Pilates Teachers' Manual
Pilates Teachers' Manual
Movement Diversity Makes Better Pilates Teachers
Are you a Pilates teacher feeling confident in your craft? This episode is for you! We're diving into why exploring movement outside of Pilates can make you an even better instructor and enrich your personal life.
Discover how trying new forms of movement can deepen your understanding of the body, build stronger connections with your clients, and provide fresh perspectives for your teaching. You'll learn how embracing diverse movements can help you empathize with clients' non-Pilates activities, prevent burnout, and even boost your class attendance. Plus, find out why engaging in movement purely for yourself, without the pressure of teaching, is vital for your well-being. It's time to expand your movement horizons – your clients (and your body!) will thank you.
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Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome and welcome back to Pilates Teachers' Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia. You get the latest updates when you join my community at buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts or follow along on Instagram at@PilatesTeachersManual. Pilates Teachers' Manual: The Book is available now. You can purchase it and other podcast merch at shop.OliviaBioni.com. You can also purchase my book on Amazon in Kindle format, but it is more expensive to account for the cut that Amazon takes. Good news, there's an easy workaround. You can convert any file, including my book, in either it's EPUB or PDF format into a Kindle friendly file by visiting amazon.com/sendtoKindle. You can save your wallet and get the same awesome book able to be read on your Kindle. The EPUB format will keep all of the ebook features of like page turning and table of contents, but the PDF also works. Just know that it is a PDF. You may have to zoom in or move around the page. Just depends on how you're planning on reading the book. Today's episode is all about the benefits of doing more than just Pilates, both for working with our clients and also for ourselves. I wanna preface this by saying not all advice or insights that I share on the podcast apply to everyone at every stage of their teaching journey, But if you're currently feeling confident within the Pilates sphere, there's a big benefit to looking outside of the Pilates sphere for movement, inspiration, and growth. Obviously, if you're in the middle of your Pilates teacher training, or you're preparing to test out or you're studying for the National Pilates exam, it's completely worth focusing on the matter at hand and really doubling down on your Pilates studying, like maybe you don't pick up cross country skiing at the same time. But if you're feeling really good and strong and capable within the Pilates world, dipping your toes into non Pilates movement can be really advantageous and make you a better Pilates teacher. Even though we're Pilates teachers, we don't have to only do Pilates. I would argue, and I will argue in this episode, that it's better if we do more than just Pilates, because doing other forms of movement helps us better connect with our clients and their various interests. Maybe your clients do Pilates only, and we can always connect with our clients about Pilates because baseline, that's what they're here to do with us, and we have so much Pilates knowledge and insight that we can share with them when we teach them. We can always come back and connect with them about Pilates. But our clients often do other things. They play sports. They run and ski and swim. And when we do those things too, maybe not everything that they do, but we can easily build a rapport with our clients. We have so much to chat about when either before class or after class. We have so many more connections that we can make between what we're doing in the Pilates exercises and what they're doing outside of class. Connecting with our clients is huge. Building that relationship is huge, and this is just another way that we can do that. By doing some other type of exercise in addition to Pilates, for ourselves, we learn more about movement and we get new perspectives on Pilates as well. For example, I can confidently explain the difference between yoga and Pilates because I do Pilates and I do yoga, so I can point out what's different and what's similar, because I know based on personal experience. I know that coming from yoga, what held me back from trying the reformer for so long. After a lifetime of doing yoga on a mat, the equipment was really intimidating. So I can empathize when new Pilates clients are also intimidated by the reformer. I can share my story about how much Pilates has supported my yoga practice because it has. I've gotten better at arm balances and inversions because the resistance training I do in Pilates has made me so much stronger. I am really honest and earnest about that when I talk with my clients because I'm not just saying it to say it or that's what the script says, but I really believe it and I have that personal experience. I've shared on the podcast that I've recently taken up running and I enjoy running. And it's magnified the benefits of what I do in Pilates. I know in my brain that your calves and your quads and your hamstrings are all important while you're running. But now that I am running, I realize how important they are, and how important things like footwork are to stretch and strengthen all those muscles in the legs. I now have an embodied understanding of how the repetitive action of running feels in my body because I've done it, and then I've wanted to do a back bend or a twist or a forward fold, something that isn't the shape that we make when we're running. I know how those higher impact exercises feel in my knees and my ankles and my hips after I go for a long run. So when a client comes in and they're wearing like a Shamrock Shuffle shirt or a half marathon shirt, I have something that I can talk with them about. It's like built in common ground, and I'm better able to serve them because I have a better understanding of what they're doing outside of Pilates. So when I have clients in my classes who also run or do yoga, I can share my experience with them and offer suggestions based on this deeper understanding of what their body needs because I felt it in my body and those needs are my needs and my body. You know, I can share the why behind what we're doing in the Pilates class and how those Pilates exercises will support them doing the other things that they do and love. Movement doesn't have to be an either or situation. This can be a really big and. I love Pilates. I love the Pilates equipment, but Pilates doesn't have very heavy load and some clients are looking for that, so they might be a member at a gym where they can lift heavy. For clients who are trying to add more cardio into their lives, Pilates is not the best way to get cardiovascular exercise. A jog or a swim or a bike ride will always challenge your heart more than doing Pilates. And that's okay. The great thing is I don't have to convince my clients that Pilates is the best thing for them or the only thing that they should be doing, but it can be a valuable part of their movement journey that complements everything else that they do, just like it's a valuable part of my personal movement journey. I think you can hear the passion in my voice as I'm sharing this, and this passion for movement makes me a better Pilates teacher. It makes me more engaged with my clients because in addition to teaching a rockstar Pilates class, I get to go above and beyond and connect with my clients as people who exist beyond the once a week class that I see them for, for in Pilates. This connection and rapport building makes clients want to work with me and take class with me because there's the value add of Pilates and my knowledge in other places that has a positive impact on my attendance. It helps me connect with more people. It helps my bottom line in terms of getting paid per head in my classes, and it also gets more people doing Pilates, which is great. If anything, it makes it even cooler that I've chosen Pilates as the medium that I wanna teach, that I see the value in so many other types of movement, but this is the one that I've chosen to share with other people as an instructor. Exploring movement beyond Pilates can also be a form of self care. I'm a member at a yoga studio, and I do not teach at that studio. When I go there, I'm there to be a student. I don't get asked to cover another instructor's class last minute because they're not feeling well, and I don't have to worry about being a model for other people in the class. What I mean by that is sometimes a perk that comes with teaching at a Pilates studio is that you can take classes at that studio for free or a discounted membership or something, which is fantastic and I do see value in that. For me, I don't like being in class with a lot of my clients because I feel like they're looking at me and not necessarily judging, but maybe like as a model or like, this is what it should be like and there's always this balance of like being an employee and have to be like on and just doing this thing for yourself at the same time, and that could just be me, but that tension makes taking classes where I teach a little bit less fun. But I love being in a class and just being a student with all the other students. So for me it's very liberating to not be seen as a teacher when I'm in a space that I just get to be a student and do this exercise for myself. I also think it's healthy to have hobbies and not make your job your entire personality. We are so lucky as Pilates teachers that we get to do work that we love, but we don't have to do it a hundred percent of the time. I've shared a lot of my movement history in this episode, but I'm always working on and learning so many different things in the movement world, all at the same time. I'm working on handstands and L sits, ideally to pike into a handstand. I'm learning to skateboard. I'm working on running longer distances and with more ease. I do yoga a few times a week. I'm not trying to be a superstar or be the best at any of those things. I'm just enjoying myself, taking care of my body and celebrating all of the incredible things that my body can do. Moving my body makes me feel good and gets me in a really positive head space, which also makes the time that I focus on Pilates more meaningful. When my cup is full, when I'm in that good place, I can give so much more of myself to the classes and clients that I teach. I'm energized. I am enthused. I have things to share, to teach really, while I'm teaching. Even if Pilates is really the only thing and the only way that you like to move, there is a difference between doing Pilates for yourself and teaching Pilates to others, or even doing Pilates in order to program for your classes. So whether you do Pilates by yourself at home, or you take classes at a studio, or even work one-on-one with a teacher who teaches you, that time that's for you is so incredibly valuable. Moving for yourself helps combat burnout and boredom and helps you continue to make connections in your movement practice, which you can then share with your students when you teach. So this is your invitation to do something outside the Pilates studio. Maybe you take a hike or go bowling or play some pickleball. You don't have to be good at it, but it's fun to try new things. And if you really end up loving another form of exercise, it's a great thing to add to your life. You aren't cheating on Pilates by doing more than Pilates. If anything, you will appreciate your Pilates foundation even more and have more things to share with your clients when you're in the studio. Huge thank you to all my supporters on Buy Me A Coffee. I'm really looking forward to connecting with you for a coffee chat. We can talk about all the different types of movement that you're exploring. I hope you all have a great couple of weeks and we'll talk again soon.