Movements Afoot’s Blog
A BodyMind Think Tank – Taking fitness to the next levelArchive for pelvic floor
A Teacher’s Rut
by Lesley Powell
One of the biggest mistakes is not taking time out of your busy teaching schedule for your practice. I never consider the time teaching and demonstrating as my practice or a workout. One is not focused on one’s self. Demonstrating is usually one sided and missing the necessary warm-up and repetition to develop good muscular strength and flexibility.
I try to put aside time everyday for some kind of practice. Practice does not always mean a heavy duty workout. It is about getting in touch with my own bodymind connection. Since I have my own studio, I have the great fortune to take classes with my teachers. Even taking a basic level class helps me stay connected. A basic level class keeps the foundations in your body alive.
It is important that we as teachers stay fresh. I once had a renter who taught the same class with the same music for three years straight. It was deadly to take and the class never grew. For instance, in teaching for BBU, I go over the material for the workshop with a physical practice before teaching the weekend workshop. Even though I know the material, I want to reawaken the sensations of each exercise.
Taking with other teachers is also a way to stay fresh. It is inspiring to see how other teachers organize a session and how they cue different clients. Sometimes your studies can be in other practices such as yoga, somatics or even taking a tango or art class. It is also about training your eye, your sensations and observing how a teacher works with other clients.
Each time I do my practice, I aliven my mind/body with new sensations, images and possible ways to organize a session. Sometimes I have a problem to solve in my own body or an issue in an upcoming class or session. This leads me into finding a different organization of possible exercises/movements to do to solve a problem. Sometimes I create a theme such as the pelvic floor and how it works during a pilates mat class. Creating themes is also a way to keep your clients interested in their workout. To workout mindlessly, real change cannot happen.
So set time aside to take care of yourself!
SI Dysfunction
by Lesley Powell
“I have a training question for you. I have a client that has come to me with SI Joint problem. She is seeing a doctor who wants her to get an injection to diagnose it and at this point doesn’t know of any underlying cause for it.
I want to know what movements and exercises will be best for her. Should I work to strengthen the muscles around the SI joint? Also she is a fitness instructor who is pretty flexible & mobile in her joints. Is there anything I can do to bring some sort of stability to her ligaments/joints etc?” BBU Student
I have SI Dysfunction. I primarily got it from my dancing. Especially dancers and gymnasts are prone to this because of movements of extreme range such as splits, arabesques and attitudes can stretch the ligaments of the sacrum.
Lumbopelvic stability is essential and relieving for this condition. I have to work on this all the time. Pre-Pilates, BBU movement principles and/or Bartenieff Fundamentals(tm) are great to address this.
- Pelvic clock. Observe in 6-12 how both sides of the pelvis/sacrum is sequencing evenly on the floor. Sometimes the pelvis is rotated. The pelvic clock can educate your preferences of movement of the pelvis. Put attention to the sides not grounding as well.
- Pelvic floor, transverse abdominal & multifidus training
Thigh lift/toe taps/marching Look how they lift their legs. Many people are not gliding the thigh bone in the hip socket well. This will give the appearance of hip hiking or tightening around the femoral fold. 
Foam roll training is great for this.
It also addresses the stability of the legs. Other ideas on foam rolls- Bridging- getting the legs to do the work. Observe if the hips rise at the same time.
neutral bridging-pelvic shift forward
pelvic shift lateral-typewriter, figure 8’s, bridging with thigh lift - Sometimes mobility exercises such as full short spine are not great for my sacrum.
- Observe how they do foot work and standing. Is their weight on the outside of the foot. Training of the medial lines of the legs are also helpful.
New Forks – Moving On and Well
by Kimberly Fielding
When I think back three years ago… I can’t believe all the things I couldn’t do.
My joints were congested and so was my mind. I had no space in my body for movement and freedon, thus no space in my mind for positive thoughts and emotional well-being. My movement practice at Movements Afoot has given me space…has decongested me. I move with freedom. Confidence has filled my new space in my mind. Of course there are always times of emotional set backs, but I know staying with my Pilates practice will ground me, and keep me loving my body at any size.
I love the new Jenny Craig add. Queen Latifah, the current spokes person, emphasizes herself as being a size healthy. That losing up to 5-10% of your body weight and increasing your movement activities decreases your chance of Type 2 diabetes and other life threatening illnesses.
Even prior to my 80-100 pound weight gain I always had a negative tape playing in my head. I knew I had to finally stop the negative dialogue in my mind if only for a little while to start positive changes in my life.
I realized that moving from the inside out was giving me the chance to get to know myself. I never knew what that meant. I never knew that you could really be nice to yourself and really be your own friend…but you can.
• It is so liberating to quiet that negative voice
• to focus on my tailbone
• to actually narrow across my hip bones,
• to feel my back widen from my breath
• to feel my strong hand scapula connection as I open the reformer carriage in control front
• to finally be able to press myself up from the reformer for control back
• to execute long back stretch and twist
• to lift my leg up high while feeling my femur bone roll in the socket and keeping my hips level
• to be able to do a hand stand and a walkover again.
That is the way I have been getting to know myself. My true self. The self that I wake up with and go to sleep with, the self that is with me all the time. A self that is a size healthy and always getting healthier as healthy as I can be.
PilatesDancing – Connecting to Standing
by Lesley Powell
I have been teaching a class, PilatesDancing, for the past year. It has been amazing how many changes are happening in my students. I combined Pilates, Laban/Bartenieff and the Franklin Method to create this class.
The structure of the class consists:
- Foot training includes releasing tension, strengthening the foot and the mechanics of the foot in movement. We bring the new foot connections back to standing. As the foot become better connected and grounded, alignment and core tone changes.
- Pilates mat and floor barre includes strengthening the core three dimensionally in a dynamic movement routines on the floor. This includes challenges of balance and level changes which demand more core than doing exercises on your back.
- A standing warm up, we use a block to challenge balance and understand the importance of the standing/working leg. I also bring into principles from my training from the Franklin method and Amy Matthews, a BodyMind Centering practioner, about rhythms of bones in the leg to enhance standing and function.
- We end with an adagio. The purpose of the adagio is to practice the themes of the class that day.
Bring Your Own Beautiful Body (BYOBB)
by Kimberly Fielding, Pilates teacher at Movements Afoot
The traumatic event I went through changed my life. I gained 100 pounds. I eventually recognized things came full circle that night. I realized I had to do something about how my life was going. I felt I was somehow attracting negative things and people to me. I took stock in my life and started to cut out things and people that were abusive and toxic to me. It wasn’t easy. It was very scary. I was facing the unknown. I started to carve and shape my life my way. I commited myself to things that I Ioved to do. I found that in Pilates and in my mentors Lesley Powell and Doris Pasteurel Hall and in Movements Afoot and all the people there.
So now I am finally able to share what I found at Movements Afoot with others.
The class is called:
Bring Your Own Beautiful Body (BYOBB)
A class for body image, weight issues, overall health and self-love.
This class is for you:
- If you feel self-conscious, whether you are at work, with friends, or home alone.
- You have anxiety about the way you look or move.
- You feel everyone is watching you.
- Trying to take care of yourself.
- Trying to put yourself first.
- To exercise for your health.
- But are not doing so because underlying you don’t feel good in your skin.
Come to Movements Afoot for a free event to taste a new experience a new way to appreciate and love your body, February 28, 2008 from 6 – 7 PM. Discover the world of Pilates, and dreams of wellness and fitness and most of all self -love. For more information call Movements Afoot (212) 904-1399
This class is taught from a place of knowing and compassion.
Discover real love of your body.
Movements Afoot is offering a BYOBB free event on February 28, 2008 from 6 –7 PM by Kimberly Fielding, a senior Pilates teacher. Ongoing classes will be taught in March.
Franklin Balls for release, new alignment and tone
by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot
This is a series that I learned when I was doing the Franklin Method training. Eric Franklin’s Books
Rolling on the balls is like giving yourself a massage. Tight muscles are poorly functioning muscles. Tight muscles hold the bones in positions that are not always the design of how the body works. Getting bones to move in their normal range is another way to release tight muscles.
Pregnancy & Pilates
by Lesley Powell, Director of Movements Afoot
Our clients, who did Pilates through their pregnancy, believed it help with a more comfortable pregnancy and the childbirth. The workout should be supportive of the changes that happen to the body in pregnancy. The goals of the workout should not be progressive in making new gains in strengthen, endurance and mobility. A client should have permission from her doctor about her exercise program.
Pregnancy demands a different design of the workout. The following concepts should be intertwined through the workout:
- After 3 months, lying supine is contraindicated for long periods of time.
- It is important that the workout does not push flexibility.
- Stability training is important for the pressures of the growing baby on the spine.
- Do not overheat a pregnant client.
The weight of the growing baby in the supine position puts pressure on vessels that bring the blood supply to the baby. Possible variations for Pilates repertory.
- Footwork on the reformer, one could add a prop to have the clients half sitting (like she is in a lounge chair).
- Use of the long box to do a modified Stomach massage.
- Variations of Chest Expansion, sitting on the box or reformer, to help train the back and arms like in pulling the straps, the hundreds.
Pregnancy produces hormones that bring a new flexibility to a woman. This is preparing her body for childbirth. The pelvis needs to open to allow the head of the baby to pass through. Overstretching can affect the ligaments. This could affect the stability of the body long term. Once ligaments are overstretched, they do not return to the original length. Ligaments are not like muscles. Flexibility will return back to prior condition before the pregnancy. What is helpful is stretching the lower back due to the weight of the baby pulling the pelvis forward.
- Mermaid on the reformer or on the tower.
- Side stretches over the barrel or step barrel are wonderful.
- Cat and camel
Stability training is important. A lot of women have problems with back pain and sciatic pain. The baby puts a lot of pressure on the organs, pelvis, spine and muscles of the the hips. The psoas and the back muscles get tight with the changes in the woman’s body. Remember stability is dynamic. Alignment is changing due to the pregnancy.
- Pelvic floor training is important. It is a route to get to the transverse abdominal training.
- Training the legs to help support the spine.
- Training of the back muscles. Quadruped Exercises are great.
Ideas for training:
- Wunda Chair – leg pumps, side stretch
- Side leg springs
- Physioball
Cancer and my movement practice: Pilates and Poledancing
by Marcy Schafler, a Pilates teacher in New Jersey
In December of 2006, I had a hysterectomy and subsequently found out I had uterine cancer. As I was finishing up my treatment, a routine mammogram unfortunately led to the discovery that I had breast cancer. I went through my training at Movements Afoot to become a teacher two years ago.
Writing about how Pilates and movement have helped through my recovery is not easy. Not because I find it emotional, but because I had to think how it helped me. Then I realized that is because of Pilates that I sailed through my treatments and recovery. The only time I stopped moving was during the 6-week period after my abdominal surgery.
I also began doing pole classes about 6 weeks out from my last abdominal surgery. The pole classes keep me moving and let me feel some sensuality even through operations and treatments which seem to nullify the sexual side of women going through treatments of cancer.
One of the things that I have become perpetually working on now is my flexibility. I have found that with the surgeries causing scar tissue, radiation and menopause the need to stay flexible is what enables me to have strength.
Continually doing some type of movement has helped me with my strength both physically and mentally. And, I thank Lesley, Sue and Doris at Movements Afoot for my support and invaluable knowledge they always share.
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