by Kimberly Fielding

When I think back three years ago… I can’t believe all the things I couldn’t do.
My joints were congested and so was my mind. I had no space in my body for movement and freedon, thus no space in my mind for positive thoughts and emotional well-being. My movement practice at Movements Afoot has given me space…has decongested me. I move with freedom. Confidence has filled my new space in my mind. Of course there are always times of emotional set backs, but I know staying with my Pilates practice will ground me, and keep me loving my body at any size.

I love the new Jenny Craig add. Queen Latifah, the current spokes person, emphasizes herself as being a size healthy. That losing up to 5-10% of your body weight and increasing your movement activities decreases your chance of Type 2 diabetes and other life threatening illnesses.

Even prior to my 80-100 pound weight gain I always had a negative tape playing in my head. I knew I had to finally stop the negative dialogue in my mind if only for a little while to start positive changes in my life.

I realized that moving from the inside out was giving me the chance to get to know myself. I never knew what that meant. I never knew that you could really be nice to yourself and really be your own friend…but you can.
• It is so liberating to quiet that negative voice
• to focus on my tailbone
• to actually narrow across my hip bones,
• to feel my back widen from my breath
• to feel my strong hand scapula connection as I open the reformer carriage in control front
• to finally be able to press myself up from the reformer for control back
• to execute long back stretch and twist
• to lift my leg up high while feeling my femur bone roll in the socket and keeping my hips level
• to be able to do a hand stand and a walkover again.

That is the way I have been getting to know myself. My true self. The self that I wake up with and go to sleep with, the self that is with me all the time. A self that is a size healthy and always getting healthier as healthy as I can be.

by Lesley Powell

I have been teaching a class, PilatesDancing, for the past year. It has been amazing how many changes are happening in my students. I combined Pilates, Laban/Bartenieff and the Franklin Method to create this class.

The structure of the class consists:

1. Foot training includes releasing tension, strengthening the foot and the mechanics of the foot in movement. We bring the new foot connections back to standing. As the foot become better connected and grounded, alignment and core tone changes.
2. Pilates mat and floor barre includes strengthening the core three dimensionally in a dynamic movement routines on the floor. This includes challenges of balance and level changes which demand more core than doing exercises on your back.
3. A standing warm up, we use a block to challenge balance and understand the importance of the standing/working leg. I also bring into principles from my training from the Franklin method and Amy Matthews, a BodyMind Centering practioner, about rhythms of bones in the leg to enhance standing and function.



4. We end with an adagio. The purpose of the adagio is to practice the themes of the class that day.

by Kimberly Fielding, Pilates teacher at Movements Afoot

The traumatic event I went through changed my life. I gained 100 pounds. I eventually recognized things came full circle that night. I realized I had to do something about how my life was going. I felt I was somehow attracting negative things and people to me. I took stock in my life and started to cut out things and people that were abusive and toxic to me. It wasn’t easy. It was very scary. I was facing the unknown. I started to carve and shape my life my way. I commited myself to things that I Ioved to do. I found that in Pilates and in my mentors Lesley Powell and Doris Pasteurel Hall and in Movements Afoot and all the people there.

So now I am finally able to share what I found at Movements Afoot with others.

The class is called:

Bring Your Own Beautiful Body (BYOBB)

A class for body image, weight issues, overall health and self-love.

This class is for you:

• If you feel self-conscious, whether you are at work, with friends, or home alone.
• You have anxiety about the way you look or move.
• You feel everyone is watching you.
• Trying to take care of yourself.
• Trying to put yourself first.
• To exercise for your health.
• But are not doing so because underlying you don’t feel good in your skin.

Come to Movements Afoot for a free event to taste a new experience a new way to appreciate and love your body, February 28, 2008 from 6 - 7 PM. Discover the world of Pilates, and dreams of wellness and fitness and most of all self -love. For more information call Movements Afoot (212) 904-1399

This class is taught from a place of knowing and compassion.
Discover real love of your body.

Movements Afoot is offering a BYOBB free event on February 28, 2008 from 6 –7 PM by Kimberly Fielding, a senior Pilates teacher. Ongoing classes will be taught in March.

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

Testimonials

This month I taught Balanced Body University’s Pilates Mat I-II. It was so wonderful to teach just the right amount of material for a weekend course and have the time for everyone to intellectually and physicality experience new materials. Sometimes courses are so jammed pack with information without enough time to experience the material on a physical level.

Students were really able to make changes in their own practice and practice new teaching techniques on their colleagues. They learned to problem solve teaching with the Pilates material on different bodies. When issues came up such as the spine was too tight to do a rollup, I was able to give information how to open the back and how the BBU’s movement principles can facilitate change.

We also talked about teaching. Teaching is a passion and a skill. To be a successful teacher, one has to understand how clients’ learn, how to cue well and lead different teaching situations from privates to group classes.

Dr. Martha Eddy once led a class on the nervous system and learning. We were to learn a simple hand phrase.

1. We copied her phrase
2. counted it
3. gave names/images to each movement
4. sounds to each movement
5. use tactile cues such as using the floor, wall or our bodies

Then we talked to each other which method helped us learn the phrase. Everyone had different answers! I am such a visual learner and assumed others were the same. This class really taught me to try to understand my client’s preferences for learning.

The students had to teach a 45 minute class to each other and then I was to evaluate them. How I wished someone helped me in my earlier years of teaching. How one talks, phrases their voices and organizes the class are essential ingredients to a successful class.

In the structure of Balanced Body University’s Mat courses, there is detailed information about teaching. How wonderful to go over these materials, talk about our own teaching experiences, dealing with different types of clients and how to improve teaching skills.

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

This is a series that I learned when I was doing the Franklin Method training. Eric Franklin’s Books

Rolling on the balls is like giving yourself a massage. Tight muscles are poorly functioning muscles. Tight muscles hold the bones in positions that are not always the design of how the body works. Getting bones to move in their normal range is another way to release tight muscles.

Foot Release

Pelvic floor Exercises

Psoas Release

Pelvic Tilts

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

Our clients, who did Pilates through their pregnancy, believed it help with a more comfortable pregnancy and the childbirth. The workout should be supportive of the changes that happen to the body in pregnancy. The goals of the workout should not be progressive in making new gains in strengthen, endurance and mobility. A client should have permission from her doctor about her exercise program.

Pregnancy demands a different design of the workout. The following concepts should be intertwined through the workout:

• After 3 months, lying supine is contraindicated for long periods of time.
• It is important that the workout does not push flexibility.
• Stability training is important for the pressures of the growing baby on the spine.
• Do not overheat a pregnant client.

The weight of the growing baby in the supine position puts pressure on vessels that bring the blood supply to the baby. Possible variations for Pilates repertory.

• Footwork on the reformer, one could add a prop to have the clients half sitting (like she is in a lounge chair).
• Use of the long box to do a modified Stomach massage.
• Variations of Chest Expansion, sitting on the box or reformer, to help train the back and arms like in pulling the straps, the hundreds.

Pregnancy produces hormones that bring a new flexibility to a woman. This is preparing her body for childbirth. The pelvis needs to open to allow the head of the baby to pass through. Overstretching can affect the ligaments. This could affect the stability of the body long term. Once ligaments are overstretched, they do not return to the original length. Ligaments are not like muscles. Flexibility will return back to prior condition before the pregnancy. What is helpful is stretching the lower back due to the weight of the baby pulling the pelvis forward.

• Mermaid on the reformer or on the tower.
• Side stretches over the barrel or step barrel are wonderful.
• Cat and camel

Stability training is important. A lot of women have problems with back pain and sciatic pain. The baby puts a lot of pressure on the organs, pelvis, spine and muscles of the the hips. The psoas and the back muscles get tight with the changes in the woman’s body. Remember stability is dynamic. Alignment is changing due to the pregnancy.

• Pelvic floor training is important. It is a route to get to the transverse abdominal training.
• Training the legs to help support the spine.
• Training of the back muscles. Quadruped Exercises are great.

Ideas for training:

• Wunda Chair - leg pumps, side stretch
• Side leg springs
• Physioball

Photos of other ideas

by Marcy Schafler, a Pilates teacher in New Jersey

In December of 2006, I had a hysterectomy and subsequently found out I had uterine cancer. As I was finishing up my treatment, a routine mammogram unfortunately led to the discovery that I had breast cancer. I went through my training at Movements Afoot to become a teacher two years ago.
Writing about how Pilates and movement have helped through my recovery is not easy. Not because I find it emotional, but because I had to think how it helped me. Then I realized that is because of Pilates that I sailed through my treatments and recovery. The only time I stopped moving was during the 6-week period after my abdominal surgery.
I also began doing pole classes about 6 weeks out from my last abdominal surgery. The pole classes keep me moving and let me feel some sensuality even through operations and treatments which seem to nullify the sexual side of women going through treatments of cancer.

One of the things that I have become perpetually working on now is my flexibility. I have found that with the surgeries causing scar tissue, radiation and menopause the need to stay flexible is what enables me to have strength.

Continually doing some type of movement has helped me with my strength both physically and mentally. And, I thank Lesley, Sue and Doris at Movements Afoot for my support and invaluable knowledge they always share.

by Doris Pasteleur Hall Master Pilates Teacher at Movements Afoot

When one is dealing with Breast Cancer on a personal level, I found many stages of healing.

• The first part of the healing is realizing that one has the disease and how one finds the support system that helps them.

• The next stage is dealing with the healing of chemo, radiation, medication, or combinations of the above.

• Then when all is done is the next stage of healing which I feel takes a lot longer and needs great inspiration, support.

This is where the Pilates method can be a help. If one looks at Breast Cancer in a general way, it deals with the shoulder girdle, arm and of the thoracic. Encouraging bone alignment, working with muscular imbalances, (while moving slowly in each part of the body) is something that can be placed into a session at whatever speed that the client can handle.

I do not think that Scar tissue is talked about enough. When one is cut, small or large one, this affects the fascia. Imagine a tight sweater being pulled somewhere. This displacement can over a period of time not only affect the surrounding area of the scar tissue, but move upwards or downwards into other parts of the body.

This is important to observe this with clients as they move and how they breath. The only other thing, that I would add, is the work of breath. The constriction of the pectoral girdle can affect how the diaphragm functions. So allowing the three-dimensional movement of the ribcage and thoracic spine will not only help with the shoulder girdle and humeral bone, but also help the diaphragm. Breath is also be used as a way to recoup between movements or can be used as something soothing.

Read more in PilatesStyle Newsletter

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

One of my top teachers, Doris Pasteleur Hall, had gone through many surgeries for her breast cancer. Doris is very articulate about how her body changed and the process of getting back to shape. I had a woman client with similar surgeries, to the breast and abdominals. She kept getting injured with back, hip and foot pain. I learned a lot from Doris’ experience in how to train clients with similar issues.

Scar tissue and the affects of the drugs, chemo and radiation has affects on the body’s movement. I went back to basics, retraining of the pelvic floor, multifidus and abdominals. I also worked on a gentle range of motion, but I didn’t push range. Remember, when a muscles thinks that it is going to be overstretch, it will contract to protect itself. Scar tissues brings a different quality of tone/flexibility.

Also Doris and those women, who work with a massage therapist specializing in scar tissue, made more progress in fitness and relief from discomfort.

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

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