The Importance of Set Up

I remember when I first started teaching Pilates, I would give a brief but necessary set up and then have the class begin the exercise. It drove me absolutely crazy when people didn't listen to the set up. And it especially drove me bonkers when they just lounged through the set up and then quickly jumped and jerked their body into the exercise. Now, granted, I didn't have the training or knowledge I have now, so I probably couldn't have gotten them too much deeper into the exercises, but it still drove me nuts that they didn't try when I was trying so hard to help.

At some point in my more recent, extensive classical training this stopped occurring. It's not just set up. It's part of the exercise and that's how I treat it both in teaching and in personal practice! There were even times when I was struggling through the set up and I wondered if I would even be able to do the exercise!

Just the other day I was teaching pull ups (pictured above) in a duet chair class. I progressed them into the position. I worked them through a prep. And then I paused them for about 5 seconds and gave them a series of set up cues. "Curl your spine a little more, push down into your palms, wrap your shoulders and connect them into your back, lift your abdominals in and up..." And right before I was even able to tell them the action part of the exercise (lift the pedal) one of their pedals floated right up! The organization of the body truly led them into the exercise!

Now of course she didn't know her pedal was supposed to come up, so she put it down right away. But when she later finished the exercise, even though she couldn't do the full range of possible movement (she could barely lift the pedal half way), I had to tell her that she couldn't have followed my directions more perfectly, and because of that, she will master the exercise before she knows it!

Do you pay attention to set up? Or do you try to chit chat through set up? Do you know how much deeper set up can get you into an exercise?