Practice What You Teach: The Power of Words

This week I did a Tower Class workout on Pilates Anytime with Pilates instructor Benjamin Degenhardt(which was amazing!) During and after the class I was reflecting a little on how much harder I worked during my workout just because of the words and imagery Benjamin used.  The exercises themselves weren’t anything new to me yet I did some of them differently just because of how he taught the exercises and the words he used.  Sometimes a cue he used would have me doing “more” or getting “more” out of that exercise than I would have been doing had I just been practicing on my own.

A cue he used a couple of times that really worked for me was to roll through the space behind your heart.  I usually think about rolling through my upper back but there was something about the heart cue that immediately gave me a sense of more movement in my spine. As a bonus, all week long I could hear his words when I was practicing on my own and it really helped me move better!

As an instructor this reminded me of how powerful our words can be in helping others find movement or create change in their body.  As a student it made me grateful for the opportunity to learn from a variety of instructors over the years. I feel like each teacher shares their own gifts and their own words and they are all important in keeping my movement practice evolving, which in turn keeps me healthy and happy!