#PracticeWhatYouTeach: Play More, Learn More, Do Something Different

I love to play with movements and exercises in my own body and I love to help others figure out how to do the same. This week I was watching a little video my friend Jenna had posted using a couple of Magic Circles and it inspired me to grab some circles and play with how I could incorporate (both of) them into a pretty traditional Pilates Mat sequence. The result of me playing was figuring out that there were so many possibilities outside of the “traditional” magic circle exercises I often used that allowed me to work deeper in exercises, get more out of certain exercises, and have fun doing it. After I played I of course wanted to share it with others…so I added what I played with into a couple of my mat classes….calling it Double Magic Circle Mat Class!

The beauty of this process of me playing and then sharing with clients is that they start to learn to play too! And by play I mean they feel comfortable not just doing the exact version I’m instructing but changing it to something that might feel better in their body, something that helps them feel the work of the exercise more or something that might challenge them more. And when you learn to play with movements you start to figure out that you have the ability in your body to make big changes to how it feels and moves(we are so much more in control of our health and bodies than we realize!).

I think as instructors sometimes when we teach the same exercises over and over and we forget to actually “teach and inspire”. We simply recite the words and instructions we know so well. {I’m completely guilty of this so I’m assuming there might be a few other teachers out there who have done this occasionally) And while there is nothing wrong with what we’re saying, it also doesn’t necessarily “teach and inspire” clients to “do something different”.

I feel like the quote,”You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect to get a different result” is so relevant in movement. As a movement teacher one of the biggest gifts you can give clients is teaching them how to “do something different” to keep progressing in their movement practice. And that doing something different doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change the exercise itself, but we can give clients a different way to experience the movement of the exercise, a new way to think about a movement or a new way to execute a movement with a prop. By teaching them to play with movements they learn to connect to their bodies more, engage more and trust themselves to makes adjustments and changes to an exercise so it suits their body.