My Do’s and Don’ts, and Helpful Definitions

In case you’re considering joining a class but you’re not clear really on what I do exactly, I’ve listed below what I don’t do because I believe in managing expectations where possible and listing my do’s and don’ts has been helpful for me and might be for you!

You might also learn something - I’ve included some helpful definitions…

I have developed some universal principles over the 20 years of working with hundreds of people on the floor and attending multiple professional trainings to build my knowledge and experience.

All training is practical. You can’t teach this stuff before you understand it in your body first, so I spend a huge amount of time working stuff out on my own body before I bring it to class.

I always know I have’t quite got my understanding when I teach it and it’s not coming across in a simple or clear way.

Teaching helps me deepen my understanding too, so I learn alongside you and observing how people move and learn often challenges the material and you get to really see what works and what doesn’t.

When you look online at the images associated particularly with pilates, yoga and fitness, there is an impression given that certain aesthetics, body shapes and images are what health and fitness and successful health should look like.

This is really NOT helpful and can set up really misguided and unrealistic expectations for so many people.

In a nutshell, I’m primarily interested in helping you connect to your felt sense and working on movement from the inside out.

Think where you move from.

What it looks like is not the goal because when you feel good and move better in your whole body, everything is better!

To clarify, here are how I define these well used terms:

Alignment is about how your parts work in relationship to each other and the spaces you are moving through.

Posture is how things look with no regard for how you got there.

Movement is change in joint angles and tissue tensions on a micro and macro scale - think all the different ways your body moves as you move through your day and your environment.

Exercise is a man-made collection of ideas based on science and observation (not always) and applied to a person.

Ultimately feeling good in your body and being able to do what you want to do for as long as possible over your lifetime is where I’m coming from when I’m teaching you how to restore and maintain basic human movement skills.

There are no bells or whistles a lot of the time but I have been know to give gold stars ⭐️ and punch the air 💪 when you start self adjusting, meeting your own movement needs and telling me how you have incorporated what you’ve learned in class into your daily life.

Things I don’t do and what I will do instead.

I won’t be encouraging you to hold your tummy in.

This is a disaster for pelvic floor health especially post C-section, hysterectomy, episiotomy, appendectomy, adhesions, diastasis rectii, disc bulge or pelvic organ prolapse.

I won’t be pushing you with a  ‘no pain no gain’ philosophy.

You might ‘feel the burn’ during some of the moves, because we will be restoring function in parts of you that haven’t been online for a while.

We won’t be deliberately seeking out moves that push you beyond your limits.

I will be encouraging you to pay closer attention to the signals your body sends you.

We won’t be doing rounds of the hundred, sit ups or traditional approaches to 'strengthen your core’.

We will be focusing on whole body movements that create conditions for a reflexive response in your core - the appropriate amount of tissue tension for the anticipated load.

Core stability does not mean holding your tummy in, doing loads of drills and reps to build a bikini body or a 6 pack.

Reflexive core is your body responding to whatever you are doing with the right amount of tension distributed throughout your body without you having to hold contract or fire anything up.

This comes with regular practice.

We will be celebrating what is already working and moving well in your body and building confidence in your coordination, flexibility, strength, and balance from there.

I will be punching the air when you begin to:

• modify your movement and positions for your specific needs when there is pain, limited mobility or fatigue.

• adapt your practice to low load when symptoms flare up

• incorporate rest and tension release to restore balance