Written by Christi Idavoy – Polestar Educator and Polestar Pilates Biscayne Studio Owner “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything, what we think, we become.” – Buddha
Recalling a happy moment in your life can bring feelings of joy, as reminiscing on a challenging period in your life can bring feelings of pain or suffering. You can smell something that makes you remember a moment, place or person from you past, while listening to music a song may bring back very intense memories! Through our senses we experience thoughts that provoke both emotional and physical feelings. At Polestar Pilates, we spend a lot of time observing what thought-provoking images we use while we help restore and improve movement.
There are many schools of thought that have contributed to the field of imagery and what is called ‘Ideokinesis’. This form of somatic training was first conceived by Mabel Todd in the 1930s and it refers to the use of visual and tactile feedback that is meant to guide students, either during static postures or physical movements. Many have contributed to this body of work and along with the understanding of neuro-linguistic communication, we at Polestar have developed effective imagery and communication skills as a vehicle to improving movement.
If you take a moment and reflect on how you and others physically react to feelings like fear and anger or happiness and love, it will not take long to notice that what we feel is directly reflected in how we hold ourselves physically. When we are afraid we tend to crouch down. When we feel rage we tend to feel a rise in our body temperature and an accelerated heart beat and breathing pattern. When in love we feel light and hold our heads up high. We can use this increased awareness when we are guiding others through movement, especially when we are helping restoring movement after pain or injury, to bring about a positive experience. The thoughts that we hold while we are moving or teaching will make all the difference in how the nervous system responds. It will also make us better able to communicate and find empathy with clients who are in pain or are having difficulty moving.
As we become aware of how our emotions effect our posture and the functioning of our involuntary systems, like our respiratory and circulatory systems, we can really start to appreciate how important our choice of words are as movement teachers and healers.
Visualizing the movement within the mind’s eye (either as movement within the body or in space), without any conscious muscular effort, primes neural pathways and reprograms unnecessary and unwanted muscular tension. We allow our body’s unconscious intelligence to pave the way for the desired movement. Brent Anderson often speaks about cueing the nervous system rather than the muscles, which makes complete sense when analyzing animals and children in nature, as the ancient yogis and our more contemporary Joseph Pilates did. When you go about your day, when a child plays in the park, when an animal hunts for its’ prey, it does not solicit conscience muscle activity in order to perform its activities. These activities in a natural environment occur unconsciously. With this understanding, if our training is to be ‘functional’ and prepare us for real-life activities, we should train in a way that mimics and promotes what we will need in order to safely and efficiently perform our tasks, namely healthy unconscious movement coordination. So how do we do this? We rely heavily on meaningful imagery cues!
Photo credit: Pilates Anytime“Physical practice combined with mental practice can lead to more improvement in motor performance and strength than either physical or mental practice alone. Physical practice combined with mental practice can lead to more improvement in motor performance and strength than either physical or mental practice alone.” 1
If you regularly teach and take classes, and even if you tend to practice or work-out on your own, observe your thoughts and the feelings that arise and ask yourself if they are helping or hindering your performance. Keep a journal on your experience and notice your transformation!
Polestar Educator Cindy Kneiser explains how a new career in Pilates worked for her!
Who me?
The question came toward the end of a private Pilates session with the instructor that I had been working with for about eight years. We were almost done and I was doing mermaid on the reformer. I knew she had asked me a question, but it seemed so out of the blue that I couldn’t process it. Thinking I must have heard her incorrectly I asked her to repeat her question. Maybe I did hear her correctly. That is when I asked, “you think I should become a Pilates teacher?”
I had been working in technology sales for more than ten years and was getting very bored. My current position was winding down and I hadn’t started looking for anything else. At the same time, I was seeing a career psychologist to help determine what I should do next. Just the same it never dawned on me to leave the corporate world. Then, a personality profile that I had completed with the psychologist showed that I would make a good teacher. Of course, I thought. You don’t work in technology sales without being able to teach clients why the new expensive tech solution is something they need when none of their competitors are spending money on it. But, did that mean I could teach people why Pilates could help them stay strong and flexible while enhancing their ability to do just about any other activity they were interested in doing?
Weeks passed and I kept going to my two private Pilates sessions every week. My instructor brought it up again. I questioned her about why she thought I would be good. It turned out she was seeing the same things that the personality profile showed. I started to connect the dots and thought this might be something to consider. I did a little research into different teacher training programs and quickly decided that if I was going to do this I wanted to be comprehensively trained from a school that qualified for PMA certification. I wanted to make sure that I was well qualified to teach; I was going to do this right.
Even though I live in Philadelphia, a major metropolitan area, there were not many options. I had long believed in the therapeutic healing properties of Pilates. It made sense to me that a school founded by a physical therapist would take a scientific approach to Pilates. My logical mind liked that. This led me to Polestar. It was also the school that my teacher had been trained by. I considered other schools and really wanted to find an option that would not require a hotel or long drive. In the end, I chose Polestar and took the training in Burlington, VT. It was a long drive, but it was also where my husband grew up and his parents still lived there. In the end, I did have a long drive, but I would not have a to stay in a hotel.
The training was intense. I was surprised by how much there was to learn. After all, I had been doing Pilates for 8 years. I thought for sure I knew how to do the exercises. Turns out it takes a lot more than knowing the exercises to be a Pilates Instructor. In addition to learning how to cue and formulate a workout, Polestar takes the time to make sure you understand why you are doing what you are doing not just how to do it. A lot of time is spent prompting the student to think through their decision-making process to ensure that when they graduate they can work with people in an effective manner that helps them reach their fitness goals.
The educators and mentors truly care about the students in a way that makes you feel like family. As I planned my Pilates career and determined that I wanted to open a studio I knew that I also wanted to work with Polestar to bring Comprehensive Teacher Training to the Philadelphia area. In the fall of 2017 it became a reality. Now I am the instructor asking my clients to consider becoming Pilates teachers.
Surprisingly I have not missed the corporate world. It used to be that every couple of years I would get bored with my job and start looking for something new or different. Now, I truly believe that I have found what I was meant to do. Several years have passed and rather than becoming bored, I have become more obsessed and engaged with Pilates and the Pilates community.
Visit our Course offerings to explore how you can become a Pilates instructor!
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Learn more about Polestar Educator Cindy Kneiser and her studio at WashCrossPilates.com
When you start thinking about entrepreneurship, you already have achieved the right mindset. You’ve already come to certain decisions, sometimes unconsciously, about where you want to take your practice. With your Pilates or Physiotherapy education in hand, you are clear that this what you want to do. Now comes the moment when you think about setting up your own Pilates studio or physical therapy practice. Or perhaps you want to travel and work internationally. Regardless, you take the first step in your entrepreneurial career by asking one question: “am I ready to open my own Pilates business?”
You begin to seek a new goal: to live off of what you love doing. This is good news (even if it makes you nervous).
In addition to having a clear objective, one should adopt better habits. Ridding yourself of unhealthy habits can be the first step in kick-starting your entrepreneurship. Stephen Covey, in his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, describes a series of habits of personal improvement through which full effectiveness is attained. These seven habits are, or can be, a philosophy of life. Check this brief summary of them:
Being proactive: You need to take the initiative.
A proactive person is aware that their actions have brought them to where they are. The proactive person also projects where they want to be. You can recognize a proactive person because this is the kind of person that says, “I am here as a result of the decisions I made, but tomorrow I want to be over there.”
Eyes on the prize: Keep your efforts focused on your goals.
Keeping focused on your goals may mean finding alternative paths. You’ll often find the plan in your head is just the first of many to be thought up. There are many people who do not believe in the Law of Attraction, but if you want something and do nothing to make it materialize, no matter how much you want it, it will not be fulfilled. If you are always thinking about negative things, you cannot focus on what you do want.
Put first things first: Prioritize your time.
One of the most common challenges people face is prioritizing and dividing up their time. To be really effective, you must put on top what is really important. Ah! And of course completing actions is crucial. This seems obvious, but at times it is really difficult to finish certain tasks! When you review the tasks at hand and deem them important, do them!
Think about the win-win.
Often in our society, the philosophy of I win, you lose is what is prevalent. Since we were children playing games at school or taking part in sports, we want our team to win which means the other team loses. To be an effective and compassionate person you must understand that there are enough opportunities for everyone and the success of one person does not mean the failure of another.
Seek first to understand, then seek to be understood.
This is a favorite quote of ours and one of our core mottos. This habit implies another paradigm shift: we are quick to make assumptions about a situation, which can often be wrong. Learning to listen and understand others from their point of view, taking into account their interests and motivations without any preconceived assumptions can aide in truly understanding your friends, colleagues, customers and family. Sometimes you need to agree to disagree, but you must do this from a place of understanding and compassion instead of anger or mistrust.
Synergy represents the relationship between each of the parts with the whole, where the total result is always greater than the sum of the parts. Building up this habit involves teamwork, mutual trust and can generate creativity and innovation. If you want to be the best, surround yourself with the best.
Sharpen the saw: commit to self-renewal and self improvement in each of life’s areas through the rekindling of knowledge, skills and aptitudes.
Sharpening the saw means that if we only use it without sharpening it, surely the time will come when it can not cut any more. The blade becomes dull as do we when we don’t invest in ourselves. This is related to one of Joseph Pilates’ philosophies regarding the balance between work, rest and play. We need to maintain balance in our lives and as much time and energy as a new business needs. It is important to take care of yourself by getting rest when you can and some sort of recreation or play.
Are you still thinking about opening your own studio? Start by changing some of your habits!
As a society, our daily practice of emailing, texting and small-talk requires us to make room for focused intention and study of how we communicate as movement instructors. As health care professionals we are tasked with speaking with very diverse clients concerning intimate subjects, their bodies.
Polestar’s communication model is based on neuro-linguistics, and we are fortunate to work with two physical therapists who are also NLP practitioners, Alastair Greetham in London and Dr. Helen Masin in Miami. We recently invited Dr. Masin to discuss how best to connect to your clients through meaningful communication during our monthly webinar series, Pilates Hour.
Naturally, you modulate your speech differently when speaking with friends versus colleagues in the workplace. Reflect on the last time you visited your doctor. Whether a good or bad exchange, think of the language your doctor used to understand your reason for visiting. What, besides language, did he use to connect with you? Do you feel like he listened to you?
Connections require that you build rapport with your client, ensuring a smooth, respectful conversation. Certain non-verbal forms of communication are best utilized here. Posture, tonality, speed, pacing, and use of silence help establish a relationship with the client. Let the client know that a nonjudgmental, patient audience is hearing them. This then lays a better foundation for two-way communication. If a patient tells you he is having “trouble with back pain,” you may want to use that same language when you confirm what they said: “so you’re here because you have trouble with back pain?”. Allow them to go deeper in detail with how they are experiencing it. Ask for clarification when you need to.
“listen with three ears”
Dr. Masin says to “listen with three ears” when you are with a client. This skill, active listening, calls for attention not only to what is being said, but also to what is not. The inflection in someone’s voice, their gestures while speaking, and their manner of speaking all factor into building rapport. If your client is soft spoken, it may help ease them to adjust your volume to theirs. If they are sitting, you should sit. By empathizing with the client in this manner, you are also showing the client that you understand their ailment as they experience it.
Creating a meaningful connection with someone could be tricky depending on his or her background, which is why active listening and rapport building is crucial to effective communication.
Another way to ensure rapport is understanding cultural diversity. This runs the gambit from ethnicity, to sexual orientation, to religious beliefs, and so forth. Above all, avoid assumptions! The simplest way to assure you’re addressing your client appropriately is with an introduction. You can play with what you say so long as you provide them the space to answer and then to confide in you.
Remember not to negate what your patients say, listen and build rapport with them. Done correctly, these methods help break down some of the walls people instinctively place between each other. You may make mistakes, but you will get better at it with practice.
Have you tuned in to Pilates Hour yet? Be sure to bookmark this page to stay up to date for the next webinar to gain more insights on professional development, research, and much more.
A great class starts with identifying goals. What message do we wish to convey to a group or an individual that will be under our guidance for at least an hour at a time? As movement instructors, whether we are teaching yoga, Pilates, dance, GYROTONIC®, etc. a critical part of delivering a memorable experience is identifying the needs and wants of our students. So the question becomes: How do we identify goals for an individual or a group class that are both aligned with our experience as professionals and the students’ desires?
As teachers, we tend to spend a lot time developing our technique and performance skills through dedicated practicing of the craft we share with others, namely, meditation, Pilates, yoga, etc. While this commitment is extremely important, as I am a firm believer in ‘walking the talk,’ it should not be our only focus. Through deep introspection during our practice hours we are able to develop the capacity to empathize with others as we can reference what our minds, bodies and spirits feel like during different movements and at different times in our lives. Without also developing assessment skills it becomes very challenging to prescribe movement in a way that will speak to an individual’s needs. Assessment affects decisions about sequencing, verbal and tactile cueing, breath patterns and how to evolve the practice. Assessment inspire us to ask these hard questions: “Are we teaching what we think we are teaching?” “Are students learning what we set out to teach?” “Is there a better way to guide the practice, thereby promoting better learning?”
Many times what our students would like to focus on and work towards is not necessarily what we as movement professionals think should be their area of focus. If we simply dictate what we think they should be working on, rather than first listening to what their desires are, we are conveying a message of disinterest and many times students feel as if they are not being listened to. So how do we balance out the fact that many times individuals show up to a yoga class because they heard it will make their legs and triceps look great, while what the instructor thinks is important is alignment and breath? If a student says, ‘I want my arms to look like yours,’ and my response is, ‘well how about some rounds of diaphragmatic breathing?’ they probably won’t come back for another session. Cultivating the ability to quickly assess a group or an individual, coupled with years of self-practice, give us the ability to meet people where they are with integrity. I would never spend 60 minutes working on someone’s legs or triceps, as it is not functional nor in accordance with my personal values, but I could choose a couple of poses or exercises that quickly fatigue these areas while comprehensively moving someone through a holistic practice of coordinating the mind, body and spirit, which is exactly what these modalities I’ve listed above all share as a common goal.
At this year’s Pilates Method Alliance conference we performed Polestar’s Postural Assessment on many of the conference delegates and were reminded of how important critical thinking and analytical skills are for what we do as instructors. Assessment is an essential part of instruction, as it determines whether or not the goals of a program are being met. While this is something I do as a Polestar Educator all of the time, performing parts of the assessment at the conference with colleagues was really different! Having the opportunity to witness their ‘aha’ moments after just some minor feedback and adjustments was refreshing and reinforced what I already knew intuitively. The more we develop our capacity of observation and active listening, the better we are able to communicate in a simple way that promotes deep change in others and ourselves.
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I had been working in technology sales for more than ten years and was getting very bored. My current position was winding down and I hadn’t started looking for anything else. At the same time, I was seeing a career psychologist to help determine what I should do next. Just the same it never dawned on me to leave the corporate world. Then, a personality profile that I had completed with the psychologist showed that I would make a good teacher. Of course, I thought. You don’t work in technology sales without being able to teach clients why the new expensive tech solution is something they need when none of their competitors are spending money on it. But, did that mean I could teach people why Pilates could help them stay strong and flexible while enhancing their ability to do just about any other activity they were interested in doing?
Weeks passed and I kept going to my two private Pilates sessions every week. My instructor brought it up again. I questioned her about why she thought I would be good. It turned out she was seeing the same things that the personality profile showed. I started to connect the dots and thought this might be something to consider. I did a little research into different teacher training programs and quickly decided that if I was going to do this I wanted to be comprehensively trained from a school that qualified for PMA certification. I wanted to make sure that I was well qualified to teach; I was going to do this right.
Even though I live in Philadelphia, a major metropolitan area, there were not many options. I had long believed in the therapeutic healing properties of Pilates. It made sense to me that a school founded by a physical therapist would take a scientific approach to Pilates. My logical mind liked that. This led me to Polestar. It was also the school that my teacher had been trained by. I considered other schools and really wanted to find an option that would not require a hotel or long drive. In the end, I chose Polestar and took the training in Burlington, VT. It was a long drive, but it was also where my husband grew up and his parents still lived there. In the end, I did have a long drive, but I would not have a to stay in a hotel.
The training was intense. I was surprised by how much there was to learn. After all, I had been doing Pilates for 8 years. I thought for sure I knew how to do the exercises. Turns out it takes a lot more than knowing the exercises to be a Pilates Instructor. In addition to learning how to cue and formulate a workout, Polestar takes the time to make sure you understand why you are doing what you are doing not just how to do it. A lot of time is spent prompting the student to think through their decision-making process to ensure that when they graduate they can work with people in an effective manner that helps them reach their fitness goals.
The educators and mentors truly care about the students in a way that makes you feel like family. As I planned my Pilates career and determined that I wanted to open a studio I knew that I also wanted to work with Polestar to bring Comprehensive Teacher Training to the Philadelphia area. In the fall of 2017 it became a reality. Now I am the instructor asking my clients to consider becoming Pilates teachers.
Surprisingly I have not missed the corporate world. It used to be that every couple of years I would get bored with my job and start looking for something new or different. Now, I truly believe that I have found what I was meant to do. Several years have passed and rather than becoming bored, I have become more obsessed and engaged with Pilates and the Pilates community.
Visit our Course offerings to explore how you can become a Pilates instructor!
