Fatigue is a common challenge for individuals with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). Managing energy levels effectively during physical or therapeutic sessions can significantly improve outcomes and safety. Ensuring clients take rest breaks when needed is crucial for maintaining health and avoiding overexertion.
Recognizing Fatigue in Clients
Individuals with EDS often experience fatigue due to the energy required to stabilize their joints and compensate for the effects of their condition. Signs of fatigue may include diminished physical performance, changes in breathing patterns, or an overall sense of exhaustion. It is important to:
Encourage open communication so clients feel comfortable expressing themselves when they are tired.
Be vigilant in observing nonverbal cues, as some clients may hesitate to acknowledge fatigue.
Prioritizing Rest for Safety and Progress
Rest is not just about pausing activity; it is a key element of effective therapy and exercise. For clients with EDS, allowing rest when needed can:
Prevent Injury: Resting reduces the likelihood of joint strain or muscle overuse.
Support Recovery: Frequent breaks help the body recover more effectively between exercises.
Maintain Engagement: A well-rested client can focus better on proper form and technique, ensuring long-term benefits.
Incorporating Rest into Sessions
Here are strategies for ensuring clients receive adequate rest during sessions:
Plan for Rest: Include scheduled breaks within the session structure to give clients time to recover without feeling rushed.
Individualize Approach: Tailor rest periods to the client’s specific needs and adjust based on how they’re feeling during the session.
Normalize Resting: Educate clients that taking breaks is part of a successful and sustainable approach to movement.
Balancing Activity and Rest
A successful session combines periods of activity with rest to avoid overexertion. It’s important to:
Monitor Feedback: Continuously check in with clients about their energy levels.
Adapt as Needed: Modify the session intensity or duration if a client shows signs of fatigue.
Promote Self-Awareness: Help clients learn to recognize when they need to rest, empowering them to listen to their bodies.
Takeaway
For individuals with EDS, fatigue management and rest are essential components of effective therapy or exercise. By integrating rest into sessions and encouraging clients to prioritize their energy, practitioners can foster a safer and more productive experience. Listening to the body’s signals is a powerful tool for achieving progress and improving overall well-being.
To learn more about the topic, join Dr. Marcia Perretto on an upcoming LIVE online workshop.
Pilates instructors hold a unique position to positively impact clients not just through their bones, muscles, and fascia but also neurologically. This blog post dives into neuroplasticity, the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt and form new neural connections. Understanding neuroplasticity and how Pilates fosters it can elevate your practice, helping clients achieve holistic well-being.
What is Neuroplasticity?
Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity, signifies the brain’s capacity to adapt and change throughout life. This adaptability is crucial for learning new skills, recovering from injuries, and improving cognitive function. If you’re looking to create long lasting or permanent impact for a client’s movement patterns, neuroplasticity is what you’re looking to promote. This involves two key processes:
Structural Plasticity: Refers to physical changes in the brain, such as the growth of new neurons (neurogenesis) and strengthening or awakening of synapses.
Functional Plasticity: Refers to the brain’s ability to shift functions from damaged areas to healthy ones, facilitating adaptability and recovery after injuries or strokes.
Many factors can influence neuroplasticity and when you understand these, you can optimize your Pilates sessions. Learning, physical exercise, mental challenges, and recovery are some factors influencing neuroplasticity. This is where Pilates shines.
How Pilates Could Enhance Neuroplasticity
Pilates, emphasizing quality movement and mindfulness, offers numerous benefits that directly contribute to neuroplasticity:
Improved Movement Efficiency: Pilates exercises require precise movements, engaging the brain in motor control. This focus could strengthen or refine neural connections, leading to better overall improved movement efficiency and control (Consider keyword phrases like “Pilates exercises for coordination” or “Pilates for balance”).
Enhanced Mind-Body Connection: One of Pilates’ core principles is mindful movement, requiring focus on breath and awareness. Diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the vagus nerve which helps people access the parasympathetic state, the state of rest and digest. Chronic stress can prevent neuroplasticity. By decreasing stress levels through accessing the parasympathetic nervous system, you could support neuroplasticity. Awareness or alertness is also a key component of supporting neuroplasticity.
Motor Learning: Learning new things, such as learning new exercises in Pilates, helps support neuroplasticity. When people learn something new, it sparks alertness and motivation. In this process, people will make mistakes, and the process queues the brain to be attentive to learn. This whole process is key in driving neuroplasticity. Repetition then solidifies new neural connections which could enhance both physical and cognitive abilities.
Physical Exercise Benefits of the Brain
As a form of physical exercise, Pilates:
Increases blood flow to the brain.
Reduces inflamation.
Releases neurotrophic factors (supporting neuron growth and survival).
Cognitive Challenges: The variety and progression of Pilates exercises require continuous mental engagement and problem-solving, further stimulating neuroplasticity and keeping the brain sharp and adaptable.
Practical Applications for Pilates Instructors
Understanding this connection can transform your approach:
Rehabilitation: Pilates can be an effective tool for stroke or brain injury rehabilitation. Learning new movements, being challenged and frustrated in that process, aids in retraining the brain and body for functional recovery. Pilates can be wonderfully tailored to an individual’s needs, can provide qualitative movement assessment and training, and support daily function.
Aging Populations: Pilates can help maintain and enhance cognitive and physical function in older adults, counteracting age-related declines in balance, coordination, conditioning and cognitive function.
Mental Health: Pilates has the potential to promote gratitude, mindfulness, and body appreciation. Research suggests that gratitude and mindfulness can decrease amygdala activity, a region of the brain that corresponds to aggression, anger, and stress.
Implement Neuroplasticity-Enhancing Techniques
Vary Exercises Regularly: Introduce new movements and sequences to keep the brain engaged and challenged.
Focus on Mindfulness: Encourage clients to concentrate on their breathing and sense of presence during exercises.
Promote Coordination and Balance: Include exercises that require balance and precise movements to stimulate neural connections.
Customize Programs: Tailor routines to the specific needs of clients, maximizing neuroplasticity benefits.
Integrate… challenge, play, mindfulness, and sensation into sessions. I like integrating these four specific factor into every session to help foster neuroplasticity.
Conclusion
By understanding and leveraging neuroplasticity, Pilates instructors can create a transformative experience for their clients along with positive, permanent impact. Pilates is more than just physical exercise; it’s a powerful tool for enhancing neuroplasticity and promoting holistic well-being. Embrace the mind-body connection and unlock the full potential of your practice!
If you are interested in learning more, you can join me on my ‘Neuroanatomy in Motion’ course starting this October 5th! Use code ‘polestar’ to get $25 off and sign up to my mailing list to hear of future courses.
About the Author
Kate Strozak is a movement professional specialized in neuroscience as it relates to human movement. She has a Master’s in Applied Neuroscience from King’s College London and has dedicated her career to studying and applying neuroscience to movement training. Her movement education background includes Pilates, Oov, athletics, dance, yoga, Gyrotonic®, and functional strength training.
Kate has a deep passion and curiosity for her work which drives her to continue learning. Kate strives to find a balance between evidence and science supported along with real life application in her work.
She is committed to supporting students and other movement professionals in their educational endeavors through her work as a faculty member of Polestar Pilates, Oov Education, and The Center for Women’s Fitness. Her priority is to encourage critical reasoning, questioning, and curiosity in her professional education offerings.
At least 50% of women pre-menopause experience symptoms of prolapse, and up to 85% of women post-menopause experience prolapse. I wanted to share these statistics right off the bat because, as Pilates teachers, we are often working with women who may or may not know or disclose that they have prolapse. Many women will not see their class or private session with you as relevant to their prolapse or realize that what you do together could help or hinder their symptoms. Additionally, women may not know the symptoms to look out for.
I know this might feel worrying or surprising and you may not currently have the tools you need to start a conversation and support women with prolapse.
What is prolapse?
Prolapse is often defined as a dropped or fallen organ due to the weakness of the pelvic floor muscles. I would suggest that this is not entirely true because we know based on the principles of biotensegrity that we are a suspension system where tension is what supports us. What that really means is that it is not strength alone that supports our organs, it’s the balance of tension, for example not too much strength and not too much laxity. Balance.
“Pelvic Organ Prolapse is the displacement of one or more pelvic organs, such as the uterus, bladder or bowel due to an imbalance of the tensional support in or influencing the pelvis.”
I also suggest a new name for it, Pelvic Organ Displacement (POD). (Sparrow. C. HOPE For Your Pelvic Floor. Pp53)
What are common causes of prolapse?
That balance is what leads us to what can go wrong and cause an organ to displace. One of the most common causes of imbalance is scar tissue from a birth injury. 95% of women who have a vaginal delivery will experience some degree of injury from a graze to a tear or episiotomy. If in your screening a woman tells you that she had a normal birth, it is worth asking if she had any intervention because if she had an assisted delivery she would have had an episiotomy. It’s important to note that scar tissue is essential to bring the tissue together and promote healing, however, it is like an iceberg where the surface scar is the tip, and it spreads far and wide and can pull a pelvic organ out of place. This has been proven by my colleague Anna Crowle and you can find her work here.
What are the symptoms women may report?
You may be surprised to know that incontinence is not a common symptom of prolapse because the displaced organ prevents this. The main symptoms women experience is heaviness, tissue that feels out of place like a tampon is stuck and low back or sacrum pain.
The three most common types of prolapse are:
Cystocele: the bladder displaces/bulges into the vagina and can create pressure into the lower abdomen.
Rectocele: the rectum displaces/bulges into the vagina and can feel like they haven’t fully emptied their bowels.
Uterine: prolapse, the uterus displaces/bulges into the vagina can often feel like they have a tampon or toilet tissue stuck or their internal folds of skin are in the wrong place.
What can you do?
Now that you have a basic understanding of prolapse and appreciate how many women you teach may in fact be experiencing prolapse, how can you support them? I have created a basic three-step process to help you have a way to support those women.
Step One: Add the question to your intake form.
Adding these questions will open up the conversation and give you the information you need to plan appropriately for your client. Do you have pelvic organ prolapse? Do you suspect you may have pelvic organ prolapse?
Step Two:Address and assess their breath.
Due to the fear and worry women carry around their organs falling out they will often go into a gripping and holding pattern that inhibits their diaphragmatic breathing process. This is something you can assess with them seated or standing to find out if they are allowing their breath to move into their pelvis. If not, you have the tools to create a positive movement experience that allows breath into the pelvis.
Step Three:Stimulate their pelvic floor through movement.
Instead of the traditional route of recruiting consciously, use your exercise choice, cues and intelligent imagery to help them access their spontaneous dynamic pelvic floor muscle recruitment. This might mean doing more exercises in quadruped, seated and standing where you are activating the diaphragmatic system or challenging it.
Some of my favorites are double leg pump on the chair seated on the Oov, hamstring one kneeling cat variation, squats from the push through bar standing on the Oov and introducing pulses. There are so many to choose from.
Considerations
These three steps are a great start and even if you didn’t do these things, you may just need to know if there is anything to avoid, go with caution or be aware of:
If they have pressure in their lower abdomen, it may feel uncomfortable to lie prone.
They may feel embarrassed doing rolling or inversion exercises where they may pass gas due to lack of control.
For some women, loaded adduction like horseback may be uncomfortable or increase their symptoms.
I hope that you find this an eye-opening starting point and if you would like to find out more or join me in my membership or mentorship you can reach out to me or find out more at my website.
If you would like to learn more during the month of June, you can join me FREE every Wednesday at 8pm BST for Prolapse Awareness month.
About the Author:
Claire Sparrow is the Author of the bestselling book HOPE For Your Pelvic Floor, a Podcaster, Educator, Second Generation Teacher, & Pilates Studio Owner with over 20 years of experience.
Claire founded her Whole Body Pelvic Health Method in 2018 after restoring her own prolapse and has helped thousands of women worldwide to restore their pelvic health so that they can step off the sidelines, into the spotlight and achieve their dreams. She has reinvented pelvic floor exercises, presents internationally and has mentored teachers in her method. Claire has created two pelvic health series’ for Pilates Anytime US, has been featured in Refinery 29, Natural Way, and Stylist Magazine and is the go-to recommendation for many leading women’s health physiotherapists.
Claire is a Scotswoman, a mum of 3 and lives in Leeds. Her positive and humorous approach is refreshing, inspiring and fueled by empathy.
Elevate Your Practice and Empower Your Clients: The Spinefitter Advantage
At Polestar Pilates, we understand the dedication Pilates instructors and physical therapists have to their clients’ well-being. We’re constantly seeking innovative tools to enhance your practice and empower you to deliver exceptional results. The Spinefitter by SISSEL – a revolutionary tool to enhance Pilates and physical therapy sessions – stands out as a versatile and effective tool, celebrated for its ability to improve spinal health, core strength, and overall client progress.
As proven by SISSEL’s 2022 case study, spine mobility, pain, and tension were significantly improved in participants after incorporating the Spinefitter into their practice.
Here’s how the Spinefitter can revolutionize your Pilates or physical therapy sessions:
Enhanced Spinal Alignment and Mobility: The Spinefitter’s ergonomic design cradles the natural curvature of the spine, promoting better posture and improved mobility in your clients. Consistent use can increase flexibility, reduce stiffness, and contribute to a healthier back – a fundamental goal for many clients.
Targeted Muscle Activation and Relaxation: The unique structure, featuring rows of massage balls, delivers deep tissue stimulation, promoting muscle relaxation and recovery. It’s particularly adept at activating hard-to-reach muscle groups, ensuring a well-rounded and effective workout for your clients.
Effective Therapeutic and Rehabilitative Support: For clients experiencing back pain or recovering from injuries, the Spinefitter offers a gentle yet effective approach to pain relief and rehabilitation. Its design facilitates safe, controlled movements, making it ideal for therapeutic settings.
Unleash Versatility in Your Sessions: Suitable for beginners and advanced clients alike, the Spinefitter integrates seamlessly with various exercise levels. This adaptability ensures dynamic and engaging sessions tailored to individual needs, a must-have for any instructor or therapist.
Boost Client Body Awareness: Utilizing the Spinefitter can heighten a client’s body awareness, particularly regarding spinal alignment and movement. This amplified awareness is crucial for mastering Pilates techniques and achieving long-term benefits for your clients.
Seamless Integration into Group or Private Sessions: The Spinefitter adds value in both group classes and private sessions. It allows for synchronized group activities or personalized routines, making it a perfect choice for all Pilates and physical therapy environments.
“If your spine is completely flexible at 60, you are young.” — Joseph Pilates
Ready to Take Your Practice to the Next Level?
Are you interested in incorporating the Spinefitter into your Pilates or physical therapy sessions? Visit Polestar Pilates to discover specialized training that will equip you to master this tool and maximize client results. We currently offer a course on the Spinefitter and registrations are open! To acquire your own Spinefitters, head over to the Balanced Body store.
At Polestar Pilates, we’re committed to providing the tools and knowledge to empower you to elevate your practice and empower your clients. The Spinefitter by SISSEL is just one example of how we can help you achieve optimal client health and peak performance. Join us and unlock the transformative power of Pilates or physical therapy with the right tools at your fingertips!
About the Author:
Alexander Bohlander, a dedicated Osteopath, PT and Polestar Pilates licensee in Europe who has gained experience and extensive positive results over the last 4 years using the Spinefitter by Sissel. In his 6 health centers, Pilates studios in Germany the Spinefitter is used for:
Chronic back pain conditions
Fascial restriction pathologies
Scoliosis treatment
Athletic conditioning
Spinefitter Pilates group classes
Spinefitter Pilates equipment combinations.
The Polestar Pilates meets Spinefitter curriculum is taught worldwide with unseen success. Alexander has filled courses in China and Australia in 2024 with enthusiastic students, reporting of almost unlimited success with clients and patients.
Follow Spinefitter on Instagram and be part of the global movement.
BA: I like the idea of observation, the observer, and the observed. We talk about the quality of movement versus quantity of movement and often I feel we are stuck in the quantity. We feel and see a quality movement, we don’t quite know how to identify it but we try to mimic it sometimes by trying to position correctly what we saw or interpreted rather than what really is happening in the movement.
Were they allowing themselves to move? The idea of novice to expert moving, the novel mover will always over recruit, not sure where the organization is going to come from. I often think about riding a bike. From week one to week two they are riding very efficiently with no hands. This idea of moving from unconscious incompetent movement, not knowing what they don’t know, into unconsciously competent movement.
Do We Teach Movement Or Position?
I love the idea that you can teach movement from a position. I think that’s really important for the Pilates teacher and physical therapists because so often everything is assessed in static. Does static alignment really tell us anything about movement? I want to preface this in the sense that most of us in this community work within the spectrum of pathokinesiology or performance kinesiology. We study the science of movement. As a physical therapist, I’m trying to restore movement to a level of function. As a performance practitioner, I’m trying to enhance their movement performance however I can with whatever tools I can use.
EF: One great question is “what does the person want to achieve”? Obviously, if they come to you in pain, and they have an issue the number one goal is to remove the pain. This will mostly involve improving function and improving efficiency but interestingly, not always. Compensation patterns sometimes are the name of the game. If you have a broken bone or something like that, you have to do a “dance” around it. It might not be the ideal most efficient thing but it brings you out of pain.
Let’s say you want to improve your performance. It’s one thing if we’re are talking about walking, running and the things were structured for but let’s say it’s dance, Pilates and yoga. Now, I’m going to contradict myself on a level here. You have form and you cannot get away from form. There is form! If you want to be a dancer or demonstrate a Pilates exercise you have you show good form and this involves a position.
The question is: How can you teach the kind of forms we work with, but still maintain that dynamic alignment?
Eric Franklin
Say the goal as a dancer is to look good in the mirror. What if it also feels good and is also efficient? Learning how to create that would be the goal. I’ve had conversations with people saying “Ballet wrecks your body”, but I disagree. Ballet can be a great exercise but you have to work on achieving those forms with good function and in dialogue with whoever is trying to achieve them. This is especially true if you look a the traditional forms. Dialogue doesn’t exist. You have the expert, the guru, and there is a sense of “this is how it is”. You have to get that form into your body and it doesn’t matter if it breaks. If it breaks? Next in line…So that’s the other extreme and we’re trying to be the nice ones here and say we can achieve that healthily. We need that dialogue and a lot of that world is not used to what we call student-centered teaching
BA: A lot of Juan Nieto’s language lately has been talking about tissue adaptation. We’re excited to see Ido Portal’s work and Mike Fitch’s work in animal flow. These practices are exciting, how they are looking at different ranges of motion and mixed martial arts. The body needs to go into these ranges over time and gradually increase the load in different directions and different planes. This ensures that there is tissue and neurological neuromuscular adaptation.
What The Client Wants
You said something earlier I love, “what the client wants”. One of the things we use a lot at Polestar is the ICF model. What does the client want to participate in? How are their beliefs connected to this? Do they believe they should be participating in activities that they are not comfortable participating in right now? What activities does that involve? Is the demand on the body to participate in those activities where it needs to be? So many questions!
For example, here are some things you need to be able to do to be a semi-professional ballet dancer. The body needs to be able to do these things, and this is where you are today. Perhaps there is there a big gap between where you are today and where you want to be as a semi-professional dancer. Oftentimes we keep thinking there is some kind of recipe that takes you from one point to another point. This is where anthropometrics come into play. There are many types and shapes and conditions of bodies. Longer or shorter torso, arms, and legs. How do you look at this idea in particular from a teacher’s perspective of receiving these different bodies and goals? Can we progress safely but also take them to where they want to participate? They want to do MMA or Cirque du Soleil, how do we help them get there?
Creating a Motivational Climate
EF: It definitely depends on what kind of martial arts. If it’s going to be acrobatics, gymnastics, or dance they could come in and you can say “sorry – not enough hip mobility, thoracic spine too stiff, you shouldn’t do this”. What you often end up seeing is someone doing ballet, and they have the “perfect” body but their movement is not interesting to look at because they are like a machine. They “have it all” but there’s no sense of rhythm or space and no musicality. These are the important factors!
There’s a sense of moving your body in space with a certain rhythm and grace. Often you have to reteach people in that field why they even started to do Pilates. And why did they start to dance? Because they liked doing it! What has it turned into now? All those factors come into play. It’s tricky also with different body types.
If someone doesn’t seem to have the body type for an activity, I would still say “go for it!”. Who knows, they might have some other amazing quality which they will bring out in that form and blow us all away.
BA: We’ve seen this over and over again. Tenacity even in sports far exceeds the natural ability in people who achieve high levels of performance. I think especially in dance it’s their emotion and motivation and their passion. That’s why I always ask, what do you believe you should be able to participate in? What do you believe is not allowing you to do this? I love to know what they think. What’s their belief on why they can’t? Do they believe their body doesn’t let them? Is that a pre-conceived belief that controls the actual movement of their body? I happen to believe belief can do this in a lot of ways. How do we recreate an environment in which they can optimize their ability? We may not know what that will look like, but we can give it a shot.
EF: This is one of the biggies – creating a motivational climate! Creating a climate within which the student can excel. Lean into that and forget about teaching technique and the efficiency and all that. Just create an environment in which they feel they can do their best. This is a completely different factor not related to “this joint” or “that fascia”.
We say in Franklin Method “You don’t get what you want, you get what you believe”.
Eric Franklin
You want to be able to do these exercises or dance steps really well but you don’t believe that you can do it. We can examine what the client really believes in and then be careful with the information. We have simple ways in Franklin Method where we do a small movement like an arm gesture while you say “I love moving my arms – It’s really healthy because it really gets my scapula moving – it’s fantastic”. You say this as you do the movement and then you ask the question “how much did you actually believe in that?”. And a lot of people say 80%, 50%, or no I don’t really love moving.
BA: As Pilates teachers, how do we make what we do in one or two hours a week potentially influence a positive neuroplastic change? We know that one or two hours a week may not be enough to influence this. What else needs to happen, and what needs to be influenced in that one or two hours a week?
KS: Giving people good appropriate challenges is really important for this process. Also, I try to stimulate them in multiple ways. The use of imagery is incredibly impactful and profound for people to help them embody these new experiences. Imagery helps them build different relationships between a movement and their perception of that movement or their relationship to that movement.
Many of these things are built into the Polestar curriculum actually! Utilizing imagery, utilizing tactile cueing in order to tie in sensory nerves and proprioception thus integrating the brain on another level.
Kate Strozak
Now more than ever I talk to my clients about their sleep habits. I remind them it’s out of the scope of my practice, and that I am not a professional sleep consultant. I encourage them if they feel like their sleep could be better quality than it is right now to reach out to a sleep professional and get some help in that arena. It’s when we are in our deep states of sleep that a lot of these neuroplastic changes occur in our brain.
Being “Chatty” With Clients
Another important thing is mindfulness. Prior to studying neuroscience, I was inclined to be chit chatty and casual with my clients. In part, thanks to Alexander Bohlander and my experience with him in his meditation workshop at the Polestar experience I dove deep into studying mindfulness and meditation. It’s fascinating the effects of these on the brain and profound in terms of stress reduction and sleep quality. If you are doing something that supports the quality of your sleep you are, therefore, hopefully then supporting the process of neuroplasticity. So it’s a very long-winded answer to say there is a lot!
BA: That is excellent Kate! I just learned this year from an Andrew Huberman podcast about the idea of neuroplasticity occurring typically when we’re sleeping. We challenge the body and challenge the nervous system during the day, challenging ourselves to learn. I’ve been using this with the students at the university as well. Especially the ones who are struggling with retaining information or integrating and synthesizing information. It’s so interesting that it’s the sleep that is going to allow you to synthesize this information. This leads into the “interleaved” learning where we’re stressing you a little bit to recall information to make it challenging and difficult. At first, you can’t remember what it is, but when you go back and look at it again after the stress of trying to remember it (and a good night’s sleep), it is amazing the amount of synthesis that happens on the following day or two of processing that information.
Creating Demand And “Struggle”
The same thing is true with movement of course and some of the things you mentioned. If I could get my client to remember what we did last week, “do you remember where your body was when we had that really good experience? “Can you show that to me again?”, and maybe they fail, that’s ok. They are trying to figure it out and recall it, but that’s the internal feedback and the mindfulness that we’re talking about that allows information to be synthesized. They need this demand and the struggle of the recall. And don’t just give it to them and show them, let them struggle with it, we don’t want to make it so easy. We want them to understand that struggle is good, that failure is good, and that these are learning processes that will help them in the long run. If we don’t challenge them with that struggle we don’t challenge the nervous system to change.
KS: Absolutely, there is no incentive to change if you are not being challenged or having that moment where you have those slight releases of cortisol and adrenaline. Your palms start sweating and we have to have those moments, it’s part of the human experience.
I don’t know about all of you but I was very prone to just having casual conversations with my clients. When the client has done footwork a million times with me, which in and of itself presents another problem, but if I’m talking with them about something, I’m taking them out of their experience and out of their body, so I limit that. I’m not cold or stoic and not available to them but I really get them to focus on what they’re doing and to really be present and attentive to their movement.
If I’m talking with them about what they are doing this weekend, they start thinking about it and they are not aware of what their body is doing at the present moment in time.
Kate Strozak
BA: I really appreciate you saying that. Our friend Polestar Educator Juan Nieto calls it “being the butler”, and I call it “gum holding”. The point is that we get into a chatty, chummy kind of relationship with them and were really not challenging the nervous system. We become a “paid friend” in that situation. If they are doing the same thing they always do with you, you are not challenging any improvement or any change other than maybe being a listening ear. Even worse when we bring our own problems to our clients.
Supporting Neuroplastic Processes
In group classes when there is flow and purpose, there is more internal reflection going on and feedback that is more likely to create change than in a chatty one-on-one session. We can create incredible challenges and demands on the nervous system when we’re working with a group of ten people. If we’re not having that same intensity with our clients one-on-one they are not going to have the same neuroplastic challenges.
KS: And if you’re not supporting these neuroplastic processes then what are you doing? The neuroplastic process is just a really fancy way of saying that you’re helping to create a repatterning, working on movement efficiency, or working on a tissue adaptation. If you’re not really supporting those processes you’re not really supporting the longevity of the Pilates work you are doing with them. So maybe Brent, you, and I are suggesting to everyone that our challenge to you is to try to support more quiet and focus in your pilates sessions. If your client` is really keen on talking and carrying on a conversation, you might not be challenging them enough! There is a time and place for all of it as you know!
BA: Let’s see how chatty they are when it’s time for jackknife…time for hip circles!
KS: Yes! Can you juggle while doing feet in straps?
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