Rosalind Gray Davis
Article Archive
“Pilates has changed,” says Nora St. John, MS, education program director for Balanced Body®.
Today, she explains, many Pilates teachers are well educated in biomechanics. “An understanding of both anatomy and the mind-body connection makes you a better teacher and certainly a better problem solver.
“In the best situation, Pilates is taught with the idea of, ‘Who is the client in front of me? What are his or her goals? How can I use this environment to help the client achieve those goals?’ I think this is a good contemporary view of Pilates.”
Pilates is a powerful tool for countering the aging process, but it must be taught and practiced safely. Here, three Pilates experts and educators share their experience and recommendations on how to work with mature clients: Lisa Graham owns Agile Monkey in Santa Cruz, California, and is a Balanced Body® faculty member; Rael Isacowitz, MA, is the founder and owner of Basi Pilates®; and PJ O’Clair owns clubXcel and Northeast Pilates, a STOTT PILATES® Licensed Training Center.
Biomechanics & Physiology
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The Graying of America is a reality. The U.S. Census projects that nearly 1 in 5 of the nation’s residents will be 65 or older by 2030 (AOA 2011). As the senior population grows, interest in maintaining and improving older adults’ quality of life with physical activity is rapidly expanding. For many, however, aging comes…
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The future of health care is becoming reality at a faster pace than any of us could have imagined. Over the next 30 years, accelerating advances in medicine and technology will allow the industry to radically recalibrate its focus toward health and wellness strategies. Fitness and wellness professionals will have front-row seats for this game-changing trend. With that in mind, IDEA Fitness Journal asked leaders in the fields of science, medicine, business and fitness to explain how the evolution of health care will affect our industry in the coming decades.
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The words organic and sustainable are increasingly important to the growing numbers of Americans who recognize the health consequences of toxic and persistent pesticides in our food supply.
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Seventy-seven-year old master teacher Lolita San Miguel believes in always putting your best foot forward. Toward that end, she teaches Pilates instructors how and why the foot can impact our overall well-being.
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It has been more than five decades since 81-year-old Pilates elder Mary Bowen began working with Joseph Pilates, and she has continued to develop and grow her own distinctive and charismatic style ever since.
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First-generation master teacher Mary Bowen is a Pilates treasure. At 81, she still shares her distinctive blend of Pilates and Jungian psychoanalysis with students as a full-time practitioner, calling her combined approach Pilates Plus Psyche.
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“Boundless energy,” “intense creativity” and “an enduring devotion to Pilates” are all phrases that Pilates professionals use in describing Lolita San Miguel. A first-generation master teacher, the 76-year-old San Miguel has taught and inspired Pilates teachers and students for more than 50 years.
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Dr. Esther Sternberg is one of the world’s leading researchers in the complex and evolving science of mind-body interaction and its affects on illness and health. As section chief of neuroendocrine immunology and behavior at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Sternberg has made discoveries that have helped answer such weighty questions as, How and why does stress affect our health, and do our surroundings have the power to heal?
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For more than 30 years, Michael King has been a passionate and perceptive ambassador for the Pilates method. Reminiscent of Billy Elliot in the acclaimed movie, King grew up in Scunthorpe, England, a Northern steel town, and was the first boy from the North Lincolnshire area to become a dancer.
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In part two of “Fix Your Feet With Pilates,” Kathryn Ross-Nash, author and Pilates teacher, affirms that Pilates is excellent for helping to correct and prevent foot problems: “I believe we need to remind our clients regularly about the importance of taking care of their feet. We need to train the feet just as we do the rest of the body.
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Healthy feet are critical to good health. Although they are the foundation of the human body, many of us give little attention to their proper care. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reports that 43.1 million people in the United States (1 in 6) have problems with their feet. Thirty-six percent regard these foot problems as serious enough to warrant medical attention (AAOS 2006).
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The anatomy of human movement and its importance to the Pilates Method is a provocative and complex topic. Many Pilates professionals have convergent views on the issue, while others have different perspectives and approaches. Rael Isacowitz, MA, founder and director of Body Arts and Science International® (BASI Pilates®), and Karen Clippinger, MSPE, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, are tackling this stimulating subject in a new book called Pilates Anatomy, scheduled for release spring 2011 (Human Kinetics).
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First-generation Pilates master teacher, Jay Grimes has well-defined opinions about the way the Pilates method should be taught and is certainly not shy about expressing them. “Teaching is the communication of knowledge and ideas and one presumes that you have that knowledge and those ideas before you begin to communicate,” he affirms. “Talking is one way to communicate about Pilates but you can also do it with a touch, a look, an expression, by using body language or with silence.
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The emerging field of epigenetics is changing scientific thinking about the way our genes work and may have profound implications for our health and the health of our children and grandchildren.
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Illustration: From Beautiful Body, Beautiful Mind: The Power of Positive Imagery by Eric Franklin. Copyright © 2007 and 2009 by Eric Franklin. Used with permission.
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Recent public concerns about food quality, safety and the environment have sparked a major trend toward eating healthier foods and have introduced
the term sustainable farming into the American lexicon. Consumers are buying more organic foods grown locally by farmers using sustainable and socially
responsible practices in an effort to preserve the earth’s precious resources.
T“The Future of Pilates,” a unique, innovative and thought-provoking panel discussion, was presented to an overflowing room of enthusiastic attendees last September at the 2008 Inner IDEA Conference, held at the La Quinta Resort & Club near Palm Springs, California.
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Proper cuing is the essence of teaching Pilates. The learned skill of communicating effectively to a client on all levels is a critical ingredient of top-notch cuing. Moira Merrithew, co-founder of STOTT PILATES® and its executive director of education, says that successful cuing has the effect of “getting [clients] to move efficiently through an exercise, so they get the most out of it. That could mean performing a movement with a specific intention quality or with the correct muscular engagement and muscle-firing patterns.
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