Flashy Exercises

Have you ever been to the ballet? It's unbelievable what those dancers can do! After watching them move with ease, it makes us all wish we could move like that. Then, when we sign up for dance classes, we realize there's a lot of work to be done at the barre. There's a lot of strength and stretch that needs to be developed before we can even look like we're dancing. There are years of practice before we can even wear point shoes. All of us understand this, right?

Snake

Or have you ever been to a baseball game? The pitcher throws the ball at 95 miles per hour then the hitter hits it out of the ballpark. We all want to be able to hit the ball out of the ballpark, but if we had the opportunity, once the 95 MPH ball was thrown, we'd just be trying to stay alive! It also requires years of conditioning!


Or have you ever wanted to run a marathon? All big accomplishments take years of practice!



It's the same with pilates! We see flashy exercises like snake or boomerang pictured below, and we all want to do them, and we get frustrated when we can't.

Boomerang

However, the basics of Pilates is fun, too!! And even as an advanced student, I include the basics in my workout EVERY time!! We don't drop the foundational work from our routines just because we become advanced students. The beginner work, or foundational work, is always important because it is the heart and soul of the method. It is what organizes the body so you can do the flashy exercises. That is why snake and boomerang come toward the end of the routines and aren't introduced until a student is at the advanced level. Think of earning the ability to do the flashy exercises as the equivalent to earning your point shoes or being able to hit a baseball thrown at major league speed!

The more you keep up with working on organizing the body, developing spinal health, integrating muscles, and all that the foundational work sets out to do, the easier it is to incorporate the flashy exercises into your routine. Yes, they're fun! Yes, it's fun being able to do something that a few months ago you thought you'd never be able to do! Yes, it takes work, and the work starts with the basics.

This is why I am choosing to write a series on the basic principles of pilates over the next several posts, so stick around and read about the basics!!


PS Please note that the pictures are pictures of moving exercises at a single point in the motion, they are not poses that are held such as the poses in yoga. Pilates is an exercise of continual movement.