Pilates Intel Online Newsletter for the Pilates Teaching Community

Issue #262 – Wednesday, April 17, 2019 Pilates Imperfect – To Dance Between Form and Feeling (AKA – a love letter to vulnerability and potential) By Chantill Lopez Many of you know my good friend James Crader. Sometimes I think it’s weird, and I think he does too — in […]

Issue #261 – Wednesday, April 10, 2019 How the Classical Pilates Method’s Consistent Form Can Deepen Your Teaching Skills By Amy Taylor Alpers During more than 30 years of teaching Pilates, I have often been asked “How did you see that?” by observant students and clients. I used to say, […]

March 27, 2019  Cracking the Code by Clare Dunphy-Hemani Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate Pilates as a lifestyle choice – providing an opportunity to meet ourselves in the moment and reconnect with our inner energy, life force and commitment to our well-being. And I find that difficult to […]

March 13, 2019 Just Not Good Enough by Patricia Glynn Maybe I’m just not good enough…. Maybe I don’t know enough…. Maybe I’m not teaching enough…. Maybe I should have my own studio and classes…. Maybe I am not doing enough workshops.… But I constantly came back to the first […]

Do Not Let The Chair Slam Into Your Back By Indrek Kornel February 13, 2019 Hello, My name is Indrek. Have we met before? Probably not … but if we have, when would you like to meet again? This article is a reflection on a process in my life through […]

Finding Your Own Voice By Madeline Black January 23, 2019 We invest a great deal into our life as a Pilates teacher. We spend hours, weeks and months studying and practicing Pilates. Then it takes time to synthesize the process of what was learned and embody the work before teaching […]

January 16, 2019 Are You Strong Enough Yet? By Carol Robbins When I was a Pilates teacher, I would get client referrals from doctors, PTs, chiropractors, etc., who would tell their patients they needed a stronger “fill in the blank” (usually “core”). In fact, I worked at a PT office […]

Issue #251 – Cat Pilates! Brett’s year-end greeting to subscribers. December 19, 2018 Hello! This past weekend, I decided to be a little silly by putting on my best Santa hat and introducing Pilates to our recently adopted cats, Thompson and Nancy. By the way, I can report that the […]

Issue #250 – Wednesday, December 12, 2018 My Imposter Syndrome! By Adam McAtee Truth be told, after nearly a decade of teaching Pilates, I continue to experience “Imposter Syndrome” – a pervasive perception of fraudulence, insecurity, and not being good enough despite one’s accolades and achievements. When I walk into […]

The 100 … Is there another way up the mountain? by Swami Doug Bentz December 5, 2018   So here we go, once again into the fray! Another Swami Doug “challenge” to the status quo … sorry! 😉 I realize this article might upset some people, and that is not […]

November 28, 2018 Pilates and Plants! The Power of Air-Cleansing by Reiner Grootenhuis Does every Pilates studio need air-cleansing plants?  The simple answer to this question is yes, a thousand times yes. Let me give you a bit of a background story. I do not have a green thumb, even […]

Nov 14, 2018 Finding My Breath by Pat Guyton “Breathing is the first act of life and the last. Our very life depends on it. Since we cannot live without breathing, it is tragically deplorable to contemplate the millions and millions who have never mastered the art of correct breathing.” […]

October 31, 2018 Self Care – It All Start with You By Gail Giovanniello Self-care is often moved to the back burner when you lead a hectic lifestyle that creates the demand to never stop and to do it all! Without time to unwind, rest or do anything for yourself, […]

Oct 24, 2018 Don’t Make A Rule About It By Amy Taylor Alpers Pilates teachers are sometimes at their wits ends trying to figure out what is a real, true Pilates rule and what isn’t. Whom do you believe? Whose rules do you follow? As a rule-follower myself, I totally […]

October 3, 2018 A Perspective on the Knee Stretch Series: Knees Off By Clare Dunphy   Alright, I am fairly certain we can all agree that Knees Off is an exercise that’s difficult to both do and to teach and one that most people love to hate. Why? Because it’s […]

September 19, 2018 Pilates for Prader-Willi Syndrome by Joakim Valsinger   Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is an unusual genetic disorder with a long list of characteristics that develop over time. One of these is hypotonia – poor muscle tone. Many other more common disorders also cause hypotonia. It’s possible that you […]

September 12, 2018 Gentle Pilates By Penelope Shore The Gentle Pilates Internal Alignment Awareness series of exercises that I teach are my way of staying as close to the integrity of the classical Pilates repertoire with the addition of safety modifications necessary when teaching special populations. In my case, special […]

September 5, 2018 “I’m not good at Pilates” by Mike Perry I heard a new (to our studio) client say that yesterday, and this is not the first time I’ve heard something like, “I’ve done it for two years but I’m not very good.” I then tie myself up in […]

Falling In Love with Movement (again) By Carol Robbins June 20, 2018   Even though I had 18 years of Pilates under my belt before I waved goodbye to a reformer, I’m still surprised when Brett requests another article. I was a student of Pilates for several years before I […]

SHORT BOX : Side-To-Side – by Sabrina Ellen Svard June 13, 2018 ~ 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, […]

When Swans Fly – Getting Higher Than You Thought You Could By Chantill Lopez May 16, 2018 And for the grand finale … we soar! SEQUENCE – Start where you move the least and allow the effort to ripple outward. Now for the fun part. We’ve organized and initiated (in […]

Pilates Progressions for the Active Aging Adult by Nikki Naab-Levy May 2, 2018 When it comes to mainstream fitness, active aging adults are an underserved population. This is ironic considering that they represent a large demographic and, as a whole, people are getting older and living longer. Because Pilates has […]

Pilates Starts With P! By Allie Greene April 25, 2018   * * * * * * Warning: one of my close friends read this and said it sounded a little preachy. When I read it again, there are parts that may have that tone. I wrote this as a […]

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 […]