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pilates

Daily

Who is that girl I see?

I am larger and better than I thought. I did not think I held so much goodness. – Walt Whitman

I’ve been teaching Pilates for 7 years now. I no longer feel like a newbie. I am more confident in my teaching than I was just 2 years ago.

At the time, I felt like I had an inflated number of years because I was posted to a quieter studio, and then it felt more inflated because Covid happened and the classes I taught declined for a while.

But as one of my mentors once said.. “If you want to teach for a long time, don’t stop teaching.” 100%. Thanks Jerry.

I have helped so many people learn and understand their own bodies and gain awareness, competence and improve their performance in movement.

This year, I also let go of a student that I felt was not someone who I could help. I learnt to create some boundaries to protect my own time and self worth.

“Experience teaches slowly and at the cost of mistakes.” – English Historian James A. Grouse

And though I cringe at some of the things I may have done in the past with my limited knowledge…It is because of the sheer number of people I have seen move, given cues to, touched (to correct or to feel muscular engagement), and created movement programmes for that I am now more confident as a movement teacher.

Different bodies require different cues and this year, one incident clearly reflected this. I have always cued for students to press their toes down in the “shortfoot” exercise.

But I found out that one student had been pressing his toes down so much without lifting his arch that the cue gave him the opposite effect. He responded better to “lifting the arch”.

I was stunned. Getting that arch lift was something I had assumed he was just having trouble doing – my usual cue was to “press toes and lift arch” so I didn’t expect my choice of cues to be the problem here.

So I kept learning, and I will continue to keep learning. Better ways to teach movement, to motivate and to create enduring change.

In the coming years, I will work on improving my knowledge in anatomy and biomechanics, improving my verbal, visual and tactile cues to better understand the body in front of me.

Perhaps even find a specialization, if that is something I can figure out?

October 26, 2023 by
Daily

2020

In 2019, we got a flat!
In 2020, we expected to be picking dates, shortlisting guests, and kicking off our shoes with a dance party.

TOO Easy, I expected too little. 2020 is EVEN MORE AMAZING.

I get to have a legitimate excuse for “When is the wedding/housewarming?”

In 2019, LCube was fully funded and free for schools!
In 2020, I expected to see Clif lugging his game materials and getting a headache from prepubescent screaming.

NO WAY. Instead I get to watch Clif pick up a new skill and learn 3D modeling.. then proceed to create a new platform for teachers who want to create augmented reality content without coding skills, for free.

In 2019, I built a routine teaching schedule!
Err.. In 2020, I expected to carry on.

BUT THAT’S TOO LOW TECH. Instead I get to learn to be more comfortable talking and teaching Pilates to students through a computer. And I get to dedicate more time to my parents’ business.

And we’re only in April?! So much has happened!!

April 1, 2020 by
Daily

Born to move

We learnt to flip from our backs to our stomachs and back again.
To crawl. Then, to walk.
To fall and to get back up.
To run and hop and skip and jump.
And then it never crossed our minds again.
Movement became a part of life.
We did it without thinking.


And somewhere in school we became more advanced;
We did sports and competed
We danced and performed.
There were springs beneath our feet,
our bodies light, our eyes bright.


Our brains calculated, analyzed,
Remembered and memorized.
And somewhere in between,
Our bodies forgot.


Like the batteries of the toys we no longer touched,
The springs in our feet became stiff,
The muscles in our back became rounded and hunched.
To get ahead in life?
Is that why our heads are now in front of our bodies?


I’ve only started teaching Pilates for two years now,
But I’ve seen so many different bodies come through
Some flexible, some tight, some strong, some weak.
Some big, some small, some old, some young.


All of the bodies I’ve seen tell me the same thing:
When we were young, we learnt how to move.
We fidgeted and ran and jumped and pranced.
Who was it that told us to stop?

June 25, 2019 by
Daily

Ready?

The last lap of the Comprehensive Pilates Teacher Training is here. My performance and teaching evaluation is just one. sleep. away.

Can I just say that I’m terrified?! Even though I’ve been practicing almost every other day… there are just so many things that I’m not 100% about. Body placement, springs and equipment set up, intention of the piece, breath and movement sequence…Somehow I don’t think my practice will ever be enough. There’s so much to learn and my body and movements are still lacking.

The moving parts of the human body is complex; even more so when every single person is different. The teaching styles and cues that each person responds to, the muscular differences and imbalances, lengths of bodies and movement habits.

Perhaps the knowledge that I’ll never be ready is why I’m ready for tomorrow.

GetPocket aptly recommends me this article that says that you have different selves with different goals in your head, all trying to do what they think is best for the greater “you.” This makes sense. Right now a part of me is saying to watch an episode of Friends to unwind, another part of me wants to read through the Training manuals, and another’s saying to just go to bed and rest.

Now that I’ve spent some time writing this post, it’s midnight and I have no choice but to bring my manuals to bed and glance at them in a feeble attempt to calm myself.

Here’s me sending tomorrow-me a reminder to be open, brave and confident to perform and to teach to my best ability and to remember that conquering the evaluation is to receive feedback with open arms. Remember that time when you needed liquid courage? You’ll be okay. This is a good time to read these articles.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

January 6, 2018 by
Daily

Farming EXP points in teaching Pilates

I clocked 4 straight hours of teaching today!

I was worried the entire week that I wouldn’t be able to last the marathon teaching, but I managed to clock in these hours teaching four different types of classes today. These included classes that I wasn’t confident in like BARE and Slider & Tubing.

I revised the night before, and then again in the morning and I felt that helped tremendously. I hope the students enjoyed the class because contrary to what I thought about attending BARE classes, I quite enjoyed teaching it.

Roller & Ball at 9am happened first. I’m getting a lot more comfortable with Roller & Ball so it’s getting more fun to teach. There was a student who previously came up to me and said that I had improved in my teaching, and thanked me for improving (!) You’re welcome, of course! I hope to keep improving!

Today, she told me that she enjoyed my class so much that it passed super quickly without her realising it. I feel so blessed to have students like that who affirm my teaching. Truly. It’s hard to know if students are enjoying class or not sometimes. Some grunts of pain, some peals of laughter. Maybe a slight increase in class size or having the same familiar faces in a class can signal that but otherwise, it’s not an obvious path of improvement.

Also grateful to have an incredibly encouraging Clifton Sim – who (at most times) drives me to the studio in the morning and then spends an obscene amount of time in the gym on his own to pass time.

Thanks for always pushing me harder and telling me to take up that extra class tomorrow morning to continue harvesting experience. But WHY do I have to wake up early again tomorrow?!

(Shout out to the Honey Lime Tea I bought at Fun Toast that helped me survive the consecutive hours of teaching. What a great decision and a good use of $2.40.)

July 23, 2017 by
Daily

Neck strain in The Hundred

A few weeks ago, someone came to me at the end of class and mentioned feeling it in the neck while doing the abs series. 

Neck strain while doing the Hundred is a common feedback I get from beginners who don’t yet know how to activate and contract their abdominals, causing their shoulders to lift off the mat. 

The Hundred – Pilates abdominals series

In this piece, they’re trying to get their chests higher, and the shoulders further away from the mat. But when they’re not strong enough in their abdominals, they then strain their necks forward to try to get their bodies higher. This usually gets their necks tired and strained quickly.

I remember when I first started out teaching, I used cues like “see if you can get yourself lifted more”. Now, I focus on “try to get this space between your ribs and your hips shorter” so that the focus on the contraction in the trunk.

The following week, I got the participants to feel the weight of their heads on their palms while lying down, then having the weight continue to stay on their palms as they contract their abs in, lifting their shoulders off the mat. This seemed to help.

Also, getting them to roll down to the hundred position from a seated position is a lot easier than curling up from a supine position but I’d probably do it both ways to get them working different segments of their abdominals and to get used to both.

February 20, 2017 by
Daily

Teaching Emily Pilates (Part 2)

After last week’s mess, I was sure that I wouldn’t see the same people in class again. That they’d skip Pilates at the club this week and join something else. Maybe wait for the regular weekly teacher to be back again next week. I was wrong!

I received a second chance and saw familiar faces this time. I made sure to correct all the mistakes I made last week, so I asked for everyone’s mats to be vertical to mine and checked in with them on their bodies. That made all the difference.

Because I knew that the gym had Pilates magic circles available, I had learnt to incorporate them for our exercises. I found them useful as a device to help them activate their muscles.

I’m still improving on making modifications and progressions in a group setting, and looking back now I would probably make them do more isometric work because they were slower to make changes in their positions once they were set. But the class felt so much more manageable today and I’m thankful for that!

The amount of knowledge surrounding the human body in motion is just so incredibly vast. I felt like being humble about it was the key to today’s class being great. I don’t have all the answers and they don’t expect me to.

While packing up, two ladies thanked me and we chatted a bit about their private Pilates sessions which I was excited about because I do think private sessions and machine work are so much better for people with injuries and for people over 50. The lady who had commented last week about the exercises being strenuous to the knees mentioned that the class was challenging but manageable! I was so relieved.

January 3, 2017 by
Daily

Teaching Emily Pilates

On Tuesday, I taught Pilates at a social club here in Singapore. It was pretty exciting to visit, and I could imagine Emily Gilmore strolling in to a similar country club in Hartford. So rich, so privileged. There weren’t a lot of young people in the club, and I didn’t look like I belonged when I was standing at the gym’s reception.

It was fairly packed for a Tuesday afternoon, so you can imagine that these people were indeed the Emily Gilmore-types.

Several things didn’t go too well – and I realise now that I have specific requirements for my Pilates group classes to happen.

1. The placements of the group’s mats need to be vertical to my horizontal mat for them to be facing me. This is how I’m used to teaching, but because everyone started laying their mats horizontal, I decided I’d go with the flow and how different could it be anyway?

It was a mess. The people on the left faced one way, the people on the right faced the other. My cues became slightly messy and confusing.

2. I did not start off the class finding out about their bodies well enough – which came back to me after the class when one lady told me to please let them know if I was going to be doing a lot of exercises that would be strenuous to the knees. Which, of course was a valid point considering that the majority of the people in the class were of an older age.

3. Their age. I was/and am not yet experienced with teaching older people.
I made some modifications and we had yoga blocks to help out, but looking back now I would have done everything differently. There was a lady who had asked for a good, challenging workout but I should have arranged it so that I offered it as an option to her and not made it too demanding on the whole group.

I was feeling awful after the class, but after a really good one today at a corporate class today..I’m a lot happier. You can really tell if a class is good if people are groaning just the right amount but are also given enough time to rest and occasions to actually learn about their own bodies.

I shall ask the PBT team about teaching older people to get ready for my next class at the club. I’ll also need to improve on executing progressions and modifications while I’m teaching. I can only get better.

(I’m experimenting with this journal-style entry to make sure I record these little mundane things in my life. I wonder if it throws things off balance on here, but I would hate to post anywhere else and leave this blog dry and insipid. That said, I shall try to make less edits on these posts.)

 

December 29, 2016 by
Daily

Excitement

For most of my life, I’ve been a pretty stoic person. My emotional range went from happy and content to scared and panicked.

Excitement was never a thing I thought I felt.

But I recently learnt that fear and excitement are essentially the same thing.

Fear is usually held with reservations. Excitement is held with anticipation.

Your heart races, you feel butterflies flapping wildly in your gut, your breathing intensifies, you feel a sense of heightened sensitivity as your eyes widen and you limbs quiver with anticipation. Fear or excitement?

It’s both. The only difference between fear and excitement is the way you think about it.

I’ve approached things slightly differently ever since I found out. It has made teaching my first paid teaching gigs less traumatic, even though I still get a little panicky.

Just reframing it as excitement has made it that much more exciting but I don’t know if I’m making sense as I’m typing this out and explaining it, so go read these amazing posts that explain it way better than I can.

Turn your fear into excitement so you can pursue your dreams

Are fear and excitement the same?

What’s the difference between fear and excitement?

That being said, I still struggle with showing excitement in my voice without coming across as being sarcastic. Baby steps.

 

October 25, 2016 by
Daily

Need some liquid courage

My neck hurts, and there’s another session of Pilates tomorrow! So much pain.

Today’s workout lasted 6 hours, and each trainee teacher was challenged to step up to the front of the class to lead and teach the group for a short period of time.

Did I mention how this Pilates thing is really getting me to step out of my comfort zone? I was questioning my motives for joining the course when I found out that this was how we were going to learn to teach, but through ignoring the purple Inside Out character in my head, I managed to get it done.

fear

Pretty sure this is the guy controlling the console most of the time

It didn’t go particularly well, but the good news is that it went. And there was a tremendous amount of relief that it was over. There’s so much more I’ve got to work on – about controlling the class, and on getting more familiar with the pieces. The basics, and especially the intermediate pieces.

I realised today that I’ve been running away from the intermediate pieces, and that I hadn’t actually pushed myself to work beyond the basics – because once again.. hello comfort zone, my old friend.

Todays’ workout made it clear to me that I wasn’t putting in enough effort in improving my basic pieces and I was definitely not putting in any effort in familiarising myself with the intermediate pieces.

I’m horrified. There’s so much more to do and I don’t feel confident about this at all.

April 17, 2016 by