In 2001, I was invited to a special meeting at my Pilates studio, Excel Pilates.
I'd been a client of the studio for about a year and they were ready to launch their Teacher Training program. I had no idea what all this had to do with me, but any excuse to hang around the Pilates studio doing whatever, I considered to be time well spent. Surely I could get better at my Pilates exercises by simply socializing with other Pilates people…
To my surprise, the handful of clients present that day were considered to be potential Pilates Teacher material.
Wait, what?
I loved Pilates but I couldn't imagine what it would take to be able to teach the stuff.
My next thought stopped me cold:
“How can I be a Pilates teacher? I can't even do the Neck Pull…”
Joseph Pilates Giveth, and Joseph Pilates Taketh Away
Oh, Neck Pull…
She's been taunting me for a while now… so if you're out there in a Pilates Mat class, no strap for your feet in sight, watching your legs flail up to the ceiling every time you start your Neck Pull, please know I feel you.
I celebrate you.
Take courage in your Roll Up, time, and diligent practice, and all will be well.
But I know that's hard to imagine when your feet fly high up to the sky.
Beware the Ides of March
And that's just one of my Neck Pull horror stories from my first years of teaching.
Don't worry I've saved the other story for later in this post.
But first, let's love on some Neck Pull:
- Pilates Mat Exercise #19: The Neck Pull – Enjoy a couple of short Neck Pull tutorials and read all about my hatred in this one…
- Desperately Seeking Neck Pull on the Mat – Discover the charms of having a strap on your studio Mat apparatus. Learn how to use Joe's order of exercises to follow his thought process. He never leaves us unprepared.
- Neck Pull REDUX: Desperately Seeking Hip Extension – Secret hip extension lurks in the unlikeliest of places, doesn't it?
These things take time…
Clearly I'm not one to leave any evidence of my Neck Pull practice…
Looks like I was really into it in 2012.
And then no sign of another Neck Pull photo until the Mat Poster in 2017.
But I don't have to tell you there was a f**kton of Neck Pull going on in 2020 – what else was there to do?
Even the photo below evokes the white solitary void that was 2020.
Well guess what, Neck Pull? It's 2021 and I am over your shit.
Why can't you be like your other mercurial friends the Roll Up and the Teaser? I know you're all the same but you feel so different (throws tantrum).
That's it.
I'm literally taking a stand.
Using the Lower Body in the Roll Up, the Teaser and the Neck Pull
The strength of standing. The power of the lower body. The Pilates exercises are a full body workout.
Yeah, yeah… What does it all mean?
Often it means there's more going on in any given exercise than you might imagine.
I'm a big fan of the strength of standing. You can use your lower body – your lower body reach if you speak 2-way stretch – to pretend you are standing on your feet.
You've got plenty of exercises to figure out how to stand on your feet. Sometimes you will be literally standing on them and other times you'll use your imagination.
Tiny Tangent: That foot thing I did in February? It's really good at teaching you to stand on your feet.
Imagination is what you'll use in 3 exercises: the Roll Up, the Neck Pull, and the Teaser.
The Roll Up
In the first two exercises, The Roll Up and the Neck Pull, the lower body is “stationary.” I'm using the quotes because the part of the body that is often lying there “doing nothing” is the part that must do the most in the exercise.
So it's not really stationary, it is ALIVE!
The Neck Pull
Now we all know that the lower body comes alive in the Teaser – those legs have to get up in the air, right?
But that inner mobilizing of the standing body may prove more elusive.
The Teaser
Consider the following photos:
Rolling up to the teaser is the epitome of the 2 way stretch.
I've been thinking about the exercises that roll us up as (1) standing on your feet plus (2) a lift of the upper body.
Standing includes the whole long line of your back standing down to your feet.
Lift encompasses everything that sits on top of the Short Box.
These are your oppositional forces.
How cavalier of me to suggest that all of this nerding out will fix your Neck Pull.
Persevere.
These forces may better your proficiency in the Roll Up and the Teaser. Or in any of their springed counterparts: Rolling Back on the Cadillac, Push Down on the Wunda Chair, The Elephant, Teaser on the Long Box, etc…
Coincidence that Neck Pull doesn't exist as an exercise on the apparatus?
No spring for you!
I've found that applying this plan to the execution of the Neck Pull has a hard time replacing my habit of how I currently do the exercise: a heave and a prayer and then time to think about what I've done rolling down to the Mat.
Give it a try and see what you think.
It's especially helpful for the Teaser on the Long Box (thanks for the springs, Joe Pilates!).
Neck Pull Horror Story #2
After completing my initial teacher training I was assigned to teach an Intermediate level Mat class at Excel Pilates. Gulp. This class of course included the dreaded Neck Pull.
What if I have to demonstrate?
This situation was unavoidable.
OMG someone may have a question.
Would I have an answer?
At the time I also had a client, perhaps 20 years my senior, who did the Neck Pull very well. She had issues with other exercises, of course, as we all do. But I would watch her do her 5-6 Neck Pulls and think “I got nothin'…look at her, DOING the exercise.”
As it turned out, an actual friend of mine was in my Mat class and struggling with the Neck Pull.
“I'm not getting it. Can I see you do it?”
Thanks, friend…
…and the sweating begins before the exercise.
That day I learned the degree to which the mind can impose its will upon the body. Who's in control here, anyway?
It was the first successful Neck Pull I had ever done.
Yes.
I know how to suck it up and get the job done.
No way was I going to choke while my class of 15 people all watched me.
#neverletthemseeyousweat
