The Independent Workout
In the modern Pilates culture, group classes are often tailored to the level of the student to ensure safety. The instructor leads all participants through the same series of exercises.
Yet several reliable accounts of studio culture in Joe Pilates’ NYC studio tell a different story.
Both Jay Grimes and John Steel, author of the Pilates memoir Caged Lion, describe an environment where all students work independently on their exercises. They work out in a community together, however, they lead themselves through their workout with the supervision and occasional assistance of the teacher.
What’s changed?
Is it important to know how to do your exercises?
What can you learn from looking back at the way that the Pilates Method was originally taught?
Mind-Body Exercise
There are countless queries on Google concerning “mind-body exercise.”
What is it?
How can I do more of it?
What it is helping?
Will it stave off dementia?
This same “mind-body exercise” phrase is thrown around the Pilates world with wild abandon.
With good reason, right?
But what does it mean?
And does the Pilates Method provide this “mind-body” ingredient?
If so, why so?
If not, why not?
Even Google’s answers kinda let me down and didn’t really spell it out in plain talk.
A Beautiful Mind
Romana Kryzanowska, one of Joe Pilates’ proteges, spoke about the 5 parts of the mind inherent in your Pilates workout:
Pilates is “Intelligence guided by the will using memory and imagination assisted by intuition.
All this is to say that learning your exercises, remembering how, when, and where to do them, focusing your mind to concentrate for an hour on moving your body with integrity and intention has gotta pay off big time in the brain longevity department.
You have literally hundreds of moving parts to control.
Some people memorize Shakespeare’s soliloquies.
You know the order of the Reformer exercises.
Something for everyone.
So one more time:
Why bother learning your exercises?
Because then they are yours.
You own them, you know them intimately. They are old friends and familiar frenemies.
You can visit them, and use them – not just in formalized classes at your studio, but whenever you need them.
That’s what they’re for.
For YOU. Out there living in the wild.
Presumably with zest and pleasure.
And before I close out this rant…
Let’s face it: when you leave the Reformer, who cares what your Teaser looked like?
If you feel amazing, that’s what you’re after.
Nailing the Teaser, the Snake/Twist, the Star feels great, not gonna lie. The day the nastiest exercise becomes “suddenly” possible is a Pilates high!
But I also remember the 5 brisk UGLY Teasers on the Guillotine that made my body feel amazing the next day.
It’s true. Ugly Pilates can be good for you.
Eyes on the prize, My Loves.
What Happens in My Self-Directed Group Pilates Classes?
Independent workouts with everyone moving and sweating in the studio doing their own workout – just like in Joe Pilates’ original New York studio – are invigorating, effective, and empowering.
You get to decide.
No one picks at you for an hour.
You move from one exercise to the next and visit many apparatuses in the hour.
You sweat, your blood circulates and I’ll bet you probably even learn something.
Your mind is alive.
You are in charge of yourself.
When you are left “alone” with your apparatus, you’ll learn by experience. And you’ll find her to be your best and strictest teacher.
In your Pilates lessons and guided classes, you’ve cultivated an awareness of the exercises in your body.
Even if you forget the correct spring or sequence, your body will know something’s not quite familiar, and you’ll probably learn even more effectively by making a mistake.
It’s hard to make mistakes.
It feels so… wrong.
I’m talking about non-dangerous mistakes.
If you’re about to be in a self-guided class, where you’ll be working independently under your instructor’s supervision, you’ve already been deemed trustworthy to not kill yourself.
Don’t let me down on that one, K?
How Will I Know What to Do?
If you’re a Pilates teacher, you’re already making all these wonderful choices for your clients.
Treat yourself like your very favorite client:
You want them to get a great workout.
They’ll do exercises they love, as well as ones they need to do that maybe they don’t like so much.
Sometimes they need tough love too.
You’ll treat yourself the same way:
You’ll move through your workout and notice how your body feels in the exercises today.
You’ll add some exercises to help with your specific body needs
You’ll find an invigorating and fun way to end your workout.
You have the power!
If you’re a Pilates enthusiast, learning your workout makes the most of your investment.
You’ve spent time, sweat, and $$$ on Pilates lessons and now you’re ready to up your game.
The more you apply yourself to your exercises and your learning, the more the Pilates exercises will benefit you and teach you even more about your body, the apparatus, and your exercises.
Allow the Pilates method to become the Owner’s Manual for your body.
Not able to make it to class? No worries at all.
You have all the power, the practice, and the knowledge to do your own workout whenever you want.
Congratulations! You put the ‘control’ in Contrology.
Wanna get started?
Book into one of my self-guided, supervised classes and join me!
But wait…
There’s more!
The Pilates System is Alive and Well and Living All Around the World
It’s not just me.
It’s a movement.
Continue your journey on the Pilates Path with a trusted guide.
Self-Guided Online Classes Worldwide
Depending on location, some self-guided classes may be in-person as well as online. Contact the studios for more information on their specific protocols.
“If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.”
- Noor Al Amer
- Nicole Briggs
- Nancy Chin
- Daniela Escobar
- Noam Gagnon
- Carmen Lanteigne
- Nicole Martin
- Keion Moradi Means
- Karen Washburn Ness
- Jayne O’Brien
- Kati Pylkkänen
- Rebekka Schulze
- Carrie Shanafelt
You can do it!
Coming in March
More Learning Opportunities Abound
Just a few spots left in The Roll Up to Push Down to Going Up Front Workshop Event!
Book in today and join me and Nicole Martin on Saturday, March 25, 2023, for a sweaty good time on the Balanced Body Contrology Wunda Chair and Contrology Folding Mat!
Hosted by Yoga One, this one-time event is for teachers and Pilates enthusiasts.
If you’re building a home gym, the Mat and the Wunda Chair will be your best workout buddies.
We’ll put the Pilates System to the test as you’ll use Chair exercises to get better at your Mat exercises. And in true Pilates fashion, some unexpected Mat exercises can surely help you at the Wunda Chair.
Win-Win!
Find more details and register here.
Wine, Snacks and Chat to follow 🙂 See you there!
4 Responses
I absolutely love your emails!!! They are so informative and so joyful!! Thanks so much for all that you do:)
Thank you so much Linda! I so appreciate your kind words on my posts.
Thank you for reading and have a great day 🙂
xo
Andrea – not having been “raised” on independent group classes, I still find them mildly confusing and/or wildly terrifying. I needed this exact article today! I’m so glad that I got out of my own way enough to think, “Oh, Andrea Maida will surely have something about this in her blog.” And you surely do! Ahh…and having a realization as I type this that I may have some kind of – pardon the expression – performance anxiety around them, as though there is some sort of performance being judged and I don’t have the information I need to succeed in that performance. Nutty – I’m having the actor’s nightmare about independent group classes! I can do my own workouts at home just fine – but turn a camera on and I’m turning it into Something Scary. Your words above: “treat yourself like your very favorite client” – are perfect. Thanks for the great post!
Hi Julie – thank you so much for sharing your experience. Such good stuff going on here and SO happy I could help out!
I too feel that inherent “performance anxiety” about the independent workout. Or working out in public LOL
My performance anxiety manifests in moving slowly sometimes and trying to perfect the movement or “do it correctly” and that therefore I can will it into being or “succeed.” And probably in our trainings, there was judgment going on.
I still remember my first lesson with Jay Grimes – my very first teacher that didn’t talk the whole time and tell me everything to do and how to do it. In my mind I was terrified by his silence.
Do I just keep going???
He is not leading this workout I guess I will just do what I do until he says something??
I can also see in my clients when I am quiet and they would prefer chatter…
I keep thinking of being an actor and “pursuing your objective” and in independent workouts your objective it to get a good workout, take in any corrections or suggestions from the teacher and move it along.
Thank you so much for reading and for your kind words. Keep up the good work and may our Pilates paths cross IRL!