Image courtesy of Pilates Anytime
Issue #454
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Jean TEASER Process
by Ruth Alpert
The backstory:
Jean was a client for several years at Simpatico, a pilates studio in Santa Barbara, CA. She lives in a retirement community one mile away. When I first moved to Santa Barbara and started teaching at the studio, I subbed some privates for her regular teacher, (and studio owner) Mindy Horwitz, and then we shared her for a year or so. When the pandemic shut down happened we all discovered zoom, and after the studio reopened, Jean chose to stay on zoom instead of coming back in person. I teach her on Mondays, and Mindy has her on Thursdays. It works out well. She was willing to purchase some tools, and now has a soft gym overball, a theraband, a soft foam roller, 2 and 3 lb. weights, a round Disc ‘O’ Sit Balance Disc (what OPTP calls it). It’s amazing how much one can do with just a few tools and floor space!
Jean has two daughters who are athletic; she goes to LA to visit with them and sometimes they travel together. Jean just turned 85, and her recent goal is to do Teaser, so she can show off to her daughters.
Hmmm… how to build her up to it… safely?
The process
Teaser requirements: open and connected hamstrings, deep (“bikini level” ie, transversus) ab control, articulate hip sockets, soft hip grippers…and everything else, of course! It’s Pilates, after all!
We always start with a warmup, basically Eve Gentry fundamentals, as that is my lineage. Tail curls, knee sways, knees to chest rocking/massaging lumbar area, elbow circles, angel wings into full circles or side lying “feel good” arm circles; upper body curls or arch/curl on the roller with head resting in hands (preferred, to target the movement to rib cage/thoracic spine so abs truly do the work and not just head/neck). If her neck feels especially tight, we do the beginning section of my Foam Roller class, lying vertically on the roller for specific arm exercises.
Ruth Alpert has an extensive background of professional training in New York City in classical ballet, beginning with George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in 1960; modern dance, starting in 1956, including early training at Juilliard and eight
years of Merce Cunningham technique. Ruth graduated from Bard College with a BA in dance in 1973 and has done graduate work at the California Institute of the Arts. She was certified as a practitioner of The Trager ® Approach in 1987, certified in Pilates in 1993, certified in GYROTONIC® Method in 2002, and graduated as an Alexander Technique teacher in 2007.
Ruth has performed with modern and post-modern choreographers. She was an original member of Douglas Dunn & Dancers Company in New York City and while in Austin was a guest with the Deborah Hay Dance Company. Ruth has been Appalachian flatfoot dancing for 42 years. She has taught workshops, danced with Old-Timey string bands, busked (street performed) in various cities in at least 6 states. She currently does foot percussion as a member of The Honeysuckle Possums, a local Santa Barbara all female Americana band.
In 1977, Ruth began to look for a solution to the chronic pain and injury that seemed to be part of a dancer’s life. She began to work with Susan Klein, and studied Release Work (Lulu Sweigard lineage) and the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen of The School for Body-Mind Centering. She was a student of Emilie Conrad’s “Continuum” work for over 8 years. Ruth was trained in pilates by Michele Larsson in 1992, and has been an Associate of Core Dynamics Pilates Teacher Training since 1998.
www.RuthAlpert.com