Joey McLaughlin of Symmetry Pilates talks about the difficulties of attaining balance
So, when it comes to instructing Pilates, how much is talent, how much is hard work? It’s 50/50. You definitely have to possess a good eye for proper technique to make your clients’ Pilates as good as possible, and it’s hard work because you have to keep working on your own Pilates—you never stop being a student—and you have to continually make it exciting and interesting. People come in to be healthier and have a better body, but it also needs to be something that they look forward to.
How do you give them something to look forward to? We always try to change up the sessions, make sure that we do something that they will love, as well as something they need. We keep it fun and different by using props or changing the sequence of what they’re doing, so they always feel like they’re doing something new.
How would you explain Pilates to someone as clueless as me? Pilates is working the core muscles in your body, the smaller muscles that work to support the joints of your body. People focus on the major muscles of the body, but Pilates specifically focuses on smaller muscle groups to create a more balanced body. We work with small, controlled movements and with the weaker side of the body to balance it against the dominant side.
Is an unbalanced body a major issue? Everyone has a dominant side. If they do not learn how to strengthen the other side of their body, or the weaker muscles in the body, they’ll really stress that side, those major muscle groups that they rely on. This imbalance will wear down the joints, particularly on the dominant side of the body. We want to help you avoid misusing one side of your body and avoid added wear and tear on the joints and muscles.
Even for people who aren’t particularly active? We live in an aggressive world; it never shuts down. We have cell phones and laptops and gadgets to keep us working longer hours, but because of this I see so many people who spend too much time sitting still. Whether it’s yoga, or Pilates, people need to get up, stretch and use their muscles, or we’re going to have a lot more knee and hip replacements in the future.
How do you introduce people to Pilates? We offer both mat and machine exercises, and we offer personalized attention in both scenarios, so we can focus on teaching the specifics of the movements. It can be intimidating at first. We first teach new clients how to compensate for the issues we see in their body, then we focus on the smaller movements that they can build on from there. It’s a learning process, and we stress that they’ll continue to get better.
What’s the hardest part? You have to think, and that’s a make-or-break situation for a lot of people. Some people just want to go to the gym, zone out and not think, but we have people who want to think about what they’re doing and focus on it.
Sounds like a much more directed form of fitness. It’s something people should ideally start with an instructor. There are great videos and books, but we’ve found over and over that the people who’ve done that initial training by themselves don’t get the depth of the workouts until they come work with somebody. But then, once they get it, they get it.
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