Every Saturday morning at 9 am I teach a class titled: Return to Life on the Mat. The class is a Pilates mat class that flows through the original Pilates Mat work sequence that Joseph H. Pilates created in his 1945 book titled: Return to Life. It’s probably one of my favorite classes to teach because I love how truly invigorating and empowering a Pilates Mat practice is!
It’s the only class on our schedule right now that we require instructor approval before clients take it, but you might be surprised at the prerequisites we consider as instructors before we give you our approval.
My impression of what clients think about this prerequisite is this:
- I have to be able to do all the exercises at their fullest expression (ie most challenging version).
- no chronic injuries or tightness or minor pain in your body
- I need to be super fit, strong all over and approaching my ideal body weight and size (whatever that is…)
These are NOT what I consider when I give my approval to a client. I believe we should do Pilates to return to life just like Joe talks about in his book. The very reason I do it myself is so that I can balance out my body and get rid of pesky aches and pains. I do it so that I can do all the fun physical things I want to do in my life (climb, hike, paddleboard, keep up with my kids, whatever!) If I used any of those above criteria to judge whether I was going to do my Pilates Mat practice- I would never do it!!
[tweetthis hidden_urls=”http:/pic.twitter.com/WsYNigfjPg” remove_hidden_hashtags=”true”]If a #pilates class requires approval do I have 2 be skinny and fit?[/tweetthis]
The requirements for taking this class have to do with having an established practice and being present in your body so you stay safe and continue to progress. During Return to Life we incorporate the Pilates principle of flow and keep participants moving from one exercise to the next and we don’t have the time to teach an exercise from the beginning or teach it as we would to those newer to Pilates. We will still teach the intricacies of the exercises but we probably won’t go over in detail how to do things like engage your deep abdominal muscles and other basic fundamental skills.
Here’s the things I look for when giving a client approval to take our Return to Life Mat class–
- He/She has been practicing Pilates and has a good understanding of each exercise in their body. It’s important to have a basic knowledge of each exercise so that you are not spending time wondering what to do but you can do the exercise and listen to the instructor for fine tuning..taking your practice to the next level.
- You know what your working level is and how to adjust it. You see there is a version of each Pilates Mat exercise that you can do no matter where you are in your body. As long as you know what that version is and know how to adjust it in your body you would be fine in a class setting.
- Confidence in your Pilates practice. You don’t need to be able to do the full expression of an exercise, but you need to know how to do the exercise safely in your body and you need to be confident enough that you can do your version of an exercise even if everyone else is doing something different!! You need to be confident and comfortable doing a smaller range of motion than what your neighbor is doing in class or maybe even doing something that looks completely different.
- Know how to listen to your body and adjust accordingly- again not also an easy thing to do in a group class setting if you are worried about keeping up with everyone else. Just because you have done an exercise in it’s fullest expression doesn’t mean you’ll do it that way every time you do it. If your back is feeling a little tight and achy one day you may need to adjust your entire workout and your range of motion to adjust for this.
Wondering if you’re ready to try Return to Life? Review the list above and check in with your instructor to get their feedback. We’d love to see you in class but more than anything want to make sure you are being safe in your body! Want a bird’s eye view into what Return to Life Pilates Mat Class looks like? Check out the video below where we recorded one of our classes!
I taught a Pilates Reformer class yesterday and had 2 participants…one was 26 and the other was more than 50 years older! I couldn’t help thinking as I was teaching… How amazing is that??! These two women who are clearly at very different places in their lives came in and got on their reformers and went through a whole body workout focused around the Pilates principles of breath, centering, balance and just plain good movement skills together! And in case you are wondering about the pace of class…..the 26 year old was often looking over at the older client to get a visual of what we were doing next or how to do an exercise as we flowed through a traditional reformer workout! This situation really exemplified to me one of the things I love about Pilates as a movement method…..it is accessible for ANY BODY at ANY Age, SHAPE or SIZE! 
