Pilates for Every Body

In our increasingly demanding lives the pressure on our minds & bodies is enormous.  Mental and physical health and performance are so intricately interwoven, we cannot achieve one without the other. 

I believe that absolutely every single person deserves to feel their best and no matter whether you are an international athlete or struggling to put your own socks on, practicing Pilates provides endless benefits.

Obviously I love Pilates but I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a typical candidate for choosing to make it my career.

As a Pilates instructor you might expect me to find Pilates easy? 

Aren’t Pilates instructors blessed with excellent body awareness, movement and control? Aren’t they naturally flexible, supple, strong, balanced?

So, if I don’t fit that mould, you might well ask what on earth I am doing teaching Pilates?!

Well 3 main reasons:   

1. We all benefit from doing more of what we find difficult and I believe that those of us who are less supple, strong, balanced etc benefit from Pilates the most.
   Before I found Pilates I was a broken mess!  Slowly, through quiet consistent practice I now have a body that does more or less what I want it to, when I want it to and it doesn’t hurt! As a dressage rider, and in life generally, this is good news!  And what’s more, I’ve enjoyed and continue to enjoy surprising myself with what I can achieve. 

   I can totally understand if just the thought of trying Pilates takes you a long way from your comfort zone, I promise that however misplaced you fear you might feel, this won’t be the case.

   If you are thinking of joining a class I recommend coming for a half hour 1 to 1 session to get a feel for the basics, check that you like the look of me, that the sound of my voice doesn’t annoy the heck out of you and give me the chance to understand your specific challenges!
   

2. Personal experience of ‘learning’ makes for better teaching.
   Essentially if you have never had to ‘think’ about how you do something it’s very hard to teach someone how you do it!  (If you’re naturally talented then there is often no conscious understanding of how you achieve a movement or skill).

   However, if like me, you have had to wrestle with all sorts of ideas, try out a number of strategies, fail, try again, get frustrated, look at different ways of thinking, and take different approaches to achieve your aim it gives you a much bigger tool kit to delve into when teaching others. We are all different, we all learn differently and our bodies often respond differently.  So I see my varied experiences with my own challenges as invaluable when it comes to helping you to overcome yours.
   

3. If I can do it, you can definitely do it!
   When it comes to working with you, I absolutely know you can do it – because if I’ve done it – anyone can. I know it might take time, patience and dedication, but natural talent is definitely not essential!

   Especially if you have found yourself dealing with pain and dysfunction on a long term basis it can be pretty much impossible to imagine feeling good again. I can’t promise that you’ll be pain free but I can promise that you’ll make progress and feel better.  

   Pilates is the single biggest factor in getting me from a place of frustration, dysfunction and pain to one of confidence, fitness and balance.  I want to share the benefits that I have gained - we can all feel so much better - and it doesn’t have to be hard!

   I am all about achieving a sense of ease, through fun, mindful and individual movement, so that we can get on with enjoying whatever it is we love to the full.