[00:00:00] Welcome to Pilates Teachers' Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia, and I'll be your host. Join the conversation and the Pilates community on Instagram at @pilatesteachersmanual and visit buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts to support the show. Today's chapter starts now.

[00:00:56] Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast [00:01:00] today. We're going to be diving into the foundations of Pilates and specifically how to keep those foundations really fun, both for your clients and also for yourself as a teacher. If you teach Pilates, you will spend a lot of time, if not the majority of your time, teaching the basics of Pilates. You'll be teaching the shapes of the spine, beginner exercises, beginning concepts, breathing. You will teach that over and over again, even when you're teaching more advanced people. So much value in teaching those foundational concepts, revisiting those foundational concepts, but if you don't find a way to enjoy those foundational concepts and those real basic pieces of the Pilates puzzle, you are going to be unhappy teaching Pilates because that's what you're just going to be spending a ton of time doing. But that's no fun. So let's discuss [00:02:00] strategies for keeping those foundational flows and exercises really fresh for yourself, for your clients, and keeping it fun. 

[00:02:09] Now, maybe the basics are your bread and butter and you've never been bored teaching a day in your life. That's amazing. I hope that that is true for you. But if you ever have a hard time teaching beginners or you feel like you're phoning it in when you're doing more basic stuff, this episode is for you. I've shared a story in the past that I went through a phase in my Pilates teaching where I was convinced that because the vast majority of Pilates classes start with footwork, that everyone must be bored of doing footwork, so I had to come up with brand new, never been done before warmup exercises for class because everyone was tired of footwork. In reality, I was tired of teaching footwork and I was projecting that onto the class because I'd lost my personal connection with that [00:03:00] exercise. 

[00:03:00] If I look at where I was in my Pilates teaching trajectory, I was teaching a ton of classes, probably too many classes. I was feeling burnt out. I wasn't taking a ton of time for myself to either do Pilates or engage with the material. And so I was just feeling run down and I was very likely projecting that exhaustion onto my clients. Teaching Pilates is a career that is very rewarding and can be a ton of fun, but it's also not sunshine and rainbows every single day. Like any job, you'll have good days and bad days, days where it's easier to be your best self and days when it's harder to be your best self. So if you find yourself looking at those beginning concepts and you're just like, Oh my gosh, doesn't everyone know what neutral spine is? I'm going to share some strategies that can help you re engage with some material that you may have disengaged from for whatever reason.

[00:03:59] A really valuable [00:04:00] strategy is approaching the exercises that you have planned in your program the way someone brand new to Pilates might approach them. I'll When we're teaching Pilates, we're thinking about Pilates all day, every day for hours, every day, we're planning classes, we're programming. We breathe Pilates. We start having dreams about spring changes, all of that stuff. But for our clients, they have this wonderful, fabulous, complex, full life that just has Pilates as a tiny piece of it. For them, it's not all Pilates all the time. And Pilates is really a highlight in their day, in their week, every day, and the stuff that we do that might seem like we do it all the time, we may have clients who are doing it at most once a day, but very likely only once or twice a week.

[00:04:48] So if we approach our class the way someone who's only getting on the reformer or only getting on their mat once or twice a week might approach it. We begin to cultivate this [00:05:00] mind of the beginner where we don't have an expectation and we don't have a context so everything can feel new. Because if someone's never been on a reformer, how the reformer works like is not intuitive. It is very interesting to know, you know, what the spring tensions mean and how they can feel if you use the long loops or the short loops or the parts of the reformer, how to get down to lie on the reformer, how to do a simple exercise or something like putting a strap in your hand or on your foot. Like all of that stuff is super interesting. The shapes of the spine, the setup for each exercise, every variation you experiment with is really interesting. 

[00:05:45] So we can take time with what we've already programmed. You don't even have to change your program, but if you just add in little bits of explanation, a little bit of the why behind the what, a little bit [00:06:00] of something extra, the way you would explain it to someone who is doing it for the first time. Because again, these beginners in our classes very likely might be doing it for our first time. And I don't know, everyone learns differently, but I felt like I was getting on the reformer for the first time, like the first several dozen times that I was doing it, you know? 

[00:06:20] So adding that little bit extra, a little bit of handholding, even a little bit more explanation, not taking for granted that people know how to set up for things or why we're doing things the way we're doing them. You can take that class and just add that exposition and that can make it feel a little bit fresh, a little bit different.

[00:06:42] Another strategy can be finding little variations on what you've already programmed, whether that's changing the order in which you do things like footwork, I talked about a little bit. If you usually cue heels, arches, toes, [00:07:00] and then heels wide, external rotation, internal rotation for footwork. It could be as simple as starting in that externally rotated position for footwork or going toes, arches, heels, for whatever reason, you know, you can change it a tiny bit and that will also change how it feels.

[00:07:18] I talk about this in side lying a lot. If you cue the same exercise as side lying, whether it's sideline foot and strap or just sideline on the mat. Usually I start with clams and then I'll straighten the top leg and do sidekicks and leg lifts and all of that. If you save clams for the end, clams are going to feel very different after you've toasted out those glutes doing your sidekicks, you know what I mean? And that will make clams feel interesting for your clients. 

[00:07:45] It could be something like, again, the same class you've programmed that you were planning to teach, but adding a prop into it. How would adding a magic circle change footwork? How would adding the fit ball, those little like fitness stability balls, how would that [00:08:00] change bridging? How would it feel to incorporate hand weights into a bird dog series? You can add tiny things like a prop and it's going to be again, the same exercise, but it's going to change how it feels. And it'll be super fun for your clients and also give you as the instructor, if you're sharing that little bit of exposition, that why behind the, what it will change each exercise in a way that you can share what's going on with your clients. And that makes teaching it a little bit more fun too, in my opinion. Any little change you make to a familiar exercise will make it feel fresh. Even if they've done it a thousand times before. 

[00:08:38] I'll also say that there's no such thing as a small exercise in Pilates or really in general, I've taken yoga classes with Sho Pettaway, who was a special guest on the podcast a little bit earlier this year. And she's taught classes that I've taken that have been focusing on like such a fundamental [00:09:00] building block of yoga, but you can apply the same thing to Pilates something like stepping your right foot forward from downward facing dog into like a runner's lunge. Like just stepping your foot forward, but you can break down any movement in yoga and Pilates, make it interesting, make it harder, talk through the why behind the what, that all you're doing is stepping your right foot forward and you're sweating bullets like five minutes into class.

[00:09:28] It's also a heated class, but you know how it goes. 

[00:09:30] But there is beauty in simplicity, like hard things don't need to be hard because they're complicated. Complicated things can be hard, but so can simple things if you work through them intentionally, if you have this really cohesive thought about, you know, what we're working on, what we're working towards. 

[00:09:50] Like you can take a small thing- like what's something that we do all the time when we're teaching either reformer or mat Pilates is rolling up to seated, right? Okay. To change your [00:10:00] springs or to change body positions, we roll up to seated all the time. You can make your class a roll up masterclass. You can break it down. You can teach catapult roll ups where you're using momentum and maybe hands holding weights to help, you know, fling yourself forward. You know, we can take those props away. We can take momentum away. We can do different leg variations. 

[00:10:21] Like even now I'm getting super excited thinking about it because you can take something that people take for granted: a transition between exercises, a, you know, an exercise that just happens all the time and you can break it down in a way that makes it feel fresh, makes it feel new to the point where if a person was describing what they did in the class, like what I was talking about for Sho's class where I'm like, well, actually we were just stepping our foot forward into a runner's lunge, but can I do it without momentum? How high can I get that knee into the chest? Like what's happening in the other foot? When we get interested in those little things. Our clients will also get interested in those little [00:11:00] things too. 

[00:11:00] I also think, and I say this all the time on the podcast, but taking time for yourself to take class, to move on your own, where you aren't necessarily planning a class and you aren't on the clock, but just making time for yourself to engage with the work that you're doing. Like it's obvious that Pilates is amazing. We all love Pilates. We all became Pilates teachers because we liked Pilates, but sometimes we take less classes and we make less time for ourselves to move when it becomes our job. 

[00:11:35] So setting a boundary. Blocking out time on your schedule, making it a non negotiable that this is your time when you get to play around on the equipment and you just get to explore and find your joy in movement. That gives us a lot of inspiration and you can totally do that solo, just playing around on your own mat, or if you're in the studio on your reformer, if you have a reformer in your house, you know, just making time [00:12:00] for yourself to play, but also taking classes from other teachers who either teach at your studio.

[00:12:06] Or sometimes I've done things where I will pay for a membership to a place where I don't teach so that I'm never a teacher when I'm there. I'm never going to be asked if I can sub a class or anything. I just go there and I get to be a student. That can also be really rewarding because teachers put so much time and effort into their programming and we can benefit from the hard work of our colleagues and as they're sharing what's interesting to them, what's exciting them about certain movements, certain exercises, we can piggyback on that inspiration and then share that with our clients as well.

[00:12:44] Where I work at Club Pilates Chicago, we host team classes where one teacher will lead the class and other teachers are able to come and take the class. And it's a little bit of a conversation. You can ask questions, but you also get to do fun things that you [00:13:00] may not have thought of. And I think that that's so rewarding to have a little bit of that community aspect, so whether it's an official thing or whether it's you just getting together with other teachers on studio off hours and just playing on the equipment, that can be so fun because letting yourself be a student to other teachers will also, you know, broaden your horizon, open you up to learn more. And the more you learn, the more you can share.

[00:13:28] Something that I've been reiterating over and over is that you don't have to come up with brand new choreography, brand new exercises, never been done before things on the reformer. You can teach your bread and butter exercises with tiny little tweaks, tiny little variations, tiny little additions of a prop or changing equipment settings, that can make the class feel fresh. Where you don't have to start from scratch to build a program. You can use an [00:14:00] existing program that you have and change the lens at which you're looking through it. Whether you're focusing on breathing, whether you're focusing on shapes of the spine, whether you're focusing on one particular movement. You know, the action of pressing the ground away when you are doing a plank, like if you can find that in various other exercises and shapes, it can be the same class with this new focus. 

[00:14:22] Something that you can always focus on as well is the people who are in the room taking the class. Remembering that teaching Pilates is not about you as the teacher. Teaching Pilates is not even really about the exercises that you've programmed. It's really about the people who have come to your class on any given day and people are endlessly interesting. If you look at the people in your class, when you're cuing things, you're seeing what's landing, you're seeing what they're confused about, even if you teach the exact same class every single [00:15:00] time you teach, the people in the room will be different. They will have a different energy. They will understand different things. They'll want to go further on some places and want to dial it back in other places that you can just look at the people and let that be your program. 

[00:15:16] Now, if you're newer, you might say, Oh my gosh, that sounds horrifying. But all I mean is that if you are gearing people up to do a plank, and maybe you start with a bird dog, you start with a kneeling plank, and you're seeing what people are giving you. If everyone in the room is smashing kneeling planks out of the park, amazing. Let's take it further. So what else can we do? Well, we can lift our knees. We can do a full plank. We can do 800 million plank variations. Lift one leg, tap wide, mountain climber, mountain climber with a twist, elbow taps or shoulder taps, or walk to your forearms, walk up to your hands. Like there's so many things you can do in a plank, right? So, you look at the people in the room. Are they getting it? Amazing. Can we take it further? 

[00:15:59] If [00:16:00] you're looking at the people in the room and you're like, oh goodness, we are struggling with finding this shape. You let that inform the next exercise that you teach or the next thing that you cue. If people are sinking and their shoulder blades are pinching together and their chest is sagging towards the mat. Awesome. How can we find that pressing the ground away action, right? Could we do it with a touch cue? Awesome. You get to get involved and do some hands on adjusts if you'd like. Can we find it using other pieces of equipment? Can we push against the foot bar? Can we push into the magic circle? Can we push into the wall and find that same engagement and then take it back to that plank, right? It doesn't have to be a scary thing. The more you look at the people you're teaching, the clearer what comes next in your class will be. 

[00:16:48] And that doesn't have to be, again, super brand new, even if you love brand new things. Something that I usually suggest is to teach 80 percent things people are familiar with, [00:17:00] and then 20 percent new stuff. So even when you want to introduce a new concept, if every class you're teaching a hundred percent brand new, never been done before things, people don't have a frame of reference and you're going to have to spend a lot more time explaining versus if you teach something that is very familiar, take footwork, for example. Awesome. 

[00:17:21] We're on our heels. We're pressing the carriage out. We're having a great time. And maybe you add one twist. Your twist could be thread the needle where you're taking the leg over the foot bar. One leg over the foot bar and then into tabletop, you're doing a single leg footwork option. And you might say, Oh my gosh, I do that one all the time. So what's like one little twist you could put on it. Could you circle the leg as you do that or bicycle the leg as you do that, or point your toes, flex your foot as you do that. Like, it can be a small thing that people are familiar with and then you just added this little cherry on top.

[00:17:57] So I find that that 80 20 balance seems to [00:18:00] work for me because then people understand enough of what's going on and then I'm just adding on something at the end or maybe I'll introduce a new body position or prop or like little cluster of exercises, but I'll keep again, 80 percent very familiar with little tweaks.

[00:18:18] So the general idea here is that you're going to teach the basics a lot and so you don't get bored and your clients don't get bored, things that you can do to stay engaged are to think about what it's like to be a beginner. Like what is the hard part of the exercise when you're just getting started? Literally everything is the hard part of the exercise when you're just getting started. So how can you break it down for someone who's brand new? How can you find those little tweaks, those little changes in props and equipment settings that you can teach the same thing, but it will feel different both for you and them, and also give you some fresh stuff to talk about. How can you break down [00:19:00] especially small things? You can amplify a small thing and make it the whole class if you wanted to. That can be an inspiration. And then making time to be a student and to do Pilates and to see what interests and excites you. Let that be the guide of your class. As always, people are interesting looking at the people in your class, engaging with the people in your class, because again, people don't remember the exercises, but they do remember how you make them feel. So letting people feel seen, challenging them to take things further when they're ready, giving them options to dial it back if that's what they need. I think all of that can be so, so valuable. 

[00:19:43] Huge thank you to all my supporters on Buy Me a Coffee. You are integral to this project. You are the reason the podcast keeps podcasting. Huge shout out to our newest member, Katie. Thanks so much for joining. And I'm really excited. Again, these coffee [00:20:00] chats are a real highlight of my day and a highlight of my work. I got to have a great one with Johnny this week, which was such a blast. I really look forward to connecting with you over the next month. I hope you have a great couple of weeks. And I'll talk to you again soon.

[00:20:23] Thanks for listening to this week's chapter of Pilates Teachers' Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. Check out the podcast Instagram at @pilatesteachersmanual, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen. For more Pilates goodness, check out my other podcast, Pilates Students' Manual, available everywhere you listen to podcasts.

[00:20:46] The adventure continues. Until next time.