I would like to thank Pilates-Pro for creating this venue for us to connenct, learn and sometimes vent our concerns about the Pilates industry. I have spoken to many of you personally, and I hear the same concerns over and over about what needs to change in order for Pilates to remain a profession. I think it would be a mistake to see Pilates become absorbed by the medical profession. I do not take orders from a doctor the same as I don't give them. Pilates is a specialized field and should remain a seperate but important part of a person's physical well being.

We all make a difference in the lives of our clients, but what about the influence we have on each other? It is obvious the work has evolved and sadly many of the "elder" teachers will pass on, leaving a legacy of disagreement in many of our interpretations of Joe's work. I for one, feel that breath concentration, control, etc are the results of Joe's work and do not even qualify as a priciple simply based on definition.

The PMA is failing at setting any consistency of standards and has alienated many of the teaches we need to preserve the priciples that I feel Joe was unsuccessful in relaying to his clients.

What is the common thread? How do we preserve this work with some level of agreement to its purpose? Do we need to start over?

Stacey, Hmmmm, good questions. After reading through the many dissenting ideas on the last several posts one would conclude that perhaps the common thread that exists today is one-upmanship and a compulsive need to display a,... "you don't know sh--, but I, well, I know everything" attitude.
In a business atmosphere of bottom line being the goal, the only thing that survives is competetion, and that's what I am reading on this site. Yes there have been some grudging kudo's for a well stated comment, but then comes the big smack-down and the "you think you know what you'er talking about, I'll show you. rebuttle.
Is that the kind of community we want to create? Where those seeking to learn are made to feel inferior for not already knowing.
The PMA is not serving us, but I am not getting into that as I have been chastened by them and now will keep my comments off this site. As "Jen" remarked to me, that I have too much time on my hands" or something, which makes my point.
There is too much of that snarky sh-- going But Stacey , I would really enjoy a conversation with you. We are really neighbors, so I will go on your blog and contact you that way.
By the way this is not directed at JW, I think I know where he is coming from and I respect his views, although he does put more energy into them than might be necessary

just so you know, I won't be posting on this forum any longer, I don't want to stifle otherwise productive conversations you all may want to have here. I think I've said more than enough and created unnecessary strife.

It's been enjoyable, with the exception of a few frustrating moments.

Best of luck to the PMA and keep your hearts in your work. (I mean that metaphorically, not anatomically)

jw

I write to jw and everyone...

jw, ok, if you must, but I think you will be interested in what I will be writing.

It has to do with translating our experiences for each other. For that, we need to set up the questions in a way that promotes a generosity of spirit, one that shows the intent of committing to the idea that we know that every person has something valuable to lend to the discussion.

Another person's view might not be our interest at the time, given that we all have preferences towards investigations that are on a track given our orientations, but I believe that those tracks are converging, at this time.* Whether we believe that someone else has the knowledge, there is connection nonetheless.

I grew up in a German family; my Dad is from Munich and my Mom’s parents from Hannover. We didn’t speak German in the home, but I spent a lot of time at my Oma and Opa’s hearing them talk. I learned German in school and traveled to Germany more than a handful of times. At one time I was fluent. While I am no longer fluent, I do understand it. Also, it comes back amazingly quickly sometimes to my surprise.

The point is, it’s not that the anatomical language is not relevant or the information not tremendously helpful and necessary. For sure, it is! (especially if we are ever going to define scopes of practice in respectful ways)

It’s just that it may not necessarily be pertinent to the task at hand in that moment. (A boxer doesn’t think about his alignment in the middle of a match, well, ok there might be a boxer who might, ok, let’s not open another can of worms--just hear me out)

I do have a certain depth of knowledge in anatomy that was needed to answer my leading questions. I do not use that language all the time anymore, however, because my investigations led me to a place where I can explain it in simple ways, with safety, to my clients. And, sometimes it takes time for me to translate into anatomical language. You and I were on a track--almost there--connecting what you said about connective tissue and what I said about co-contractions on my blog. I asked for a few days. It takes time to write it and to converge/translate the investigations.

(Also, that’s why I wrote the ‘psoas as spring’ idea for you, that you might try that out and see what we were saying. I said to please leave the SIs out of it in that moment. So that our ideas can converge, it is, in my opinion, more important for you in that moment to sense a transfer of weight through the bones on the support, rather than to contemplate the anatomy...sensating vs. thinking. But, we can get to it either way, through the research that is already there—I think. That was just my suggestion to you in that moment.)

From the other side, the side of physical experience, as our physical awareness deepens, we are drawn, in our own time, and as it is perhaps appropriate to the needs of the clients that are drawn to us, to asking the questions that dropshot did about research. Dropshot, like many on this forum, has intuitive awareness that lends to this conversation. And, the research that confirms this is out there already. (Btw, I would love to go to Big Bear and hear Siri's talk!)

Please stay tuned, jw. No offense taken; I am trying to give benefit of the doubt to your "...BUT I should have known better" comment. I am just exhausted and need some rest. It has been difficult for me, dealing with the innuendos and pilatical fallout. I will write more when I can. My work is about this emergent, convergent conversation.

And, to answer Stacey's question posed...I think it is also the work of many others as well.

*(As an aside, I began noticing this around 1995, the year my Mom past away, so discussions such as these, often hold a certain amount of emotionality for me. I think MF would understand in that he/she commented on how it makes him/her feel weird, like watching parents argue. I woke up feeling quite sad today and I have been exhausted from the past few months, and while I know it is important, the sun also rose this morning. We can take our time with this. The conversation will continue. We are all doing just fine).

Thanks for posting this, Stacey, and for your support, LA.

JW< I would hate to see you leave this site for the reasons you stated. I am going to quote a very smart doctor that I consulted with when I was writing my book. I was nervous about how I was going to go about presenting my work since I was not a doctor. He said to me " Stacey, you can't buy brains and you can't buy passion and that is what you need in order to be successful" Jw, it is obvious that you are passionate about your work and you know your stuff about the body.

It sometimes seems that you Carole do not agree, btw I know I posted earlier that you don't agree. I have reread some of those posts and find that not to be true. I think you may have more in common than you think, you may need to listen with different ears to hear her. We all want this industry to succeed and we all have something to contribute.

I think the more input we see, the better we can figure out where we fit as teachers.

JW I am sorry that you have chosen not to post anymore. From your posts I was not surprised by your orientation or with your range of education. It is obvious that you speak from your knowledge and I for one am not intimidated by it, but choose to use it as incentive to further educate myself I have worked with a similarly trained integrative therapist for my own body and learned from her how to help my clients in ways that transcend my training in Pilates.
Well sorry to see you go. Thanks for the memories

Hi Folks,

I have to pop my head back through the door to add this before my departure.

I really appreciate and respect all of you that came forth today with the positive intention to move forward with greater clarity and understanding for our/your purpose here. Yet it's still best for me to leave the 'pilates talk' to all of you, and others who may have been timid to share their thoughts because of my presence. You'll learn far more from one another than you will from me... I didn't come here to 'teach' anyone, contrary to what you might think.

The last thought I wanted to share after hearing all of your recent comments, and some of those from the past, is this. I think the passion and interest that I have for human anatomy and function has overshadowed my firm belief in so much more. I too feel that their is more to the human experience than studies, anatomy, biomechanics and so forth. In my own practice I attempt to work with fine specificity because it continuously proves to be more and more effective the more specific I get. It doesn't mean however that when I meat someone in my office for the first time that I'm not very conscious of their poise, demeanor and movement/behavioral tendencies that inform me greatly as to their overall disposition with themselves and those around them. It doesn't mean that my visual assessment doesn't inform me about the relationship they may be having within their own body. It doesn't mean that when I place my hand on them to 'listen' generally to their 'system' for patterns of strain, collapse or focal points of restriction that I'm thinking purely in anatomical terms. First and foremost I am listening to them as a whole. Then I follow the listening closer to the source, getting more 'specific'... Given that I work with my hands to communicate with them I have the inherent need to 'know' what I'm contacting, and understand how that relates to the whole. If I can do that then I can more easily try to figure out why their having pain or dysfunction in their area of presenting symptoms.... In my general line of work treating symptoms with various techniques usually only yields temporary results, because you're treating a symptom, not the cause of that symptom... which often lays distant from the area of pain. In the end it comes back to how they experience 'ease' or 'dis-ease' in their body. How they are able to more fully express themselves through movement. And how they feel as a whole. Along the way new discoveries about themselves arise, about their past experiences they may have contributed to the physical recoil in their body, or physical re-action from an event, or compensation around an old injury.

I have learned, as a former massage therapist, that muscles most often don't respond randomly or without reason. Almost every response we see in our muscular body is a reflection of functional need or demand.... So what is that demand or need is what I have to ask myself? Does it arise from an absence of awareness in movement patterning? Is it due to repetitive work strains that over-strengthen some muscles and down-train others... (Do they need postural re-education and exercise to re-balance activation throughout?) Or is their irregular muscular activation/health a result of a compressed nerve in the groin, or the thigh, that is causing an imbalance and inhibition of certain muscles from activating as to avoid further compression and irritation of that nerve? Or a fixation/adhesion of the colon to the small intestine following scar tissue build-up from an apendectomy or c-section years ago that is inhibits proper pelvic mechanics or abdominal activation as to not 'pull' on the restricted organs?

I think it's all of the above, potentially. So I"m merely doing my best to be educated on as many facets of inquiry as possible. I'm definitely not stuck in a medical model... nor do I think that the lack of studies around something suggests that it's not valid.... not at all. There are many things I feel are valid despite the lack of 'scientific evidence'.

My detailed focus retains a macro perception of the whole. So even if I begin mentioning the SI joint function I am very much aware of the 'sensation', or the knesthetic experience that surrounds its fluid function. And all I know is that it feels weird and unnatural to walk without allowing my two pelvic bones to alternately rock back and forth and allow my lumbars and torso to rotate and counter-rotate freely.

I'm a kinesthetic learner... I need to do or feel in order to fully appreciate and understand something. So even though I can get engrossed in the finer points of anatomy, feeling and experiencing it brings it into reality for me... and even more so, understanding its contribution and interaction to the whole.

So as I depart, please consider that having an understanding in anatomy and physiology does not mean that someone is married monogamously to that one perspective. I do feel that some assumption have been made that I'm 'one of them'. On a personal level it doesn't bother me, but for the sake of being inclusive and welcoming of multiple perspectives and opinions, try not to pigeon hole someone based on that presentation alone. It just so happened that that was the realm that I was posing some challenging ideas and thoughts, but not the only position that I take on matters.

j: "I think the passion and interest that I have for human anatomy and function has overshadowed my firm belief in so much more."
thanks, jw..:)...:(...:)

This is why we all need to adopt a view that we all know more than what we can say in the moment..a generosity of spirit. We also need to believe that no one person truly believes that they know everything, even if it sounds that way. What we "know" is complex and ever-changing. And communication is difficult at times.

We at AIM Academy, (how we refer to AASI) call what I describe below as the AIM Conversation. We ask assistance from the different disciplines (anatomy, physics, etc...) to translate this conversation into their languages. We can do it ourselves if necessary, however, we feel it would be reinventing many wheels. Please consider getting involved.

(This comment is an exerpt from a post I made today on http://aasicontributions.blogspot.com. I am asking that all interested please read the post in full as well as the after comments. I would like to thank Pilates Pro, as well as everyone for posting, especially dropshot, as several of his/her comments helped to pull this together. AIM is always built in conversation.)

dropshot writes on the Y&P article: "They tell me the Pilates helps and makes them feel stronger. I know this is all anecdotal evidence and if anyone can point me in the direction of some scientific research, I'd appreciate it."

There was some movement research done in the 50's and validated in the 60's that speaks to the different styles in pilates being performed. (Please also refer to comment #2 below, my last response on the Y&P post, that says more about the research.) It is helpful in describing/perceiving what we are actually doing with our clients. It validates why it is necessary to use cues that activate different dynamics or levels of co-contractions, as it might be otherwise stated, in working with different types of bodies.

Many pilates teachers intuitively/experientially know what to do, have learned how to use their eyes, and their common sense as dropshot says. If we all understood the muscular co-contraction patterns, and add that to simple skeletal movement concepts, we would be able to begin a conversation about what we see as teachers in terms of what happens at the joint level. This is helpful in translating the different teaching/learning styles in relation to one another (Please refer to comment #1 below, my last response on the Who is the Next Generation? post, about translation.)

Broadly stated, the medical model would be more accessible to classical teachers, and classical teachers would gain more respect from the medical community. Understanding co-contraction dynamics also adds a measure of precision that would elevate the skill levels of all perspectives. And, as it is theorized that the type of co-contraction also affects our brain function, a variety of possibilities for new research projects could emerge (or existing research could be interpreted in a different light).

Whether we are aware of it or not, the different levels of consciousness in play affect how we communicate. If all of the fields working in the body would come to agreement on having a conversation from the different vantage points of intuition, feeling, thinking, and sensating (in a Jungian sense) about the patterns of operation at the joint level, which were recognized by the validated test I mention above, then we would find a starting place for conversations that would prove to be tremendously fruitful. The simplistic common language that would result from such a conversation would also enable us all to communicate with our clients to ensure their self-responsibility and autonomy. Anatomy, physics, and more would be brought to an understandable, accessible level, and applied appropriately.

What we need at this time in our community is to honor the different ways of teaching pilates. Each has its benefits. In coming to an understanding of what is the same about how we as a profession teach, we can preserve our ability to choose how we teach on an individual basis, depending on the needs of our clients. This has yet to be done in the pilates profession in a way that is inclusive of the greater community (outside the PMA), as our differences have been the focus for years. It seems that Joe proported a very specific dynamic, however, it has evolved that pilates is both adaptable and accessible. This is why we need to come to agreement at the level of how we describe the different teaching styles, rather than one set way to perform pilates dynamically and choreographically.

typo in above last paragraph:

It seems that Joe PROMOTED a very specific dynamic....

Stacey writes:
"The PMA is failing at setting any consistency of standards and has alienated many of the teaches we need to preserve the priciples that I feel Joe was unsuccessful in relaying to his clients."

Behind every great man is...
I'd like everyone to remember that Joe was supported by Clara.

In my mind, Clara's nurturing quality is largely responsible for the "evolved" methods we see today. I feel that spirit alive and well today in our best moments as teachers and fellow professionals. To answer Stacey, I offer that the Next Generation is following that lead.

Those who knew her say Clara was...a great woman.
Let's not forget her.

I had several Claras to My "Joe" who was Carola Trier: Deborah Lessen, Edilio :), Brenda Anderson and Mary Kasakove. Who are your Joes and Claras?

love,
Carole Amend

Thanks Carole, yet again you ask the questions that need asking and I applaud your tenacity in trying to move "us" the Pilates community in a direction of holistic understanding.
"The simplistic common language that would result from such a conversation would also enable us all to communicate with our clietns to ensure their self responsibility and autonomy." Yes, you said it all and very eloquently.
Thanks again

I am not trying to minimize Clara's role as a teacher. Joe's work was developed before he met Clara, She was simply passing it on.

I want to make it clear that I do not support the manner in which Joe taught. Brilliant minds do not neccessarily make brilliant teachers. Based on the first hand accounts of the teachers that studied in Joe's studio, some of the "abused" became the "abusers". That being said, it does not make Joe's work without value.

I had a horrible Algebra teacher in High School. That does mean that math is bad, just the teacher.