#PracticeWhatYouTeach: Lessons From My Son

I got to do something I love this week – Pilates with my son!  As a Pilates teacher my kids get a lot of exposure to movement and of course I’m always playing and moving with them.  As a mom of 3 and business owner I can tell you that getting one on one alone time with the kids is definitely rare and treasured and rarely does it happen at the studio!  This week the stars aligned and my son Tyler was able to come hang out at the studio with me for part of the day.  It was probably the first time that I worked with him in a more structured way than our usual play time at home or Pilates Mat class at school and it was super fun!

As a parent I get to watch Tyler move when he’s taking a Ninja Zone class, a Taekwondo class and even when I teach a Pilates Mat class at his school, but this was definitely different.  I loved being able to put him on the reformer and watch him put the pieces together to figure out how to do Footwork on the Reformer.  I loved seeing that although I only cued him a couple of times to engage his abdominal muscles, he automatically engaged them on most exercises. I loved seeing how even though it was a challenge, he worked to control equipment (ie no banging or making noise…which is asking a lot from a 10 year old boy!) and it didn’t take his body long to figure it out!  When I showed him how to do an exercise I call scooter on the Reformer he jumped on and said we could both do this at the same time (and he was right!).  After that exercise Tyler decided we should make a Parent/Kid Pilates class that he would help me design!

As he tried exercises it was fascinating to listen to him talk about how the exercises felt (be sure to watch the video of him describing jumping on the reformer!) He of course wanted to play on the Cadillac (who doesn’t?…it’s like a giant jungle gym!)  so I let him play on his own and found that he ended up doing movements with the Trapeze that were really close to traditional exercises without any cuing from me!

From a personal practice standpoint, working with Tyler reminded me of the joy of movement and exploring movement.  As I worked with him I tried not to over teach him, but just give him some basic instructions designed to keep him safe and let him figure things out on his own.  It was very cool to see how the feedback from the equipment helped him very quickly move better and more efficiently.  What a great reminder of the value in trying new things and trusting the design of the equipment and the exercises!