49 W. 27th St. Mezzanine B, New York City 212-904-1399 www.movementsafoot.com

Taught and Mentored by Marie-José Blom


Early bird Discount  for 3 workshops  $2160 by May 31, 2012.
Please call for this discount.

Each workshop  $850  See early bird discount dates for each workshop 5%  807.50

• 
This course is a three module study of skill enhancing specialty education designed for the already practicing Pilates Professional or Movement Educator.
• Elevate the content of your repertory knowledge into a body of excellence and expertise. The Pilates Leadership Introspective series turns your teaching into the art that transforms your clientele. This series will help you meet the demands of the current market with professional confidence. This higher education covers the depth and details of movement biomechanics intrinsic to the Pilates repertoire.  They integrate the biomechanical blueprint of the exercises through an anatomical theme per module.

Objectives

• The implementation of a directive and corrective hands-on approach with real time teaching. This instills renewed confidence with refreshed knowledge in Pilates teaching and movement practice.
• Learn to integrate these skills with the Pilates movement technique while deepening the whole body experience with a corrective, restorative effect.
• To integrate the protocols and biomechanics with the use of the Pilates equipment, including newly designed modifications and therapeutic approaches.

• 
Pilates Leadership Introspective, Part 1: 
A Pilates repertoire study of technique, themed ‘From Foot to Core’.
  Date:    June 22-24
Time:     9:00 – 5:00 daily
  Location: Pilates Core Center and Dragonfly Yoga
        Studio:  856.985.0900
        www.pilatescorecenter.com
  *Please call if you would like to be part of carpool and motel room
• Pilates Leadership Introspective, Part 2: 
A Pilates repertoire study of technique, themed ‘Pelvic & Spine Works’.
  Date:    September 21-23
Time:     9:00 – 5:00 daily
Location: Movements Afoot Pilates Studio
  Early bird discount August 30, 2012 5% off 807.50
       
  
• Pilates Leadership Introspective, Part 3: 
A Pilates repertoire study of technique, themed ‘Integrated Principals of Upper Core & Shoulder Girdle’.
  Date:    December 7-9 2012
Time:     9:00 – 5:00 daily
Location: Movements Afoot Pilates Studio
  Early bird discount November 1, 2012 5% off 807.50

Who Should Attend This Series?


This Pilates Leadership Introspective Series is designed to take movement professionals to the next level through the latest concepts collected during my travels, collaborations and studies.

• Pilates Professionals with 1-3 years teaching experience.
• ATCs, OTRs & COTAs, PTs, PT Assistants, DCs
•  Strength & Conditioning Professionals, and other medical professionals with a Pilates background or Pilates Therapy practice.
• All movement educators with a Pilates background or Pilates Therapy practice.

Can you see how the Transverse Abdominus can be like your own internal Spanx?

Feeling these abs will never be like the feeling of crunches.  You need to use breath and a new awareness how to engage this.  This needs to be underlying with Pilates Exercises.

This is from a new app.  Visible Body.  It is an incredible educational tool.

Read this book especially if you are a teacher or client w. back issues.

You might know of Blandine’s other book,  Anatomy of Movement.  This is a brilliant book that finally addresses the poor training of abs and the possible effects of this training.  The “crunch” is poor use of the abs especially when the abs are used incorrectly and is compressing the disks.  A lot of clients know how to harden the abs and destroy the length of the spine.  Here is a book that addresses the whys and hows to correct training.

Great points of the book

• Alternately stretch and strengthen abs
• Coordinate w. breath
• Risks to the pelvic floor, disks and wall

Smile and notice how the muscles of your face activate.  

Now place your hands on your lower abs and smile your lower abs.  

Feel the abs contract wide against your pelvis.  

Feel how you created your own internal spanx.

Pilates is more than abdominal workout.  It is about connection of the entire body.  When the lower and/or upper body works in harmony with your torso, you create better alignment, strength, balance of tone and mobility with your entire body.

Newcomers to Pilates sometimes get stuck on the idea that a hard muscle is a functional muscle.  A lot of people are hardening their muscles that is destroying correct movement of the body.

As you advance in your practice, Pilates repertory has more sequencing of movement and level changes.  This teaches you to have dynamic stabilization of your body.

How Yoga Can Wreck your Body in New York Times

There is a wonderful article this week in the New York Times about yoga.  There is also a bigger issue to address.

 A lot of students think pushing hard to almost an injury is a hard workout.

Many new students trying Pilates for the first time complain about being not hard enough.  The majority lack awareness and deep internal connections of how to stabilize.  If you are doing legs in straps or leg springs with no center control,  you can be pushing from your back.  Rudoph Laban had a wonderful concept of Stability/Mobility.  To mobilize a part of your body, you need to stabilize somewhere to facilitate any simple movement.

When you are weak and you increase the load, a lot of times you will initiate your poor habits to do the exercise.  When I do leg springs with a quiet spine, it targets the legs.  I have had many clients complain that their back hurts in legs springs.  One has to look at their form and retrain how they perform the movements.

The majority of new clients coming in, have no clear idea of how to stabilize the torso.  When you find it,  it has a lot of lightness.  They are very much into the more superficial mucles of the torso and body.

More does not equal more.  Awareness, concentration and precision in form is key to any fitness routine.  This is the “MORE”

The plank pose is one of the best exercises for core.  Why?  It is a full body action that requires coordination of the limbs with the torso.  When your form is good, you maximize your use of the core.  It also requires the body knowledge of how to use your legs to be in hip extension, your torso in neutral and great hand-scapula connection.  If any of these patterns are off, it could create shoulder/hand and/or back problems.

How Planking Became the Internet’s Latest Bored Game

Facebook’s Plank Craze

Through my studies with Eric Franklin, Irene Dowd and Amy Matthews,  I have come up with a podcast of simple ways to exercise your feet.

By changing your foot fitness will change how you stand and how you use your core.  In my DancingMindBody class on Friday mornings, I start with rolling the feet on the Franklin Balls and some kind of foot exercise.  It is amazing to observe how the tone of the abdominals improves after this foot warmup.  We haven’t even done an abdominal exercise!

From Google's Body Browser

Work IN vs. Workout

There were so many gems from the workshop with Marie-Jose Blom.

To get to the deep stabilizers, you need to concentrate on working slower to turn on the correct muscles.  Our large global muscles are like rock and roll.  Lots of power and pizzazzz.

The “Work IN” invites the deep stabilizers to facilitate movement without compression.  Many injuries are happening when overtraining prevents the body from moving well.

Try walking with bracing your torso in a crunch.  How does it affect your legs?

Now imagine a gentle corset like the new Spanx.  You should walk and dance with freedom.

From Google's Body Browser

Marie-Jose brought in newer info about the abdominals.  It really made me rethink how I was cueing and thinking of them.

Muscles have different qualities of tone; fast and slow twitch.  Another way to think about them as global and local.  Marie-Jose’s image for these kinds of muscles is of a light switch.  Your superficial muscles are like the light switch that you turn on and off.  The local muscles are your deep stabilizers that are like dimmers.

We need to turn the dimmers on slowly before adding the big lights switching on or off.

The transverse abdominus  is a corset especially the old fashion where you tie in back.  The fibers do not have the same contration as other muscles.  Widening the transverse to the back will flatten the front and give support for the spine.

• Widen the transverse
• In towards the spine
• Up with the pelvic floor

This is the wiup (whup).  This is a quick nickname that I came up with.  It has been amazing to bring this imagery into my session with students.   It made such a positive change!!