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This morning a client offered the funniest quote. “Pilates is so hard, sometimes it hurts my feelings.” She had just read this somewhere and we both laughed, as did the next group of people with whom I shared it.
But it got me thinking, first about some of the funny things I’ve heard Pilates clients say, and then about hard work.
Over the years, I have heard the funniest things come out of mouths during and after a particularly difficult Pilates sequence. They have included:
“Ow, Pilates is hard,” from Stacy Sims, studio owner and my first Pilates boss
“If you make me do another of those, I’m going to rip my leg off and beat you with it.” – Client
“That was ugly.” – Client
“Throughout the session, I fall in and out of love with you.” – Client
“Right now, we are not friends.” – Client
“F-me, F-me, F-me.” And then one day from this mild-mannered business man, “F-YOU.”
“If you touch me, I’ll pee.” – Client in the midst of roll-downs
“Are you mad at us?” – Client
“There is a God” – one Client exclaimed followed by the woman next to her with “But her name isn’t Marcia.”
And a string of extremely creative curse words uttered by the most proper 67 year-old I’ve ever met.
I could go on. But the point is, when people really begin to work to their potential, they are surprised, again and again at how difficult the work can be. And they will direct their backwards praise at anyone who happens to be leading them to and through that hard work.
When watching from the outside, I know my classes don’t look difficult. Most of the time my mat clients are on their backs with their heads on pillows or towels and their knees bent. They are breathing in a “Lamaze” fashion (or so I’m told) and as I am the master of the small movement, sometimes only moving an inch or less. But upon closer inspection, the observer will see a shaking through their core, a look of utter concentration and what can only be described as sheer will on their faces. They are giving each breathe, each movement and each second everything they have.
I’m not a big believer in “killing” the clients. But I am committed to making sure that my clients get my A game and that they are working as hard as their bodies are ready to work. That’s sort of the point. To become stronger, you have to be challenged. But you have to be challenged safely so that you are not broken.
This makes me think of really any growth or advancement in life. To improve in any part of our lives, we need to challenge ourselves. This includes our jobs, our studies – even our hobbies. And what about parenting? I don’t have personal experience with this one, but I bet every parent who is reading this can think back to each time they faced a parenting challenge. From the one-year-old testing their limits to the first time your daughter has her heart broken. You figure out how to bring you’re A game to the situation and next time you are better prepared for the next challenge. Well Pilates is just like that. Each session is a building block to the next thing. But the key is you have to challenge yourself.
I have frequently been in a situation with a client where they are just ready for that next breakthrough – what I call a “light bulb going off in their body.” My job more often than not in those situations is to beg, cajole, encourage and sometimes even threaten – and what I’m usually saying is “Don’t pull back, don’t pull back, don’t you dare pull back!”
You see, in Pilates, like anything else, the instinct when on the edge of something new and scary is to stop – to pull back from the edge because whatever is on the other side is unknown. But if you trust your body and your instructor, you’ll find something unbelievable on the other side.
So maybe that is why Pilates makes such enormous differences in individual lives. Not only do bodies get stronger, healthier and more flexible – but our minds and spirits are being taught and encouraged to accept challenges, to move forward and to grow. And maybe, just maybe, that makes Pilates a great metaphor for life.
So yes, “sometimes Pilates is so hard, it hurts my feelings.” But I’m willing to take that risk – are you?
Once each quarter I feel the need to lecture, remind, nag and yes, sometimes rant about using your body correctly. Over the last week I’ve had many signs and signals that it’s time again to talk about some simple and basic things you can start doing right this minute.
Backtracking a bit, I’ll share what brought this on. Last week one of my group classes reminded me that I’m not nagging them enough about what goes on outside Pilates. It came up as we were working on little tiny roll-downs. As we were working on keeping them out of their legs and hip flexors, I struggled with the fact that so many of them were having such difficulty staying in an upright position – their starting place. One of them asked if they should sit on a big fit ball to work on this. Great option because it’s all but impossible to sit incorrectly on a fit ball (although I’ve seen it done). As we moved up to a chair to stretch out, I started correcting them and placing their hips over their sitz (butt) bones. It always amazes me when I look around a room filled with people I teach and they aren’t sitting or standing correctly. I mean, come on – I’m in the room – at least pretend you use your body correctly all the time! So after correcting everyone, I nagged a bit about working on this every day and because I only work with intelligent people, I told them why (no, not because I said so, I said they are intelligent!). You see, if you sit upright with your hips over your sitz bones and your feet flat on the floor, you are actually using the muscles in your low belly and your back. In other words, you can work your core by just sitting there. So they all listened and promised to try and I went about my business.
The next day I had the late morning news on (local) and once again managed to catch their weekly segment with their fitness expert (by the way, he inspires many of these blogs because he gives lousy advice!). This time he was teaching people how to work out in their chairs. His instruction included “working your arms” by holding onto the arm rest and lifting your butt off the seat, “working your lower back” by leaning forward and backward, and a host of other stuff. Each exercise he demonstrated brought more tension into his head, neck and shoulders or caused him to move his body incorrectly. I was screaming at the television by the time he was done. He never once suggested a stretch to do in your chair or at your desk and he certainly didn’t use any common sense to help in the use of your core daily. So after I calmed down, it was clear that we need to talk about your daily activity again this week.
Try this for me. My guess is that you are sitting as you read this. Scoot forward in your chair and make sure your feet are flat on the ground. Now adjust your body forward and backwards until you find the spot where your low belly is working. It’s really as simple as that. Now relax your shoulders and sit up through those abdominals. For some of you, this is going to feel like a ton of work. Now imagine if you used your body that way every hour of t he day. Yes, that would mean you were using those muscles all day long. Guess what will happen (aside from your back pain going away or at least diminishing). You will strengthen and tone those muscles (and this means love handles and belly!).
HELLO – why aren’t you doing this? Well I know it’s hard to remember and it’s hard to do. So cover the hard to remember part by putting a post it on your computer or agreeing with your spouse that you’ll both do it during meals and remind each other. As for the hard to do, it will get easier the more you do it. I promise! Or watch television in an upright position instead of lounging on your sofa. Can you imagine sitting upright through an entire movie? Great core work!
Now take it one step further and stand up. Of course you are standing on all three foot centers (if you don’t know about this, read the first few blogs or look at the video on FaceBook), and now adjust your hips forward and backward again – trying to find the same core tightness you found sitting down. Eureka! You’ve now found a way to use those muscles when you are upright!
Why doesn’t every fitness professional, physician and mother teach this? I don’t have the answer to that – maybe because it’s not a part of our culture? Maybe it’s supposed to be a great big secret – only to be shared with a select few. Well, my friends, the cat is out of the bag! One would think that I have a big enough mouth that the entire planet would know by now but it seems I need your help. So, tell your friends, tell your enemies – “Sit up correctly!” Or at least while I’m in the room!
What makes a good listener? Think of that friend, colleague, spouse, or teacher who you consider a good listener – what qualities do they possess? My guess is they stop what they are doing when you speak. I bet they remember the things you say and consider the things you don’t say. They are aware of both your verbal and non-verbal communication but they give you the time and space to share information when you are ready. And more than anything else, when you make a bad decision, they simply support you. They don’t say “I told you so” or point out that you made a lousy decision. They simply listen as you try to put the pieces back together and start the entire process over again. It seems a good listener has many of the qualities of a good friend.
Are you a good listener? You know if you are because people come to you with their problems, they tell you what a good listener you are. Stop for a moment and think of the people in your life that consider you a good listener. Great.
Now, here comes the bigger question – was your name on that list? It should be, but no matter if it was or not, let’s think about how and why this is critical to your life.
The bottom line is that body awareness is all about listening. In fact, I dare say our physical and emotional wellness is about good listening.
Think about the times you’ve felt like you were “coming down with something.” Your body gives you signals that you are getting sick with little aches and pains or a stuffy nose. Those things are obvious signals that something is wrong and we tend to listen to our body – we get more rest, we drink some tea, we try to combat it with either vitamins or some kind of over-the-counter medicine. But what about little aches and pains? Do you listen to what your body is telling you when your back, neck or knees ache? Or do you ignore that “conversation” until it becomes louder and more insistent? On the other side of things, do you listen when your body tells you that you’ve done something right? For example, if a stretch feels great, do you make it a part of your daily life or do you put it off or not make the connection between the little aches and pains disappearing and the stretch? If you exercise regularly, does that make things better or worse? What about eating habits? Do you avoid the things that make you feel bad and ingest the things that make you feel good?
How about your spirit? Do you pay attention to the things that feed your spirit in positive and negative ways? All the same things apply to your body apply to your spirit. If you listen, you will hear what you need and what you don’t need. What you do with that information – even what you can do with that information – is up to you. But listening is vital to your wellbeing. And sometimes it’s as simple as what “bugs” you and what makes you feel like you are on top of the world.
I guess the key to listening is paying attention. It’s difficult to hear your body or spirit if there is too much other noise. One of the keys for me comes in Pilates. That’s my meditation. I have to focus on what is going on inside my body in order to drive my movement and also to find the hard work. I end up focusing on my spirit because the focus on my body forces everything else out of my mind. I also find that my Pilates practice impacts how I use my body during cardiovascular exercise – again causing me to listen and evaluate what’s going right and what isn’t.
So good for me, right? I’m so perfect that I always make the right decisions for my body and my spirit, right? Wrong. I am as likely as anyone to be a bad listener or to listen and ignore the obvious. Sometimes I “want” something so much that I ignore how bad it is for me. Fortunately, it seems that the body stuff shouts loud enough to stop me from doing too much damage and the spirit stuff – well let’s say that I think the universe has intervened quite a bit and allowed me to dodge some pretty dangerous bullets. But in any event, when I make a bad decision or screw up, I try to do better the next time and I don’t beat up on myself when I get it wrong. You see, just like a good listener, I strive to be a good friend to myself. I accept that “my friend” won’t always do the right thing, won’t always make the best decision and sometimes will do what “she” wants instead of what “she” needs. But I also know that each time I make a bad decision, I’ll have the opportunity to regroup, to fix it and to do better next time.
So my advice to you is simple – listen. Pay attention and be a good friend to the most important person to your wellness – you.
We all live fast-paced lives. We juggle personal and professional responsibilities each day and try to find the right balance between all of our masters. If you are like most of the rest of the world, you always have something pulling you in one direction or another. We’ve learned to jump like Pavlov’s Dog when the phone rings (or beeps or buzzes with a new e-mail or message). We react to whatever shouts at us the loudest and between the connectivity we’ve gained with technology and the expectation that we are always available, we seem to live in a world where everything is urgent.
A client and I were talking about this recently and he brought up the idea of “urgent” versus “important.” He was marveling at the fact that his wife can take something like her own exercise routine and after making a commitment to it, not allow anything to get in the way of this time spent on her. He, on the other hand, is a victim of “urgent.” He cannot allow the phone to ring without at least checking to see who it is. He has a difficult time making a commitment to his own wellness – as much as he knows that he needs to, he simply can’t say no to all the outside concerns shouting for his time and energy. In the end, he frequently ignores what is important for what is urgent.
This is an interesting concept to me. After this discussion I started thinking about my own life (past and current) and the lives of my clients. Do we live in a society where our priorities get shifted from real importance to whatever is shouting the loudest?
Let’s agree that some things are both urgent and important – what I’m talking about are those things that aren’t life and death or deal breaking or critical to your overall wellbeing or happiness.
Now I know that any of you who have children will always put their wellness and happiness in the urgent category (as does the client mentioned above) – but do you allow their needs – those that are perhaps less than urgent to allow you to ignore your own needs? And aside from your children, are you able to ignore the seemingly urgent for what is truly important?
I like to believe this is something I have finally learned to do. I can remember (during my corporate and agency days) always jumping when a client said jump, always being available and never being able to truly commit to anything I wanted to do – anything important to my growth as a person or general contentment – because of last minute client calls at 7 pm or a boss that said something had to get done that night. The money I spent on tennis, Italian and other lessons I never attended is sickening. The vacations I cut short and the events I missed because of my work responsibilities overwhelms. But more than any of those – or perhaps encompassing those – is the way I ignored my own wellness. I suffered from extreme stress in those days – manifesting itself in a variety of forms from headaches or hives to simply irritability and unhealthy eating or exercise habits. Even my exercise was out of control back then. I would wake and be at the gym at 5 am, only to return to it at 7 or 8 or even 9 pm. All of this was supposed to relieve my stress and to “fit in” my exercise but what would have been wrong with leaving the office at 5 or 6? There was always something urgent and I always responded as expected.
Things finally changed for me over a year ago. I started to find myself not jumping up to see who was on the phone when it rang while I was in the middle of something else. And that something else could be anything from working on a PMA article to sitting on my beautiful patio and reading the Sunday paper. Whatever was important to me at that moment started to take precedence over that thing that used to seem urgent. The next step came at about this time last year. I started scheduling my own workouts the same way I would schedule a client’s. I made a commitment that every day, I would take care of myself first. That I would make time for me, time to connect with my mind, body and spirit without interruption. For me, this now means that I do Pilates each morning first thing – I don’t answer the phone or check e-mail or even water the plants until I’ve completed my Pilates workout. It allows me to start my day with power and strength but also to put my mind in a certain place as I enter what can be a hectic day. From there, I balance the rest of my schedule around daylight hours that will allow me to get an hour of cardiovascular exercise each day and to eat properly. It all seems simple but it’s a challenge to say no to clients or other distractions in order to make myself the thing that is most important.
My group clients are an inspiration on this front each day. I walk in and out of their offices and recognize that they could easily work through lunch on any given day, but instead they have put themselves and their Pilates class on their schedule and they make it a priority to get to class. I know that 10 years ago, I would be paying for a class I never attended. Their commitment to their own wellness is rewarded with incredible results – they get stronger, change their posture, reshape their bodies, and reduce stress. They have said that for two hours a week, they are what is most important and interestingly enough – their co-workers and supervisors respect this. I’m also reminded of who I used to be by those who insist that they would like to take the class, but can’t make time for it. I’ve learned that those individuals aren’t ready to change their priorities – as they are now busier or more in demand than their co-workers who have made a commitment.
Where do you fall on your list of priorities? Are you important or urgent or both? One of my private clients (who suffers chronic back issues) “tweaked” her back over the weekend while cleaning. She tried to stretch out and had little success relieving the pain – describing how she then continued to clean “hunched over.” I asked her why she didn’t phone me to help “fix” it and she said that the cleaning had to get done – if it didn’t get done that day, it wouldn’t get done at all. My question was, “who is coming over that it was that important to clean the house?” Essentially, she had put herself in a mindset where a clean house was more urgent than her own body. How many times have you done the same thing?
I can’t set your priorities or manage your choices but I will offer this one piece of advice – remember that you are more important than anything else that is put in your path and if something isn’t both urgent and important, don’t let it get in the way of your wellbeing and your commitment to yourself. I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, you only have one body, if you don’t make caring for it the most important job you have ever had, eventually, it will catch up with you. So, what’s on your agenda for today and is it urgent?