Learning something new is hard! The idea is always fun, but it does take some work!
Pontus and I just started taking Salsa lessons together. We have only had 3 lessons and understand that we have a ways to go… In our learning we are counting aloud to synchronize with the music and each other and trying to perfect every step we take as we move! The music doesn’t stop and that means we don’t either! The instructor moves fast and we are doing our best to keep up.:) With each lesson we gain more knowledge, awareness and have many shared laughs along the way!
I feel that learning salsa is similar to learning the Pilates. In salsa, there are several basic salsa steps that are precise and meant to be executed within a certain rhythm. In Pilates there are certain exercises to be done in order while maintaining a certain amount of rhythm and flow as well. Also, in salsa and Pilates transitions from one step and/or exercise to the next are just as important as the move/exercise itself!
One difference between Salsa and Pilates is the music. Music is intrinsic to salsa dancing, it helps with everything! In Pilates, although we do not have music to encourage us to stay at a reasonable tempo, it is still important to maintain a fluid rhythm. I feel that because there is no music in Pilates it is easier to stop, sometimes maybe for too long, in an effort to get the exercise/posture perfect!
It is given that you need rhythm to dance salsa, but it is also very true for Pilates. If you can master your transitions and flow you are more ‘advanced’ than someone who can perform the posture or exercise but does not understand how to flow in and out of it. Learning the rhythm and experiencing smoother transitions takes practice. That said, practice does not have to be perfect. Practice is practice. The practice is to pay attention as you move and breathe. To feel yourself and your surroundings (partner and music in salsa – apparatus in Pilates), all to make better connections with yourself and your surroundings.
My hope for all of you taking lessons is first that you are enjoying yourself or at least feel better when you leave:). I also hope you are gaining knowledge and more awareness of the practice and yourself. Last but not least, for those of you who have been practicing with me for a while, I hope you are discovering more rhythm and flow within the exercise and having fun while you work to find more connection in your body.
This exercise is called ‘running’ on the reformer. Flipping the camera around you can see how this exercise reflects running, jogging, and/or walking off the reformer. I loved flipping the camera to highlight this exercise as it shows me standing tall in my body. It’s not always easy to stand tall especially if you are dealing with and or recovering from an injury. Believe me, I’ve been there! Regardless of your story, to practice Pilates, we need to include and honor all of our pieces even if things are not as they used to be, and not leave one piece behind.
Understanding how to connect and strengthen our pieces as a whole takes time and changes as we change. Listening, adapting, and continuing to love ourselves through all of our changes will be the best medicine to feel whole, time and time again. If you are stubborn like me, you may need to experience the ‘dark side’(read back in my blog to understand) for a while, until you decide to wake up and be more present!
Pilates is in the details and acknowledging all our piecesin the present moment so we can experience the whole and feel our power!!
Therefore, if you are interested in strengthening your ‘core muscles,’ understand that this involves your whole body. I have found that sometimes in ‘our’ efforts (myself included) to strengthen the ‘core muscles’ we sometimes neglect other parts of our body. Remember, Pilates is whole body integration. We need to include all of ‘our pieces’ in our practice and not forget or neglect any part! Pilates teaches us to initiate our movements from a stable, balanced center, and to never leave any part behind, meaning every piece of us is involved in the movement.
Take ‘running’ on the reformer for example, there is really so much to pay attention to! From the transition from one heel reaching under the foot bar to the next.
Here are some other things you need to consider…
1 – Are you connecting all of your toes on the foot bar or are your pinky toes missing?
2 – Are you pressing down into the foot bar with strength to feel and activate your hamstrings as you run?
3 – How is your pelvic alignment? are you tucking, arching? Hopefully you are in neutral!
4 – Are you able to connect the back of your rib cage, shoulder blades, back of skull in and up on the carriage?
5 – How is your neck alignment? hopefully neutral!
6 – Can you tone the back of your triceps to help you open the collar bone/chest more?
7 – Are you able to sustain your stability in your spine and pelvis as you lower and lift your heels with strength?
8 – Are you able to maintain your push/your strength as you resist the springs and actively under the foot bar one heel at a time? 9 – How are your knees? can you tone and lift your knee caps and quadriceps up with out hyperextending and locking your knees as you run?
10 – How about your breathing? How is your rhythm? can you expand your body on your inhales with out loosing your connections and deepen your powerhouse muscles on your exhales?
When you are learning, please be forgiving as it does take time! With steady practice and attention to your body and ALL your pieces its does start coming together, and you will start to step more and more into your POWER.
check out the song “step into you power” by Ray LaMontagne
I have recently attended a weekend Yoga workshop with Annie Carpenter in Seattle at Mother Yoga in the international district. The workshop attracted many local teachers and I am always so inspired when teachers continue to show up and keep learning. I am grateful that Annie Carpenter continues to do the work herself and shares the knowledge she’s attained over her many years of teaching. She is constantly learning and growing in her own practice. She has had to overcome her unique challenges in her own body and generously shares her experience which encourages her students to grow in themselves and give that back to their students.
Annie teaches her students how to find neutral pelvis, using the 3 planes of movement (Sagittal, coronal, transverse). It is a simple and effective way to learn and establish neutral pelvis, which is, in my opinion, so important to practice for whole body health and function. Of course once you establish this awareness of neutral pelvis and what it is and is not – it takes attention and practice to sustain it as one unravels possibly unconscious poor habits and holding patterns.
This is the practice! Paying attention to our posture to enhance our inner connections, circulation, and function in our day-to-day activities. Our bones and structures directly affect our muscles, fascia and inner organs inside to function and work properly!
I believe pelvic placement and awareness is everything as it is the center of our body and affects our whole system. Our pelvis not only connects to our upper body through our spine, but it also connects to our lower body through our femur bones. The pelvis also has 2 sides – a right pelvic half and a left pelvic half and that is significant!!
I made a short video/practice on my YouTube channel if you are interested understanding neutral pelvis where I use the 3 planes of movement. I have also started incorporating this in my Thursday mat classes:)
If you are reading this, you may already know that it is Annie’s focus on the pelvis that drew me to her and her teachings. Annie emphasizes how our femur bones drive pelvic placement, so when we work through the 3 planes of movement to balance and neutralize our pelvis, it is essential that our feet and our legs are integrating into our hip sockets though out our movements too .
As you can imagine, if we are not paying attention, the pelvis, could take many shapes and forms! It could be a combination of either tucked, arched, hiked up on one side and/or rotated too much in one direction. If you are suffering pain or discomfort in your lower back and/or hips, a misaligned, unbalanced pelvis could be to blame.
To clarify, the pelvis is going to move when we move as it is part of the spine and the legs, so its normal for the pelvis to move in and out of a neutral posture. For example, every time we walk we move in and out of tuck/tilt, hike up and down, and we rotate side to side. However, problems arise when the pelvis gets stuck in an unbalanced position and cannot unstick.
When the pelvis is imbalanced, it can directly affect the health and well-being of our pelvic floor. The following are some interesting facts on our pelvic floor to better understand why our physical alignment is so crucial.
1 – the pelvic floor is the base and the foundation of our core.
Its a group of muscles that sit at the very bottom of our pelvis, like a sling or hammock. It supports everything above it – bladder, bowel, hips and spine.
2 – the pelvic floor has openings.
For example – Women – 3
urethra
Vagina
Rectum
These muscles need to open and close at the right times to keep everything moving and working smoothly.
3 – the pelvic floor muscles should lift and lower with our breathing which is why taking deep breaths is soooo very important.
It’s a dynamic! Think of an elevator. When you breath in the elevator goes down and when you breath out the elevator goes up! A healthy pelvic floor should be able to move easility depending what your body is doing! BREATHE
4 – your pelvic floor is 70% fascia and 30% muscle.
Fascia is a stretchy connective tissue that connects our whole body like a web. It relies on the muscles to give it support, as it cannot contact on its own! When the muscles are not doing its job and the pelvis is out of alignment for whatever reason, the fascia can over stretch and as consequence can be weakened. When the fascia is overstretched it can make matters worse as the pelvic floor muscles try to work harder..it can be a vicious cycle. When this cycle continues, the pelvic floor becomes hypertonic and unable to relax as it is working overtime to compensate for the stretched out fascia. This tightness overtime leads to weakness as our pelvic floor never gets a chance to relax! This can lead to damage and several pelvic floor issues – muscle spasms, leaking, straining, inability to empty, prolapse.
I first hand understand this dynamic as I have experienced many of these consequences. Although I did not welcome any of them, they have made me a better teacher and someone that understands the importance of body alignment, especially the value in neutral pelvis!
As we welcome November, I would like to offer my thanks to all of you who continue to support and practice with me at Le Bureau. I count my blessings often that I am able to do what I do and also have the opportunity to teach from my home.
It was not always this way. I started teaching Pilates in 2006 after completing a 600 hour +comprehensive classical Pilates training through Power Pilates, New York. Before this I taught school for 2 years after attaining my masters in teaching, at Seattle University.. I thought I was going to be a Kindergarten teacher as I chose to do my student teaching in a Kindergarten classroom at Our Lady of Lake catholic school, in Seattle, Washington. Well, that did not last long.
I married my husband, Pontus in 2003 and we moved to Iowa to begin his/our journey as he started Medical school. Although I started teaching as a substitute teacher in Iowa, I was drawn to movement and longed to teach exercise classes. On the side of teaching school, I become certified in personal training and acquired several other certifications to teach – about any class you can think of!
The practices of Yoga was my first fitness crush I discovered. There was a vibrant Yoga community in Des moines, Iowa and it became my ‘family’ away from home. I left Yoga classes feeling both energized but also calm. That said, the first 2 years in Iowa, I immersed myself in all things Anusara Yoga, a Hatha based practice that blends ‘heart’ themes.
In 2005, we moved to Ohio for a year for Pontus’s first year of medical rotations and I made the decision there not to renew my teaching license but instead to solely devote my time to learning about the body through many various fitness modalities. I worked as a personal trainer, taught fitness classes, including yoga, and also worked as a french tutor, and at a restaurant in the evenings. It’s amazing what you can do without Kids! It was here in Ohio, where I began my journey in Pilates. Out of curiosity to learn more and understand what Pilates was all about I enrolled myself in a weekend mat training through a Power Pilates studio in Sylvania, Ohio. After that weekend, I was hooked. Pilates made sense to me right away as I could grasp how it would benefit my body. I signed up for the comprehensive training not long after that. I had to let go of some of my classes I was teaching as well as the restaurant job to commit myself to the long training hours, but I enjoyed every second and I am so happy I chose this path.
After we left Ohio in 2006, we moved back to Iowa for a year, then moved to Redondo beach, CA for a year, and then to Salt lake city, Utah for 3 years before moving back to Seattle in 2012. I taught Pilates at ALL of these stops along the way. I also started the Pilates program at an Equinox in Manhattan Beach, CA in 2008 and also the Pilates program at Seattle Athletic Club(Northgate) in 2013. I have had made some amazing friends doing what I love to do over the years…
Fast forward to March 2016, I opened Le bureau Pilates in my home living room and I have been teaching from ‘home’ ever since. In October 2023, I started teaching group Pilates mat and Yoga classes and this has been a wonderful addition. The classes are a way to connect socially, physically and I love how it is becoming a small community. Thank you for trusting in me and being part of the Le Bureau community.
Please check out and enjoy my most resent Youtube tutorials and classes!
I believe that we are as strong in our core as much as we are open in our hips. To find a beautiful posture and superior balance in our bodies, we need both. For, if our hips are stuck tight and bound with no space we will not be able to access and use our strength in our daily functional movements.
2 tools to help you unwind tension in your hips is the hip hinge and finding a neutral pelvis.
When you perform a hip hinge -notice if your back rounds and bends when you hinge. You should instead aim to keep your back long and lifted. It seems simple to hinge the hips but our hips can hold a lot of tension and sometimes this simple exercise is harder that you may think.
A neutral pelvis is a position where the pelvis is neither too arched, nor too tucked. For me I sense balance on all my sides of my pelvis and one side is not working more than the other.
Understanding and executing these 2 actions in our movements will encourage more space and balance in our hips and will help us engage the bottom of our lower powerhouse (aka pelvic floor muscles) that are easily neglected in today’s modern world of sitting too much.
One scenario of why you may experience a lot of muscular tension in your hips and groin area is possibly because your thigh bones live more forward toward your quadriceps, instead of back toward your hamstrings. If this is your reality, welcome to the club! This is not uncommon. Being more quadricep dominant, usually indicates imbalanced pelvic floor muscles, and weaker hamstrings and gluteal muscles. When there is an imbalance between front and back bodies, poor balance, especially on one leg is usually a consequence. Poor balance happens when you are not able to integrate your body as a whole and connect to your midline. You may still have lots of strength but it is not balanced in your body side to side, front to back, and upper to lower body through your pelvic center!
To work on opening your hips to connect your upper and lower bodies better and enhance your balance, I recommend practicing your hip hinge, as well as being mindful to connect to a neutral pelvis!
As you hinge in your hips you can concentrate on drawing the root of your thigh bones back into the back of your hip socket. When you do that you should feel your quadriceps soften and find more connection of your gluteals and hamstring muscles. Maintaining a neutral pelvis where you are not tucking nor arching can help you integrate your whole body as one piece and feel connected on all your sides. Notice when you stand….do you feel more quadriceps or more hamstrings? Can you stand and notice both sides?
I have made a short video on my YOUtube channel to help you unlock your hips, (especially if you are, one of the many, who live more in your quadriceps than your hamstrings)! I demonstrate a hip hinge lying supine, and show you what to watch out for when sustaining a neutral pelvis! I hope this will be useful for you.
The 3 stretches I demonstrate are called, reclined hand to big toe pose – Supta padangustasana 1,2,3
These 3 stretches, done with neutral pelvis, release the muscles surrounding your pelvis to unlock your hips and therefore create better balance!
Once you think you found a neutral pelvis, its’ interesting what happens when you move. remember the pelvis is connected to your lower and upper body , so it is easily pulled around all day!
It takes time and patience to notice your pelvic tendencies. Not an easy thing to do if you are always in a hurry.:)
Finding neutral in my pelvis still a mindful practice for me. Neutral pelvis serves me well in all my activities. I feel grounded and integrated head to toe and more connected and balanced front to back and side to side.
At the biological level, aging results from the impact of accumulation of wide variety of molecular and cellular damage over time. This leads to gradual decrease in physical and mental capacity….the diversity seen in older age is not random…. “ – World Health Organization
This past weekend, I took a course named, – “FUNtional Movement and SmartFLOW yoga” with my teacher Annie Carpenter and another SmartFLOW teacher and doctor of physical therapy; Brenna Barzennick, PT, DPT. The workshop explored the 7 functional movement patterns:
squat
hinge
push
pull
lunge
twist
gait
These functional movements are a part of our daily life and done well, these movements can support healthy aging. We explored how walking involves all of the 7 functional movements! Can you feel all the above actions when you are walking? Interesting fact – We learned how walking speed can predict the probability of functional decline in older adults. Keep walking with good attention to posture:)
During this training, we learned that the hub for human movement, as well as all the above functional movements is called the lumbar-pelvic Hip complex (LPHC). The “LPHC” consists of the lumbar spine, sacrum, pelvis, femurs(thigh bones), and includesof 35 muscles! Some of the larger muscles in the “LPHC” include the gluteal muscles, erector spinae group, hip flexors and extensors, hip adductors and abductors, spinal rotators, abdominal muscles, quadriceps, hamstrings, calf muscles, and latissimus dorsi.
The heart of this training was to communicate and show how complex these basic functional movements are as they involve an intricate and sometimes tangled part of the body. Furthermore, there needs to be both participation and coordination of all 35 muscles to support the movements in a balanced way.
This was a great workshop! I felt grateful for the knowledge that I already knew as the information was being lectured and discussed among the group of yogis. The Lumbar Pelvic Hip Complex is essentially the Pilates powerhouse:). More reason to practice Pilates!!
In this post I would like to highlight how the practice of Pilates, with a well trained teacher – me:), and other practices done well day-to-day, will support us in all we do, and help us age with strength and vitality.
Some examples of everyday activities:
squat/hinge- toileting, up and down out of a chair/car/tub, picking up items on the floor or gardening, putting on and tying shoes.
push – pushing a shopping cart/stroller/vacuum, sliding furniture, opening doors.
pull –opening doors/cabinets/drawers, pulling a suitcase, lifting body up from the floor.
lunge – stair climbing, walking up hill, kneeling gardening, picking something up from the floor, cleaning house.
twisting – reclining behind you, tolieting, cleaning body, turing to look while standing/standing/sitting, cooking/dishes.
gait – the human gait depends on a complex interplay of major parts of the nervous, musculoskeletal, and cardiorespiratory systems.
As all functional movement forces are generated and transmitted through this ares in our body.
What is Pilates really?
Pilates =contrology = art of control = mind controlling your muscles.
What do we want the muscles to do/be?
Pilates wants us to find balance and have a balanced support of our structure on all sides to promote optimal alignment.
Powerhouse muscles that support our pelvic center (LPHC) are key to finding balance:
As mentioned above; there are 35 muscles supporting this region in our body….the following are just some ‘larger player’…
inner & outer thighs
hamstrings
gluteals
quadriceps
erector spine muscles
transverse abdominals,
oblique abdominals
pelvic floor muscles
psoas muscle
The above powerhouse muscles is just our ‘lower powerhouse!’ There is a ‘secondary powerhouse’ (also known as the ‘secondary hub’) that focuses more on our shoulder girdle and upper body. However, the pelvis (primary and lower powerhouse) is our first priority as it connects our 2 halves – lower and upper bodies. If our pelvis and hips are out of alignment there will be consequences to both our lower and upper body, where as if we have an imbalance in our shoulder girdle or secondary powerhouse it is less likely that it will affect our lower body too.
consider Pilates movements with a functional movement framework!
If you are familiar with the Pilates method, you can probably agree that Pilates it is no joke! The practice of Pilates is hard work and requires the practitioner to be attentive in body and mind, start to finish! Body awareness, including better understanding and appreciation of the 7 functional movements, coordination, balance, steady breathing, strength, mobility, and patience are just some of the many benefits one can achieve with steady practice.
I have practiced and taught Pilates for close to 20 years and I have learned a lot about my body and other bodies that I have been fortunate to work with. Reflecting back, I realize that many of my issues and my clients difficulties are a result of pushing too hard and/or trying to perform a posture without considering or understanding the functional movement within that posture. Moreover, bodies change and sometimes we, including myself, forget to listen and connect to our changes big or small and want to do what we did yesterday, but forget to consider how we are in the present. I am grateful that I now have more awareness of the 7 functional movements, from my latest training, that will remind me to balance my ‘situations’ – pushes with my pulls, my spacious shoulders, and my blossom with my squeeze etc etc.
If you have read my blog in the past, you know some of my past ‘situations.’ I have been through a lot and have much more to share, but that is for another post:). My ‘problems’ did not happen overnight or from a few practices, they were poor habits and unconscious tendencies that I neglected in my life for years and those same habits were showing up in my Pilates practice! As my teacher Annie Carpenter likes to say, “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”
I was content to practice in ‘auto – pilot,’ for several years not just in Pilates but in life too. I caution when people associate Pilates only to a set of exercises or ‘systems’ in classical Pilates, for example. Pilates is much more than just exercises. Pilates is ‘whole’ mind-body exercise! The important thing is ‘HOW’ you do it. More importantly than the ‘how,’ is your ability to change your how when your body and life circumstances change. Like everything the only constant in life is change and so it is a constant practice to stay present to your whole body so that you can adapt your practice to your changing body.
Ruthless = Pilates (especially practiced on the mat)
Mat Pilates, especially is not an easy practice. Many individuals think that practicing Pilates on the mat would be easier than the reformer. In contrast, mat Pilates, is a whole lot harder to practice as you are without an apparatus that gives you boundaries, support and leverage. The mat offers no support except the floor and sometimes a wall and some minimal props such as a ball or magic circle. It takes a lot of awareness to understand how to connect our many pieces!! Mat Pilates is demanding and dare I say ruthless!
If you have taken my Pilates mat classes in the past you may already know that I start my classes with variations on functional movements to warm up the body before just starting down on the mat with the 100! I like to start with standing warmups. That said, there is nothing wrong with starting a mat Pilates class on the mat, in fact its a great way to connect to your body and feel your back and how it connects or doesn’t connect and sense how your arms and legs connect to your center. However, starting on the mat can also be deceiving, especially for the beginner, as you may forget to maintain your posture and alignment when you are on the ground and gravity is not weighing you down (as it is when you are standing). Often, I find myself saying – “try not to fall asleep!” I obverse especially legs and arms “falling asleep.” Remember in Pilates, the arms and legs are just extensions from our core/powerhouse, so there should be some effort in keeping those limbs “awake.” The ground offers support, but you still need to be aware and maintain your alignment as if you are still standing with your two feet on the ground!
Everyone needs to tweak their own body differently to find their best alignment but, generally speaking you want to encourage yourself to be alert in your body feeling the center of head, over center of throat, over center of heart, over center of pelvic floor, over center of knees, over center of ankles, with your 2 feet simultaneously grounded and arches lifted.
Pilates is an incredible method that can enhance your function in daily life!Change is inevitable, and you may have to adjust and adapt your practice with age, but having more awareness of the functional movements, will help us accept and be okay with changing our habits, to find more balance and ease.
I am grateful to my personal journey. All my challenges and hardships have only made me stronger. My practice of Pilates feels better and better the more I listen, accept and adapt my practice to my changing body.
Curious to try a Pilates mat class with me? Here is the general outline to how I structure my Mat Pilates classes –
5 minutes – “arrive in body” general body awareness and simple stretches to get us in our bodies
10 minutes – “functional warmup” some simple functional movements and mobility exercises for spine, shoulders and hips. Think squats, lunges, planks, cat/cows, shoulder circles, hip circles etc..
40 minutes – Pilates mat flow encouraging ideas from our functional movement warmup! I regularly apply the idea of a ‘squat’ to the various exercises in Pilates…this way we can remind ourselves that we are practicing this method to feel better and move better in life…not just perform in mat class!!
End standing in our ‘optimal posture’ to feel the efforts of our practice:)
* Starting in August 2024, I am excited to offer my Thursday mat classes at my new home/Le Bureau location. I will have a bigger space as well as more ‘wall room’
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