Teaching Pilates is Presence
We’ve begun our “2Pilates Chicks” podcast, candid conversations around teaching and Pilates. Below is our response to what emerged from our first conversation discussing what lessons we’ve learned from teaching clients that impact us both inside and outside of the studio.
As we begin our journey as Pilates teachers we often believe that our purpose is to “fix” things for our clients, that the exercise “has to” look a certain way, or that we "have to" say specific things to be the best Pilates teacher. When a Pilates client comes in we often have our own ideas of what should happen in a session, what we planned for that person, or how we want them to move. But sometimes, no matter how much we plan, we need to meet the client where they are that day, and adapt to their needs when they enter the studio. In our podcast “How Teaching Pilates affects your life outside the studio” we discussed many different aspects of teaching, one of which is just letting things go! The idea is simple, and yet a lifelong practice of learning how to let, go in the moment, adapt and adjust as needed. This is important for our clients and our teaching, and also for our lives outside the studio as well.
One thought that really stood out in the podcast for both of us was this one:
“...we have all our notes and knowledge and everything organized in our brains and all these notes...then when the person is there with us we just have to kind of let that go".
What does that mean for you in the Pilates studio as you teach? What are you letting go of in these moments? Are you able to allow yourself to let go and adapt, or do you feel the need to control every aspect of the session?
Take a moment and really look at that. How/what can we let go while teaching?
We think of teaching as discovering alongside our clients and exploring with them. If we stay stuck in our heads we will lose that opportunity of discovering and exploring in the moment. Teaching is like detective work each session. Each time that client walks into the studio we want to be able to have the freedom and presence to see where they are that day, to meet them in the space as they need, not stuck to our pre-planned ideas.
Our knowledge is there for us to pull out whenever it's needed, but we can think of that knowledge as a file folder or as a reference, but not to get stuck in as the "right" way to do something in Pilates. As teachers, we hold so much knowledge from teacher training program workshops, mentoring with a teacher that inspires us, and taking different courses that feed that knowledge in our teaching, to specifics of anatomy, Pilates repertoire, classical and contemporary exercises, modifications, and contraindications. From all this knowledge that we bring to our clients, we truly learn the most by being in the moment with our client, to see how to adapt all that knowledge specifically to their unique needs, to explore along with that person.
In the podcast, we chatted about what we can learn as teachers from clients. We don't need to be the "fixers", we are guides, helping our clients learn more about their movement, their bodies, and their needs. In order to do this, we always need to be open to what a client is feeling, and how they're expressing themselves verbally and physically. If we're focusing too much on ourselves or what we expected from the session, we can miss those moments with the client, overlooking what they're telling us.
It can be scary to close our planning files and be present in the moment. Take a breath and think about how we, as the teacher, and our clients are guiding each other to figure it all out.
We truly love this thought process, when you let go and are just in the moments of the session with your client when you don’t think about what needs to happen, should happen, or what you want to happen, and just LET GO! Guess what?
It is like a weight is lifted off and there is now freedom for you as a teacher. Freedom to explore, discover and see what is possible for this client. You will find that this client may do things that you didn’t think were possible or see coming. They may find new connections and ways to move that they didn’t before because maybe those “files” were too much information for them and they couldn’t find their own way.
Joseph Pilates said he was teaching to the body in front of him. He was guiding that body to move as freely as it could in the way it was designed to do.
In the studio, we want to guide clients, allowing them to find new connections for themselves. We have all of our file folders of knowledge there for us if needed, to reference, and to keep our client safe. We can always look at those files later and make more notes.
For the moment, in the session, we are letting go and following the journey of this individual client, guiding them and discovering things that may take them further, getting them stronger, and giving them the ability to know what their body can do and how to do it.
By Davita Paul and Hilary Opheim
www.pilateschicks.com