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, 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 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 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

A woman called Movements Afoot the other day about movement classes. When I told her that I mainly taught Pilates Mat classes, she exclaimed that they were too hard. Pilates should be a concept of connections and the process of finding these connections. Many studios/clubs teach a repertory class with not knowing who their clients are. When I teach Pilates Mat to teachers, I try to instill in them of teaching to who is in class.

Many of the original Pilates clients were dancers. They have the flexibility to immediately do the rollover. As an ex-dancer and now in my 50’s, it takes a lot longer for me to warm-up and get to the flexibility that I once had. I can’t do rollover right away. Due to health issues and menopause, I have to work differently about my flexibility and fitness. Now put yourself in the shoes of a client new to Pilates and fitness. There are some clients with hernia disks and osteoporosis of the spine that should not be doing the traditional Pilates advanced exercises such as rollover.

One can have a very demanding Pilates mat class without all of the flexion and speed. Too many clients are not doing abdominals exercises correctly. Bulging the abdominals out and exhausting them in crunch type exercises do not necessarily train to improve posture. One of the most challenging exercises of the entire body is the pushup.

Pilates workout for Osteoporsis and Back conditions

Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

Traditional fitness people get angry at Pilates teachers saying ” You get taller” and/or “You are lengthening your muscles”. Sometimes this is how a client expresses the workout. In the Eskimo language, there are many different words describing snow and their different textures. Language has its limits in trying to explain a physical experience.

So why do Clients feel taller? Pilates works on better alignment of the joints, muscular balance and flexibility. When any of these factors are out of whack, it affects the structure. Look at an old barn falling down. Some of the structures have shifted, weaken and/or put more forces on specific places.

With our culture’s movement patterns changing, Pilates does have to adjust to this. So many people are stuck in flexion throughout their day with the computer, the car and couch potatoes. The original Pilates mat can be contraindicted for some clients. There is such a wealth of exercises to create an extremely dynamic workout without any flexion.

Lesley Powell, director of Movements Afoot

I appreciate Pilates more today than 20 years ago. My body is changing with menopause. As a dancer, I was hypermobile. My sacrum goes out of whack and my body compensates for this. Dancers typically overstretch which creates ligament laxity. Once a ligament is stretched, it will not return to its original length. That is why people with sprained ankles are proned to hurting their ankles again.

Hitting my 40’s and perimenopause, my flexibility is changing. One side feels very flexible and the other, very tight. Pilates has given me back the stability my spine needs with working on flexiblity as I strengthen. I feel balance after my Pilates workout.

Some of my other clients have problems when they overstretch without any stability training. Pilates uniquely works on stability/mobility at the same time. For the hypermobile, it creates a foundation. For the tight client, it brings the joints back to a normal range of motion.
I regularly take reformer classes at my studio. It is a beginner/intermediate class taught by Molly Wilson. Even a beginner Pilates Class is a great workout. I feel absolutely great after the class.

I still do a yoga practice. Sometimes the overstretching in a yoga class puts my muscles in spasm. I have learn to bring the Pilates principles of stability in my yoga practice.

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

POSTURE: ANOTHER TALE OF TRUE FITNESS

Wake your spinal muscles with a simple routine of ten minutes a day. This workout awakens your core muscles to help you stand up better. These exercises are meant to gently wake up your muscles for posture. Practice with ease of motion and slowly. If you feel discomfort, make smaller and slower. Do not go to pain.

What helps us to stand with good posture is a three dimensional support and strong legs.
Stand with your posture slumped. How do your muscles of your spine and legs feel? Now activate your legs by pressing your feet into the ground and sending your head upwards. Notice the difference of the tone of your muscles.

Tall tale Wakeup workout. Do 3-8 repetitions.

Count 5 to initiate the movement.

5 Counts to hold the position.

5 counts to release to original position.

Remember more does not equal more. Working with awareness is key!

by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot

Essential for good posture is proper alignment of the joints through the correct usage of muscles. When the foundations are weak, superficial muscles have to tighten to hold an unbalanced structure up. Traditional exercise tends to train the larger muscles groups. These larger muscles tend to be the superficial muscles. A superficial muscle is an anatomical term describing muscles towards the surface of the body.

The foundations are the deep muscles. These muscles are the ones closest to the bones and joints. Some are small like the back muscles: multifidus and rotator cuff muscles. Others like the transverse abdominus is like a corset around the torso.

The warm-up of our Pilates at Movements Afoot consists of connecting to the deeper muscles first before the superficial. Core support is about enhancing the spine. Core support is providing the spine, the spinal cord and the organs with the necessary space to function well.

Core support allows us to move against gravity to be upright and move. It is three-dimensional. It is the coordination of the abdominals muscles, pelvic floor, and the back muscles with the limbs. This support allows the spine to discover its own natural length with its necessary curves, protect the spinal cord and create space for all the organs to function well. When the spine is habitually compressed, it puts pressures on the disks of the vertebra, the spinal cord and nerves and all the organs from the diaphragm, digestive organs, etc.

Underlying core support always is dynamic alignment and breath support. They are a team. Sometimes a client can connect to one part of the team first before they discover the other team members. Through breath one can discover the deep muscles of the transverse abdominals.

The hollow is when the transverse abdominus engages. Being like a corset, this muscle pulls the torso contents in. Breath is one of the best ways to encourage this action. There are physical connections between the diaphragm and the transverse abdominus. The breath causes intra-abdominal pressure. This pressure is like a hydraulic system. Inhalation causes the diaphragm to move downward. This downward movement of the diaphragm can lead to relaxation of the abdominals and pelvic floor. The exhalation releases the diaphragm upward and engages the pelvic floor and transverse abdominals

THE HOLLOWING

TO START
Lie on the back with the legs bent. The hands are placed one inch below the navel on both sides.

THE BREATH PATTERN
1. Inhale into the lower ribs. Visualize the diaphragm floating downward. This downward movement is widening the lower torso with depth in the back
2. Count the duration of the exhale as the belly deflates. (Start with 8 counts. An advance breath would be to increase the count and the deflating of the belly.) Each count the belly should sink deeper towards the sacrum. This is the hollow. The belly deflates helps the diaphragm rise with the exhalation
3. Repeat two more sets

SPINAL HUGS
The multifidus are small muscles close to the spine. They are like tiny flying buttresses on each side of the vertebra. Flying buttresses are the structures that hold the walls up of the old stone churches.

Close your eyes and visualize your multifidus hugging your spine. Perform this same thought sitting on a ball.

Now try to combine the hollow with the spinal hug. This foundation should have made you taller. If your spine had shortened, superficial muscles were engaged.