We are all cheaters sometimes…

Often times when I correct a client on a particular exercise they will respond afterwards with a, “Ooooh, so I was cheating…”   I don’t really love the word cheating when it comes to movement because I feel like it’s such a negative word.

I really believe that wherever you are in your body you are trying to do the best you can at any given moment and it is absurd to think that you could or would do something perfectly right away or even after lots of practice. Many times it takes a combination of understanding the exercise’s choreography, knowing the goals of the exercise, maybe seeing what the exercise should look like, and lots of lots of practice before you figure out how to do it and how it should feel in your body. Even then there is always a better version you can do.

That all being said the answer is YES you were cheating. We don’t do it on purpose, but if there is an easier way to do something of course that’s what we naturally do first. If there’s a version that doesn’t require as much concentration, control, or work that’s what we do because that’s human nature.

The beautiful thing about your Pilates practice is that once you figure something out, once you know what you are trying to do and once your body has figured out how to do it- you’ll know if you are cheating yourself!! Once you have that “aha” moment where something clicks and you practice it…and it becomes part of how you move. It makes it really hard to go back to the place where you were “cheating”.

For anyone who has practiced Pilates you probably already know about these “aha moments” in your body. Usually these moments are accompanied by some conversations with yourself or your instructor that go like this, “Why is this exercise harder than when I used to do it? I really I am trying my best but it seems to just keeping getting more difficult! Shouldn’t it be getting easier?”

Nope….when you learn how to “fix your cheating” you learn to work deeper, with more control and more precision and it always seems like more effort even though for those watching you….it looks easy, controlled and graceful!!

So don’t feel bad about “cheating” in your Pilates practice! When your instructor helps you figure out how to do an exercise better be excited! It is all part of the learning process! Every time your instructor catches you cheating is another opportunity for you to practice at a deeper level.