My Favourite Things About Pilates lists down my top ten reasons for loving this exercise. Without further ado, here they are:
2. Pilates can be done at any level. As a teacher, one of my favourite things about pilates is that it can be done by anyone, regardless of your fitness level. The key to doing pilates is body awareness, and the most important equipment for it is YOUR body (rather than the ball, the dumbbells, or any other gadgets). It’s like having the raw material and the sculpting tool in one thing. Your body has its own admirable intelligence and voice; through pain it tells you something’s off, and it also manifests (obviously or not) what’s working or not working with your lifestyle. To someone familiar with body work and can pay keener attention, the body is a reflection of habits and personalities learned and carried throughout the years. So this gives you a clue of what you need to work on. But this also means that the best weight to lift or the perfect position to take is whatever your body can allow for using its own weight and extent. For instance, to find the perfect way to sculpt your arms, the instructor will have you lift the weight of your own arms in a set of repetitions. The stronger you get, the more you lift of your own weight by varying the moves into more complex ones. So, as long as there’s gravity and your body, you can do pilates.
3. It is pure exercise, grounded in the mind and body. Music is great for exercise. It can set the mood, motivate people, or even have the steps complement the music. Equipments are also extremely helpful. They create stress to the body that pushes it beyond its shape. Pilates, however, is one pure exercise that can be 100% effective without any of those tools. What this “pureness” brings to working out is a tool called awareness, which is perhaps the best device human beings have in the business of transforming things. What makes pilates transformative is that one learns to listen to the body and to work with what they have. They realize that it is a malleable vehicle (not an immovable mass or a barrier)—the best, perfectly customized tool they need to develop their fitness. Because they quit making their bodies wrong, it gives people a powerful relationship with what they have. And they learn to see their body according to their goals and abilities rather than seeing it through the standards of society. This fully enables them to transform their physique.
4. It can be done anywhere. The best things in life are free—I truly believes that—like gravity, your body, your awareness and willingness. What I love about pilates is that it can be done anywhere because you always have what you need to do it. As mentioned earlier, all you need is your body…AND, you can get creative depending on what’s available—machine, mat, wall, ball, chair, etc.—but the basic ingredients are always with you.
5. I can’t describe what it is! This is how I know that I am seriously passionate about pilates. Like many folks (and websites), I can describe pilates in terms of what kind of exercise it is, who started it and its whole history, the different kinds and variations practiced all around the world, the endless benefits it can give you, what’s unique about it, and many other things. But no matter what I say, nothing does justice to my experience of pilates. It’s like so many other exercises and shares some principles that other workouts have, but it is none of all those things. Having to describe it is like having to describe balance to someone who wants to know how to ice skate or ride the bike. There is a certain depth to the experience of pilates that makes it indescribable, like many other things that matter in life.
6. It is powerfully feminine. What I love about pilates is that the moves are fluid and graceful but they are intentional and precise. This shows how results can be produced without force, aggression, and other testosterone-inspired ways, just as how many fitness programs are represented. Yet at the same time, there is force and power in pilates and it does make use of pushing beyond perceived limits. To an onlooker, pilates seems so graceful and “girly”, but what eludes the vision is the scientific precision and the fierce intentionality of every single move and breath that comes along with it. The kinestheic insight I get is the awareness that I can be any or both, and it is/ I am dynamic, which gives me confidence.
8. It humbles my mind and body. On of my favourite things about pilates is that it always brings someone—ME!—to my real limit. As mentioned, it requires body awareness, but at the same time it also allows me to really check in with reality what I can do versus what “I know”. A lot of times, I think I can do an exercise and my body doesn’t allow it. Effective pilates is getting to the limit and the humbling awareness that there’s always a gap—which is the always the perfect place to be in.
9. It is the right niche for my body. This is something I’m not quite sure how to explain. But have you tried an exercise and said after, “No, this is not for me.” It really does take some openness to see what the perfect exercise is for you. When I started out with pilates, this is what had me realize that it was the best exercise for me: The Aftertaste. There is always an aftertaste that isn’t like any other cardiovascular, strength, circuit or other kinds of training has. The depth of the soreness had me discover muscles and nerves that I never knew existed. Every time I go for a session, it is always not the same experience but it’s just as perfect as the last one. And each time, it satisfies me fully.
10. It makes me feel like a goddess. Soon enough I realized that I really am one, so there is no need to explain. ;)
So there you have it. I could easily come up with another set of ten but that’s it for now. When it comes to pilates, these are my favourite things.
Picture taken from http://www. flickr. com/photos/laurentjeanphilippe/6430382247/
Picture taken from http://www. flickr. com/photos/laurentjeanphilippe/6430382247/
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