| FINDING YOUR VOICE
By: Maria Sevilla, Master Trainer, Pilates Sports Center
PMA Nationally Certified
The Pilates Life, Spokane, WA
“Draw your navel to your spine and knit your ribs in.” How many times have we heard ourselves saying these exact words. We say them automatically without any thought to how the client responds to these cues. We say them because we have been told this is how to cue. We say them because we have heard them ourselves a hundred times.
But delivering good cues comes from experience. That experience becomes the real journey of our profession. Even though we are all drawn to Pilates for different reasons – injury, dance, doctors or friends recommendations – we all experience that same thing, that moment when something clicks and we are hooked. It is from there that we decide to teach and learn everything there is to becoming Pilates instructors. And that is where the journey begins.
Teacher training is just the tip of the iceberg. A 450 hour program may sound like a lot of time, but it really is just the beginning. There we sit as eager students, ready to learn, to suck it all in. Memorizing each exercise and its nuances. We all speak each other’s language. We all know how to draw the navel to the spine and understand what “knit your ribs in” means. It seems so perfect. Upon graduation, passing our exams, completing all of our hours, we are ready to teach or so we think. Then we realize………”I know nothing.”
How do we take all that we have learned, all that we have experienced, and become good teachers. How do we assimilate the work and help clients that know nothing about their transverse abdominals or who have never heard of the concept of neutral spine. When we say “Knit your ribs in” and the clients look at you like you are speaking a foreign language, this is when we start to find our own voice and become real pilates teachers.
So how do we do it? How do we become good teachers? There is no formula. I wish there was. Just as our clients have to learn and discover at their own pace so do we. We need to have just as much patience with ourselves as we do with them.
As a daughter of lifelong educators, I remember my father saying the year after he retired from teaching for 35 plus years that his best year of teaching was that last year. His 35th year was his best year! I think about that often when I am teaching and I remember that I still have a long way to go and that I am on my own journey as a student of Pilates and as a teacher.
Although there is no formula to becoming a great teacher, there are some tips that I give my students as they begin their journey. Some of these tips are even for those of us that have been at this for a while. Just because someone has 10+ years of experience teaching doesn’t mean that he/she is still not on their own journey and looking to improve and learn. Again, just like the body, we have to be willing to adapt, so if something doesn’t work in your teaching…modify.
1. For the first year work with Healthy bodies.
There is no need to dive into post-rehab just yet, unless you are a PT and you want to incorporate Pilates into your practice. Working with healthy bodies will be challenging enough. This is where we can start putting our knowledge in to practice. We use those cues we learned, see how they fit with our own voice, and possibly come up with some new ones. Not every body is the same and we will have to continue to modify and adjust to each new person that walks in our door. This is the biggest part of our learning post grad. It’s not just posture and movement patterns we have to learn about our clients but their personality and learning style plays a role as well, which leads me to my next tip.
2. Be willing to experiment with different programming.
Not all programs are created equal. Some clients may need more extension in their workout or more hip work or more shoulder stability exercises. From that first day they walk in the door, you will be developing and changing their program. If your first attempt doesn’t work, be willing to try something new. Remember a Roll Up can be performed from supine, standing, seated and on almost all the equipment. Sometimes the client may just need to approach an exercise from a different body position and “voila,” they get the movement in the body. How do you know when to change it up?
3. Listen.
Listen to what they are saying, not only what they tell you feels good or how they might verbally respond to an exercise, but listen to what their body is saying to you. Their bodies will start to talk to you. You just have to listen. Be open to it. The body wants to feel good and it wants to function properly. We have to learn how to be its advocate and we have to teach the client how to listen too.
4. Teach your client.
Two hours in a Pilates studio a week is not enough to make significant changes. Teach your clients the basics. Teach them how to listen to their own body, give them some exercises they can do at home. Get them involved in the process. You don’t have to teach them everything you know, just an understanding of their own movement patterns and how to better them.
5. Have Fun.
Remember, Pilates is an exercise and some of us just take it all too seriously. Clientswant to feel good and improve function but they don’t want to leave feeling lost orhopeless because they cannot perform a Teaser. Empower them and have fun in the process. Make it enjoyable even when it’s hard work.
6. Continue to Learn and be Honest.
It’s OK to say to clients you don’t know why something catches in their hip or why when they twist a certain way their back hurts. Most of us are not Doctors or Physical Therapists. We don’t always know for sure and unless we are in these professions, it’s not our job to diagnose. Continue to learn and take workshops yearly. It will keep you fresh and give you added tools to use during your teaching.
7. Respect other teachers and programs.
We are all in this together - Classical, contemporary, authentic Pilates, etc. We will gravitate to one style and feel like it’s the best and no other style or program compares, but there is a place for everything and we can all learn from each other. Collaboration is the key. When you get stumped working with a client you should have colleagues that you can turn to for a new perspective and if another teacher is more suited for that person, we should be able to refer knowing we helped our client. It’s better to continue to do Pilates than not do it at all.
8. At the end of the day we still have to feel good about what we accomplished.
There are going to be bad days. There are going to be days where we missed something important in a session, or we had a client in class doing an exercise he or she shouldn’t be doing. We will go home and we will beat ourselves up for not being the best teacher that day. Let’s not overwhelm ourselves with the “should have, could have” of our jobs. Of course, there is always something we could do better, but we need to feel that we are doing the best we can everyday and honor our own process as teachers. Just as there are bad days there are going to be days where our clients walk in and say how good they feel or how great that class was and we will go home feeling triumphant.
This is a journey. We are all finding our voice; who are we as teachers and how we want to carry on Joe’s legacy. I think the best way is to be patient with ourselves, our clients, other teachers and to learn from each other so that after 30 years of teaching we can say, “that was my best year.”
*Thank you so much to Maria Sevilla! We appreciate Maria’s passion for the work and her willingness to share her thoughts and expertise with us from a Master Trainer who is truly “sharing her voice.”
Pilates Life Studio is located in Spokane, WA. They offer a full Pilates studio, personal and group trainings as well as comprehensive Teacher Training through the Pilates Sports Center. PSC teaches a cutting-edge, contemporary approach to the method that preserves the essence of the original technique but incorporates today’s knowledge and principals.
Please visit their website at:
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