Pilates Intel Online Newsletter for the Pilates Teaching Community

You’ve Gotta Get Your “Joe” On! – by Amy Taylor Alpers April 18, 2018 As we all know, bodies come in many shapes and sizes and are often categorized in certain ways. In fruit metaphors such as apple-, banana-, or pear-shaped; geometric forms such as rectangles, triangles, or circles; and […]

Going Archival by Reiner Grootenhuis April 11, 2018 Becoming a Pilates teacher in today’s world often means enrolling in one of the big Pilates schools and learning, in their opinion, what they think Pilates is. As we discover from this experience, many of us find out that the Pilates described […]

Footwork: “Standing” on the reformer – by Karena Thek March 28, 2018 My clients tend to really look forward to footwork on the reformer. They’ve been working hard through the series I’ve given them for the first 15-20 minutes and they are ready for a break.  And take a break […]

A Rebuttal to James Crader’s Article By Amy Alpers “What is the Pilates method?” Most of us in the field of Pilates have tried to answer this question many times but have often fallen short. As one who has committed to a deep exploration of Joseph Pilates’ work for over 30 […]

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should By Sunni Almond March 21, 2018 In the Pilates world, there’s lots of ‘going the distance’. There are bendy people who can stretch all over the place and there are tighter folks who have no stretch whatsoever. Stretching further may look fancier […]

Fearless Swan – Is It Possible? Part 1: Fearless Extension – An Upside-Down Approach By Chantill Lopez As I discussed in my previous article (“A Question of Potential”), there’s no moment more susceptible to holding our students to a very low ceiling of potential than when we’re tackling extension. Great […]

~ From Wikipedia: Extrasensory perception, ESP, also called sixth sense, includes claimed reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. As instructors, we know that Pilates is magical. But at first, Pilates is anything but magical. In fact, some of it is just […]

Form Or Philosophy: That Old Question by James Crader Feb 21, 2018 Let’s be frank – we teach movement not magic. It’s an old (and by old I mean so old that it’s hard to believe it’s not dead yet) conversation: Is what I’m doing Pilates or not? If we […]

Red Thread of Pilates: The Mat – Study Guide By Tracy Maurstad Feb 14, 2018 There’s a mythical creature I call Nicc. Nicc is short for No Injuries, Compensations or Challenges. Nicc walks into your studio and wants to learn the traditional Pilates mat work. How and in what order […]

January 31, 2018 Brett Interviews the ‘Great’ Bob Liekens Brett: Let’s talk about your school. Please give a little history about your school and tell us how it is different from other schools. Bob: Our school is called The Pilates Standard and it is not so different from other schools. […]

Jan 24, 2018 Training a Dancer in Pilates by ‘Swami’ Doug Bentz After 49 years in professional dance (and 40 years teaching dancers in the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University), I can honestly say my entire working life has been spent either dancing or working with dancers. […]

January 17, 2018 A Question of Potential By Chantill Lopez The scene: Halfway through class, bodies warm and faces flush, you’re ready to take it up a notch, venture into an area that’s sometimes tricky to teach and often difficult for students to “find”. Swan. You’ve been practicing Rocking Swan […]

December 20, 2017 My Pilates is Better Than Your Pilates by Mike Perry It’s clear that within the Pilates teaching industry, the issue of authenticity remains at the heart of many discussions. I do my best not to interact with people I don’t know on social media these days (apologies […]

December  13, 2017 We Owe the World Our Experience by Trent McEntire, Director of McEntire Pilates Imagine getting to a busy crossroad. The light tells you that you are able to walk across safely, however the voice in your head reminds you that it’s not safe. You can’t possibly make […]

November 29, 2017 Is Pilates a spiritual path? – Part 2 by Reiner Grootenhuis  Last week, we began to examine Joseph Pilates’ claims about the Pilates method being a “complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit” but we stopped short of any final conclusion as to it being a spiritual […]

November 22, 2017 Is Pilates a spiritual path? – Part 1 by Reiner Grootenhuis   The power of the mind has fascinated me since my early youth. My first contact as a teenager was autogenic training, which I taught myself with two books I had found on our bookshelf at […]

November 15, 2017 How to Prepare a Lunge by Anna Schrefl There are many different lunge variations in the Pilates programme, on the Wundachair, Reformer, Cadillac or Mat. The lunge is a great exercise to lengthen tight muscles such as the m. iliopsoas and the m. rectus femoris. We all […]

Noveber 8, 2017 Pilates in the hospitals: Back where it all began Scolio-Pilates® works with Dayton Children’s Hospital By Karena Thek In the early phases of his work, Joseph Pilates did a lot more than provide fitness instruction and athletic training. He was on the cutting edge of rehabilitation. Physical […]

“Avoid It, If There’s Pain” Does This Pilates Maxim Do Our Clients More Harm Than Good? by Marie Wittman I am in the midst of relocating from California to Minnesota and part of this move has involved placing my clients in another trusted teacher’s hands. While I have gone through […]

October 25, 2017 What would happen if …? By Sunni Almond   What would happen if … you dropped your risers (you know, the things that stick up at the back end of your reformer that hold the ropes that attach to your handles or loops) or you did your […]

Pilates: What is ‘it’? By Gary Calderone “As Pilates teachers – because we first had to experience ‘it’ in our bodies, and now wish to transfer that knowledge to others – we recognize that the expression of ourselves now is not the same as when we started then. Since then, we have […]

Sept 27, 2017 OUT OF ORDER: Battling My Internal Pilates Police – Part 2 by Sabrina Ellen Svard OUT OF ORDER: Battling My Internal Pilates Police – Part 2 Last week, in Part 1, we learned about Sabrina’s Internal Pilates Police and left her in handcuffs.  Will she escape?  Read on […]

Sept 20, 2017 OUT OF ORDER: Battling My Internal Pilates Police – Part 1 by Sabrina Ellen Svard “Lie down on the carriage with your arches on the bar a fist distance apart. Headrest is down. Roll your shoulders back and widen your collar bones. Take a couple of breaths […]

Sept 6, 2017 I am not just a Pilates instructor; I am an Entrepreneur by Holly Furgason Walk the streets of the San Francisco Financial District for five minutes and you’ll hear people drop startup terms right and left. You’ll hear them talk about building their business from the ground […]

Hey!  She took my ball! By Jenna Zaffino August 23, 2017 It’s a moment of innocence.  You’re scrolling through posts, liking pictures of your friends, checking out the latest Pilates happenings, and catching up on the news of the world through your online community.  Then everything screeches to a violent […]

You Don’t Have to Reinvent the Wheel … If You Know How to Use It by Aubrey Johnson Aug 30 2017 If someone told you they reinvented the wheel because it didn’t do a good enough job, how would you respond?  My response would be “I’m curious…how did the wheel […]

Pullups!! – (an answer to Mike Perry ) – by Carol Robbins Aug 9, 2017 I was very interested to read Mike Perry’s recent Pilates Intel article on pullups. I have to say that I agree – not that you should have to perform a pullup or a deep squat […]

June 21 2017 Are you Motivated – by Anna Schrefl Motivation – everything changes with or without it. How easy a class can flow when we are training fully motivated; how fun it can be when our clients are enthusiastic about their workout. On the other hand, life can get very […]

June 7 2017 Isle of Man – by Jonathon Grubb I am very fortunate to live on a wonderful, scenic and peaceful island called the Isle of Man.  However, when Joseph Pilates spent 3½ years on the island from late 1915 to early 1919, he was strictly confined within the […]

May 31, 2017 CoreAlign and Human Harmony: Standing Pilates? by Jonathan Hoffman   To various degrees, Joseph Pilates has been in my mind for the last 30 years. I will never forget the first time we “met”, back in the in the mid-eighties when I was an ambitious undergraduate PT student. […]

May 24, 2017 PERSPECTIVE, PART 2:   “DEPTH OF PERCEPTION” by Amy Havens In part 1 of this article, I spoke about perspective – our points of view.  We each have our own.  Some of us share similar opinions but, at the end of the day, we individuate with our […]

Listen to the Wiggle! – by Theo St. Francis I believe we are now living in the Age of Disconnection. To address this, I think we should all wiggle more. ‘Wiggling’ sounds childish to you? That’s exactly the point. As a Pilates instructor, you understand this Disconnection-with-a-capital-D. You see the […]