Hi to Pilates Intel readers!
Brett has kindly asked me to share a little about myself, and some of my experiences working with Pilates teachers. I’d be delighted – I really enjoy working with Pilates teachers, who I have found to be dedicatedly working to improve people’s lives from a very genuine place. My working life began in Australia as a coach of volleyball and swimming, a fitness instructor, and then a physiotherapist. I left the sunny shores of Australia in 1991 for the equally pleasant climes of Hawaii where life was varied for a young professional! I took my ukulele to Parkinson’s disease patients to improve their breathing, abdominals and diaphragm mobility with singing and movement to music (more fun than breathing exercises), balanced the pelvic stress in professional hula dancers (they often struggle with sacroiliac joint dysfunction), taught would-be triathletes who swam like submarines to work with the water instead of against it, and came to specialise in chronic painful neuromusculoskeletal conditions in a very multicultural environment (it was not unusual for patients to arrive not only with the distinctive brown circles left by traditional cupping techniques, but also with magnets strapped onto themselves, and in one surprising case, emerald chips!). I had an enormous amount of professional freedom to explore movement and functional restoration from a holistic perspective, and it was a formative time for the “beautiful movement” philosophy which was to become the foundation for my subsequent work in developing JEMS.
Moving to Europe in 1996 brought new challenges and opportunities, and I have been so fortunate to meet marvelous, passionate people in a wide variety of environments, combining rehabilitation with performance. These last seventeen years have seen me working with professional dancers and musicians, high performance athletes in winter and summer sports, child development, injury prevention and chronic pain. I like balance, variety and contrast, for myself and for my clients! At one point I was teaching courses for people working with falls prevention in the elderly, learning disabilities and paediatrics, while at the same time filling the post of Head of Performance Movement for the British Olympic Association prior to the London Olympics. From one extreme to another? Not really, because the principles of beautiful, normal movement are the same for everyone – we are simply at different places on a spectrum. Thinking this way, it is great fun to open people’s eyes to their possibilities and potential!
So that is my potted history. How then does this link to Pilates teachers?
I’ve been teaching for a long time, mostly to physiotherapists or coaches. Then, through a wonderful multidimensional Pilates teacher named Andy Nice, and Suzanne Scott, the renowned UK Pilates teacher/trainer, I was asked to develop some education for Pilates teachers based on my JEMS approach. Now as you know, there is a vast variety of different training routes a Pilates teacher may take in order to qualify, but there are certain common themes that frequently emerge, and I was highly aware that some of my teachings could be seen as direct contradiction to Pilates principles. So, it would either be really interesting, or a complete disaster. How could I resist?
It was fascinating and rewarding in all ways – these teachers had an openness and hunger to explore and learn that was wonderful to work with. I found that most teachers who attended had acquired a set of concepts regarding movement control but had not been taught in a way that connected it to natural, spontaneous functional movement, and they were frustrated by this dislocation. (Bear in mind that I can only comment on those whom I have met, and the training pathways they took – some of you may have been taught in an entirely different way).
Many of them had come into Pilates because of their back injuries, but a startling proportion of these course participants had developed secondary shoulder symptoms, hence my stimulus for writing the article on the “dark side of scapular cuing”. I’ve come to call this “Pilates teacher’s shoulder”, as opposed to “yoga teacher’s” shoulder, another common presentation which arises from development of chaturanga without adequate strength and support. An alternate reality of human movement seemed to have evolved in some aspects of the profession, one where the ribs and pelvis must stay the same distance apart at all times, where the scapulae remain “back and down” regardless of the movement, where the “imprint’ is used indiscriminately even when not mechanically relevant, where rotation barely makes an appearance despite its essential role in so many functions, and where the body cannot fully access its elastic potential.
Many teachers were deeply conflicted – they used terms like flow, and spoke the language of aiming to be effortless, yet within themselves they were not achieving it. Control seemed to be the goal, rather than efficiency, with many demonstrating effort levels in excess of what should truly have been necessary for the task at hand. They believed that becoming effortless would happen when they became stronger, or that the feeling of effort was normal and expected even when simply moving a limb. Instead of controlled movement, it was constrained and contained movement. The words and understanding held in the mind were not matching the understanding in the body.
Although initially taken aback by JEMS’ slightly different approach to normal movement, they responded beautifully – once facilitated to release unconscious areas of “over control” to allow the movement impulse to flow through the body, they started to use words like “delicious” and “comfortable” where previously there was effort and even discomfort. Fascinating.
The key is in understanding functional force management (FFM). Where twenty years ago we were working on a stable “core” to support the force production of the limbs, and while there is still a certain amount of validity to this still, now we understand that force must also be allowed to flow through the body. This allows independent motion of upper to lower torso, which is critical in normal motion for many activities, and allows us to access the myofascial slings, which provide support as well as efficiency in the storage and transfer of energy.
Excessive holding in the “core” region effectively blocks flow of force, or energy. In the example of shoulder flexion (arm raising), maintaining a set position for the trunk as the arm is raised actually interferes with normal motion. When the trunk and ribs are held in a static position, the normal accompanying biomechanics of thoracic extension and segmental rotation are lost. The arm is then isolated, separated from the whole. It moves like a plastic doll’s arm, stuck onto the body but not integrated with it. The dynamic relationship of force transfer between trunk and arm is compromised, and flow, such a central principle in Pilates, is lost.
When raising an arm, not only should the scapula upwardly rotate to prevent compression of the shoulder structures, but the entire trunk should lengthen subtly on that side. This action creates a reflex action in transversus abdominis, and further facilitates stress free shoulder mechanics. However, to achieve this, you need to let go of over controlling the abdominal wall. The ribs must be allowed to open a little on that side, and for the space between iliac crest and lower ribs to expand lengthwise. This idea initially causes panic! How can we prevent inappropriate back extension, people say, if you ask us to release the abdominal wall?
The key is not in fighting the movement we don’t want, but in inviting the body in the direction that we do want. The optimal impulse of the body in raising the arm is in an axial direction, so the body lengthens and decompresses, allowing the spine to open in response to the raising arm. The abdominals are not switched off – they are simply no longer being used at a fixed length. Without the need to fight a back extension impulse, they are able to achieve a deeper, quieter activation. The result is a very organic sensation which requires minimal muscle activity for control, and allows for freedom of joint motion.
Instead of actively countering the impulse to extend the spine by pre setting the positional relationship of ribs to pelvis, we introduce to the person the sense of releasing the back and allowing it to follow the movement impulse along the floor if lying down, or towards the ceiling if sitting or standing. The movement then allows for unrestricted flow, which aligns nicely with Pilates.
There are many such examples, where current knowledge of biomechanics and motor control can support and even emphasise the work of Pilates. It would be sad to constrain the beauty of movement right out of a person through a misunderstanding of dynamic control. The purpose of control is, fundamentally to enable more effective movement, not to limit it. After all… Joseph Pilates himself was himself a proponent of functionally effective movement – a man ahead of his time.
If you’d like to know more about developing healthy, normal, functional movement, the second edition of Joanne’s popular book, Stability, Sport and Performance Movement: Practical Biomechanics and Systematic Training for Movement Efficacy and Injury Prevention is available on Amazon.com, and will appear in Swedish translation with accompanying video in spring of 2014 courtesy of SISU Idrottsbocker.
For more information on JEMS, visitwww.jemsmovement.com , Facebook atJEMSMovementART, or email us atinfo@jemsmovement.com.
Bio:
Joanne Elphinston is an innovator and educator, a performance consultant for sports and the performing arts, an international lecturer and author, and consultant physiotherapist. JEMS (Joanne Elphinston Movement Systems) is the result of twenty five years development, working with people of all ages, occupations and levels of function, and is a method for developing effortless, joyful, effective movement based on principles of biomechanics, neurology, psychology and behaviour.