Today's setting sun concludes day two of my advanced teacher training lecture weekend. For those of you who read this and have done a teacher training course you will understand the immense amount of information I have just consumed, and the digestion my brain is now going through. Actually, before i digest I would like to marinate, so lets keep the digestion at bay for now and sit in the spices of breaking down the beginning work of Pilates.
We went over heaps and heaps and heaps of information today but I would like to talk about feet and breath. In the words of my teacher Erika Groff " The health of the feet represent the health of the whole body."and in the words of Joseph Pilates "Breathing is the first act of life, and the last."
How often do we neglect the things that give us life and movement?
In your own time on a quiet walk to work or sitting in your office chair between meetings or maybe over a hot mug of lemon water, answer that question for yourself or why wait answer it NOW, since now is all we have. For me, I am thirty years old and maybe a year ago I "Actually" started breathing and have only recently payed attention to my feet, the precious parts of me that allow for walking this beautiful earth.
We live in an all consuming world. Half of what we put in/on our body is unnatural and does us no wonders. We feel the need to "HAVE THINGS" , lets face it with breath in our body and food for our mind everything else is a luxury. I am guilty as most of you will be too of the feeling of "I have to have this" or "I want this because..." you get my drift? I have learned through my short practice with Pilates that my breath has been for many, many moons shallow and non moving. Which in my case never soothed my full throttle mind or fed my enormous amount of energy, in which case i have not made many of my life decisions with care or mindfulness but in retrospect jerky bouts of panic and lust.
Today we chewed on the words of Joseph Pilates book, it was in the results section that i found that breath and feet go hand in hand, thus its a uniform. If the feet and breath are developed together as one because they are equally as important as the other, you find balance and synchronism. You like myself will be able to face the roadblocks of life with a calmness and clear mind that before might have deemed harder. Your body will become stronger, your actions precise, and meaningful, your soul with thrive.
I say this to you without trying to sound to preachy or to make you think I am this calm zen like guru because I am still a lioness with a loud roar and a hungry one at that, but I am saying this with experience, it works breathing with intent and walking/standing/running/biking/surfing etc... with harmonious structure can clear the head and steady the mind.
Two challenges for when you read this
1) take a deep inhale feel you rib cage move( yes your ribcage moves) feel it press out from your body filling with life, now exhale......no don't stop there keep exhaling rid yourself of all the goop and yuckys , get rid of all the dirty air to make room for new breath. repeat forever.
2) get barefoot. walk around notice your feet. notice where you place the ball of the foot, the heel of the foot. can you feel your arch stretch as you walk? lie down point and flex your feet...how do you feel?where do feel? stand up straight look down....where are your feet lined up? pointed out, pointed in, parallel? just notice. now play around with the positioning of the feet and can you feel the changes it cause in the hip? femur position? abdominals? for now you'll just have to notice i don't yet know where to go further.
I suppose the real challenge is staying aware and never just settling for the tightness or disconnect you might find in your body, the body and the brain are amazing, there is always new good work to be done. Trust me.
Joseph Pilates has a book entitled Pilates Return to Life through Contrology. In my opinion put down the Power of Now, and The Pilgrimage and read this book, although the others are good reads this one is life changing in a constant way.
We went over heaps and heaps and heaps of information today but I would like to talk about feet and breath. In the words of my teacher Erika Groff " The health of the feet represent the health of the whole body."and in the words of Joseph Pilates "Breathing is the first act of life, and the last."
How often do we neglect the things that give us life and movement?
In your own time on a quiet walk to work or sitting in your office chair between meetings or maybe over a hot mug of lemon water, answer that question for yourself or why wait answer it NOW, since now is all we have. For me, I am thirty years old and maybe a year ago I "Actually" started breathing and have only recently payed attention to my feet, the precious parts of me that allow for walking this beautiful earth.
We live in an all consuming world. Half of what we put in/on our body is unnatural and does us no wonders. We feel the need to "HAVE THINGS" , lets face it with breath in our body and food for our mind everything else is a luxury. I am guilty as most of you will be too of the feeling of "I have to have this" or "I want this because..." you get my drift? I have learned through my short practice with Pilates that my breath has been for many, many moons shallow and non moving. Which in my case never soothed my full throttle mind or fed my enormous amount of energy, in which case i have not made many of my life decisions with care or mindfulness but in retrospect jerky bouts of panic and lust.
Today we chewed on the words of Joseph Pilates book, it was in the results section that i found that breath and feet go hand in hand, thus its a uniform. If the feet and breath are developed together as one because they are equally as important as the other, you find balance and synchronism. You like myself will be able to face the roadblocks of life with a calmness and clear mind that before might have deemed harder. Your body will become stronger, your actions precise, and meaningful, your soul with thrive.
I say this to you without trying to sound to preachy or to make you think I am this calm zen like guru because I am still a lioness with a loud roar and a hungry one at that, but I am saying this with experience, it works breathing with intent and walking/standing/running/biking/surfing etc... with harmonious structure can clear the head and steady the mind.
Two challenges for when you read this
1) take a deep inhale feel you rib cage move( yes your ribcage moves) feel it press out from your body filling with life, now exhale......no don't stop there keep exhaling rid yourself of all the goop and yuckys , get rid of all the dirty air to make room for new breath. repeat forever.
2) get barefoot. walk around notice your feet. notice where you place the ball of the foot, the heel of the foot. can you feel your arch stretch as you walk? lie down point and flex your feet...how do you feel?where do feel? stand up straight look down....where are your feet lined up? pointed out, pointed in, parallel? just notice. now play around with the positioning of the feet and can you feel the changes it cause in the hip? femur position? abdominals? for now you'll just have to notice i don't yet know where to go further.
I suppose the real challenge is staying aware and never just settling for the tightness or disconnect you might find in your body, the body and the brain are amazing, there is always new good work to be done. Trust me.
Joseph Pilates has a book entitled Pilates Return to Life through Contrology. In my opinion put down the Power of Now, and The Pilgrimage and read this book, although the others are good reads this one is life changing in a constant way.
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