Where would any method be without Breathing? As with Yoga, Pilates places a high expectation on breathing, and establishes a choreography between inhales, exhales, and patterns of movement. It should be as continuous as the movements; slow and conscious. Sometimes you see people hold their breath in the weight room during a heavy lift. It’s habitual, but what happens is they miss out on the most important part of the lift – which happens to be the most beneficial. It’s that place of weakness that must be breathed into to strengthen the muscle area. Breathing in this manner will also stop you from going too far in your workout, increasing your chance of injury.
Control should be a by-product of the first three steps, nevertheless it’s on Joe’s list because sometimes you might get that urge to cheat a little on the last few reps, get them out quickly. Joe says no. The movement is slow and conscious, just like the breath. Slow, of course, is a relative term – make it slower than you think it should be. Flowing Movement can be paired with Control. Menezes says, “Continue the movements as if ten repetitions were one, rather than one repetition repeated ten times.”
Isolation to me is similar to reaching another level of awareness. Okay, you’ve managed to get down the first six steps and feel great! What’s next? A hypersensitive awareness of the exact muscle or group of muscles you are working, especially if that muscle is weaker. Menezes gives an example of mind to muscle connection: it’s easy to flex the bicep and even activate it without moving your arm (to most, anyhow). Could you activate your triceps in the same way, without moving your arm? I tried after reading that, and was slightly embarrassed. One of the advantages Pilates has over weight training is the necessity of building and encouraging weaker muscle groups to become strong, without overfeeding or underfeeding the larger muscle groups. This is particularly useful when dealing with the core.
The last one, coincidentally, is Routine. With all this great logical sounding information, you may have felt powerful enough to pursue a teacher now and start looking your best. By all means, go ahead…but it may take a few months to see results. The reasons are present in all of the great logical sounding information above. Joe himself said, “Patience and Persistence are vital qualities in the ultimate successful accomplishment of any worthwhile endeavor.” In short he was saying: ‘Do my method for a long time, because patience is a virtue, and my method is worth it.’ Maybe not, but because of the holistic and interconnected approach to the method (including the synergy between the mind and the body), the body would need time to process it. After that, though, the discoveries of what you can do with your body will cease to end.
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