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.

Avocado snack

Once spring hits avocados become a large staple in my diet and lasts through spring and way into summer. That time of the yeat has arrived! Yesterday, after taking my 400 hour practical Pilates test (which I did really good on! Woo!), I made this delicious little snack! It was super easy and let’s admit … pretty darn healthy for snack time!

I got the idea off Pinterest and after seeing a picture I went to the store and bought what I thought was pictured. Avocados. (Duh!) Cheese… I bought cream cheese. And some thin meat… I bought prosciutto. Since I was making it at my Mom’s house, I knew she’d have whatever spices my little heart could desire. When I got home, I looked up the recipe. The cheese was supposed to be goat cheese… Oops! And the lemon I bought to squeeze in my water… Looks like I might need to share it a little with my avocados!

It all worked out and the result was completely delicious! I can’t wait to make them for Kevin and eat them every single day for the next 12 weeks!

Don’t they look delicious?! Here’s what I did!

1. Sliced an avocado into sixths (Ok I meant to cut six… I forgot on the second half and cut it into sevenths…)
2. Sprinkled lemon juice on the slices.
3. Put a little cream cheese in each seed crevice.
4. Sprinkled salt, pepper, and chili powder to liking.
5. Wrapped it in half a prosciutto slice.

And there you have it! Please try it and tell me you love it as much as I do!

Happy Friday!

Morgan

Brussel sprouts

I wasn't going to post this recipe because I know what most people think (or think they think!) about brussel sprouts. I myself never liked them, but for some reason, a few months ago decided to cook some and LOVED them!! I changed my mind about posting the recipe here because when I posted this picture on my Facebook page, I got asked for the recipe!

Here's how:

I prefer to buy the sprouts still on the stem and cut them off. If I can't get those, I buy a bag and freshly cut the bottom.  I peel off the tough, outer leaves and cut the sprouts in half.  In that cast iron skillet are two bags of sprouts, so I used almost a whole stick of butter, which I melted in the pan.  Then I added the sprouts and sauteed just as you see in the picture.  I used the spatula to turn them every so often.  I cooked until about all of them had some brown on them. Mmmmm. They are also good with some Bragg's Liquid Aminos over them, just add the Aminos right at the end of cooking.

That's it!  Simple, no rules!  Enjoy!

Raw taco salad

This was my lunch today!  Mmmmm

It's all raw food!  The chips are Brad's Beet Chips, which I crunched up and put in the bottom of the bowl instead of tortilla chips. I topped them with a salad of chopped green lettuce leaves, mung bean sprouts, and diced jicama. If you haven't tried jicama, you should! It's that funny looking root vegetable at the store. You eat it raw ... it's sweet. I topped the salad with prepared guacamole and pico de gallo from Whole Foods. Watch when you buy guacamole that it's all good ingredients. Whole Foods makes it fresh, so there's nothing bad in it. If you're doesn't turn brown in a short time, there are preservatives you probably don't want to be eating.

I didn't use dressing, but you could. I thought the pico de gallo was adequate.

Enjoy!

Veggie frittata

This is one of our family's favorites!  It's simple, and loaded with veggies. As with most of what I cook, I don't use a recipe, I just judge quantities by how many people I'm serving. I usually figure in three eggs per person and whatever looks like one serving of veggies per person. Some eat more, and others eat less, so it evens out. I also try to pick veggies whose color compliments the yellow of the eggs. Tonight's veggies included red pepper, asparagus, mushrooms and onions. I roughly chopped all of them, small enough that no one needed a knife to eat.

Next I took nine eggs because there were only three of us, added a bit of water, and whisked them.

I love my cast iron skillets. They're less expensive to purchase than fancy cookware and they don't have any chemicals on their surface to make them non-stick. Did you know the chemicals used in Teflon will kill a bird when heated? If the fumes are that bad for a bird, what will they do to us? Remember the canary in the coal mine? Perhaps we need to think about that when thinking about using non-stick cookware! Plus, how much of those toxic chemicals leach into our food? Cast iron is naturally non-stick when used properly. Most of the time I just scrape the food out with the spatula, rinse, then wipe the pan clean. If it looks a bit dry, I just rub some oil onto it with the paper towel I used to dry it, then it's naturally non-stick for next time.

I put a half stick butter into the cast-iron skillet, let it melt, then sauteed the vegetables until they started to soften. Then I added the eggs, let them sit on the burner for a few minutes to let the bottom of them set and brown, then I moved them to the oven so they would cook through, another benefit of cast-iron, it can be moved to the oven. I have an Aga, which is a topic for another story, but suffice it to say, it's always on and the temperatures are approximate. I'd probably set a regular oven to 375. In my Aga, I set it on the bottom of the upper right hand oven (in case you're an Aga owner). Check on it after about ten minutes. It will be puffed up when it's finished, but you can stick a knife in it to test if it's done. Just slice and serve!

Tostadas!!!

I always get asked what I eat, so I thought it would be a good idea to include some recipes on the blog!  I eat a lot of raw fruits and veggies ... here's one of my favorite meals.

These were so good!!!!  My 14 year old son even said, "This is better than taco night!!" and that's saying a lot because taco night is a favorite around here!

Here's how it's made:

First, I made pico de gallo.  Finely chop a couple cloves of garlic ... don't use that jarred stuff!  I used to think that jarred stuff was fine until I got some fresh garlic in my Amish produce box ... jarred loses its bang!  Trust me!  I finely chop two organic heirloom tomatoes, garlic, a vidalia onion, a handful of fresh cilantro, and a pepper (I like jalapeños, but I like it spicy).  Stir and let sit so the flavors mingle.  You could even make this a day in advance.

Then I took Ezekiel Corn Tortillas and fried them in a cast iron skillet.  I put enough high heat safflower oil in the skillet to cover the tortillas.  I heated the oil first.  It must be very hot to keep the tortillas from becoming greasy (I learned this trick in New Orleans where they have great fried, but not greasy beignets!).  Once the oil is hot, I took tongs to place two tortillas at a time into the hot oil.  I let them cook on one side, then flipped them, but they were completely submerged.  Once they were crispy and a little browned, I placed them on a paper towel to cool off.

I heated up some organic refried beans, cut an avocado, and chopped up a spring mix that was also in the box.

I had everyone assemble their own by taking a tortillas, slathering on some refried beans, then topping with the spring mix, avocado, and pico de gallo.  The kids added organic grated cheese to theirs.

Mmmmmmm.  Now THAT is a tostada!!!

Halfway!!

Morgan and I are halfway through our Power Pilates comprehensive training!!  We took our second test at this 300 hour point.  There was a massive written test requiring much memory work.  I didn't realize how much it was stressing me out until I didn't sleep well for two nights before the test.  We also had a practical where we had to teach each other the intermediate system while being evaluated.

We teach this work all the time.  We know it.  We own it.  BUT, call it a test and we get nervous!  Minus a couple mistakes (me more than Morgan!), I think we both did fine on the practical.  We both did great on the written with A+'s!!

We are already trained, so why the additional training?  Let me tell you, this is different from what we had before.  Power Pilates is an awesome organization and Julie is an excellent, thorough teacher.  So far, we have had four training weekends that total 72 hours of training that are in addition to the 300 apprentice hours we've completed.  We meet weekly for two hours to go over what we're learning.  And, we practice, workout, and observe 20-25 hours per week.  How do you become outstanding at doing something?  By practicing, observing and apprenticing for many, many hours.  This training reminds me of what you see in movies set years ago when people are trained for a trade.  It's not just classroom work.  It's getting out there and doing the work supervised by a mentor.  We are so much more equipped to teach than we were before, even having gone through a training program previously and having taught for two years.  We found this training to be so valuable to us personally that we both severely cut back the hours we were teaching for pay in order to free up time to take this program.  It's *that* good.

We have learned how to teach people at their level and help them progress to the next level.  We have learned how to deal with special cases, ie, knee problems, back problems, older clients, younger clients, pregnant clients, etc.  In short, we have learned to tailor the workout for the person rather than a cookie-cutter workout for a group.  It's awesome!  Come try it out.  If you aren't sure it's for you, let's have a mini-session at no charge to you .... we'll spend about 20 minutes showing you the equipment and talking about a workout plan special for you.  Give us a call!