Pilates Intel Online Newsletter for the Pilates Teaching Community

Vagal health – Toning and tuning the vagus can not only prime the body, but the nervous system for physical, mental, and emotional challenges.

Sensory organ integration and body awareness: Our objective is to learn how to initiate movement from the sense organs, engage them in the process of movement, cueing to the sense organs as well as the viscera to better connect a student’s inner and outer experience. By moving from the sense organs, we give the body an opportunity to expand its movement potential as well as develop greater exteroceptive and interoceptive awareness.

Integrative movement priming, patterning, and exploration: Integrative movement allows us to promote the interrelationship between the parts of the body but more importantly between the tissues of the body. By teaching and promoting an integrative movement discipline we bring our students closer to their biointelligence and a physical and psychological harmony despite areas of weakness, injury, dis-ease and discomfort.

Somatic inquiry + body awareness – Taking time to develop a deeper inner awareness can further tune the vagus nerve but also stimulate a more subtle ability to respond to sensation and differentiate pain.

Key Teaching Strategies

Facilitation: Facilitation allows us to move beyond the early stages of motor skill development, where training is key and the priority is on establishing a consistent set of movement strategies and agreed-on language.

Somatic Inquiry: Somatic inquiry supports movement facilitation and is foundational in developing a student’s ability to listen to their body. It gives rise to trusting that the body knows what to do and what it needs in any given situation — the body’s inner wisdom.

Open Questions + Reframing: Open questions are based on the change model Motivational Interviewing and help create an environment of curiosity that allow students to discover for themselves what the “right” or best answers are to the movement challenges they experience. Open questions that require anything but yes or no answers.

We can move through the strategies one by one and determine what might need to happen first to nudge a student into a deeper sense of self-efficacy, motor skill development, and overall competency. I’ve created a detailed prioritization checklist (link here) that I’ll use as a template to explore skill acquisition and whole-person integration applying IMF principles to a classical exercise – Saw. The following exercise breakdown will make better sense if you take a little time to explore the checklist first.

Exploring the ‘Saw’ – Using the IMF Framework

Common challenges: Students don’t like this exercise, in general, because it highlights the most common limitations in our modern bodies: tight low backs and tight hamstrings, a lack of rotation and hip mobility. Given this, we often hear groaning, see eye-rolling, and feel a lack of investment. If this isn’t the case, if students are mentally engaged and willing, the fact remains that the exercise itself can be elusive and challenging, which dampens motivation and incites frustration.

Priorities to address:

• Addressing mental/emotional resistance, which manifests both in a tense body and an unoptimized brain, by toning the vagus nerve

  • Possible tools to apply:

    • Vagal toning + tuning – Begin your session standing (or you can incorporate right before saw), engage in a revitalizing breath practice, heel bounces to stimulate facial hydration, rocking and bouncing to heighten proprioception, interoception + exteroception. Incorporate lateral stretches and rotation right away. Incorporate movement of the eyes, stretching ROM and initiate movement from the eyes.

      • Box breathing – In for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4

    • Inquiry – With eyes closed (still standing or lying down), inquire into areas of strength, flexibility, and openness in the body. Ask the question: how can you make saw easier today? What would you do to make it feel better?

• Priming the body via release work to hydrate the facia, increase proprioception, and improve mobility

  • Possible tools to apply:

    • Sacral release – Lie down with a soft, medium-sized ball under the sacrum (orange Franklin balls work well). Roll right to left across the sacrum, rock right and left shifting weight into each hip (rotation), arch and curl.

    • Side-lying arm circles – Lying on one side, knees at 90 degrees, arms stacked and extended directly in front of you. Circle the top arm up and around allowing the whole body to respond and move. Keep some part of the hand on the ground as you circle. If you can’t do that, immediately reverse the direction. Repeat 4-5 times and reverse directions before going to the other side.