Fitness blogger, Sara wants to share more Pilates stories — especially yours. Click the link below to message her and contribute your Pilates experiences to the blog.
Let’s hear it for Pilates!
https://www.pilates-sarasota.com/contact
