Let’s Bring Fun Back to Pilates … Seriously – John Garey
My mission is to provide fun, inspiring training for professionals. Less than a year ago, I launched John Garey TV – an on-line instructor resource for Pilates and fitness. I’ve taught Pilates and fitness instructors in more than 14 countries and throughout the USA over the past 20 years. I’ve met so many amazing people and I stay in touch with many of them. I still love in-person teaching, but I wanted to find a better way to connect with people around the world on a regular basis.
I really want to bring fun back to Pilates and fitness. In my opinion, the fun has “left the building” in many studios and Pilates programs around the world. When I talk about fun, I mean not only enjoyment, but a feeling of accomplishment, a sense of worth, enlightenment, grace, and flow. When these elements are present, there’s a beauty and energy that is extremely positive. So, my ultimate goal when training clients or teaching classes is to make the session fun.
When clients are having fun, they tend to work harder, they tend to want to come back and they tend to work out more often. All of these things lead to better results. And when clients achieve better results, they are joyful – it’s a circle that starts and ends with fun.
When clients are not having fun, they can mentally “check out” and typically don’t come as often (or come back at all!). All of your amazing cueing and correcting is for naught. The client is lost (and misses out on the benefits of Pilates); the class is flat; the instructor feels drained and burnt out.
Let me be clear. I’m not saying that a fun session is a “goof off” session or an easy workout or a pointless program. In order for both the instructor and the client to have fun, there are plenty of things that the instructor needs to do well.
For example, instructors need to fully understand the purpose of the exercise in order to properly teach it to the client. They should be focused on the client during the session. There should be a union between client, instructor and exercise if there is any fun to be had by anyone. Teachers need to be able to direct the client in a way that makes them want to perform better. This typically occurs with positive reinforcement. It also means cueing the most important things to build success, and not over-cueing.
Let me tell you how I learned this lesson in a very powerful way …
When I first opened my studio 15 years ago, I had a client, Lisa, who came 2-3 times per week. Early on in our training sessions, I really wanted to impress her. I was determined to make sure that her sessions were awesome. Lisa is a financial planner and is extremely bright and extremely direct. I would plan the workouts (I still do that) and then I would teach the program for that day to Lisa. As I taught her new exercises, I would begin by cueing her through one or two times, using all of the tools I had learned: Visual Imagery, Anatomical Cues, and Tactical Cues.
Once I felt that she had the basics of the movement down, I would start correcting her form. I would tell her everything she needed to do in order to perform the exercise better. After a brief period, I could tell that she was getting frustrated. It was not a fun experience for either one of us and I feared that I would lose her as a client. I really wanted every client to have an amazing experience. I was stressing out about it.
Then Lisa taught me one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned about teaching an exercise to a client. One day she had had enough of my correcting and finally said,
John, you have three. You have exactly three things that you can tell me to fix during this exercise and that’s it. I won’t fix more than three things. I will stop. So you had better choose wisely.
I laughed and said, “Deal.” And then I cued the exercise, keeping in mind that I could only give her three things to work on. Sometimes, I would cue things that were not the most important things I should have cued and when I tried to add another, she would stop me and say,
That’s four! You’ve had your three and that’s all you’re getting. Better luck next time.
It sounds harsh, but this simple rule made me such a better instructor and made our sessions so much more enjoyable.
Most importantly, we started having fun! And in Pilates, you should really only do enough repetitions to work on correcting (at most) three things. Otherwise, you’re probably doing too many reps, cueing things that aren’t connecting with your client, and basically wasting time – and that leads to no fun! Being limited to three things made me focus on figuring out the most important cues that needed to be given – that is an amazing teaching tool! To do this well, you need to know the exercises inside and out to determine the order of what to correct. So, in order to have fun, make sure you do your homework before each session.
And, fifteen years later, I’m happy to report that Lisa is still going to Pilates at least twice per week and is still having fun!
On my website, you’ll find a number of different ways to help you have more fun and to spread that fun to your clients and classes. So I hope you’ll join me on John Garey TV (www.johngareytv.com) and bring the fun back to Pilates … Seriously.
John Garey, MS, CSCS, is the creator of John Garey TV, an on-line instructor resource for fitness and Pilates programming. He is also the Program Director of John Garey Fitness and Pilates in Long Beach, California, featuring the only STOTT PILATES®-licensed training center in Los Angeles. John is a Master Instructor Trainer for Merrithew Health & Fitness, specializing in STOTT PILATES. He has starred in hundreds of Fitness and Pilates DVDs. John holds a master’s degree in Physical Education from New York University.
