Feet first…
I touched on this a little last month, but I've only recently really realised the importance of well-looked after feet.
When your feet are over-worked, weak or wonky, as mine certainly were this month (after dragging them over glorious Scottish hills) it's highly possible that the rest of your body, toe-to-top, will be affected.
Joseph Pilates himself was a mildly obsessed with feet - strengthening them, correcting flat ones, lifting arches, stretching toes.
His very first patented piece of apparatus was the Foot-Corrector, followed soon after by the Toe-Corrector. He thought feet were abused, weak and neglected and I must say mine completely were until very recently! With my post-Scotland collapsed arches came knee pain, hip pain and a dusting of back pain for good measure. (Variety is the spice of life!) Just ONE session on Pilates' foot-corrector brings relief. You'll hear Kirstin say 'lift your arches' a lot in class and there's good reason. It may be that lifting your arches releases a part of you that's overcompensating (hamstrings or calves for example).
That lift may encourage a person to stand properly, or re-train a brain to stop making knees rotate inward, which creates imbalance. There'll be a reason for everyone to lift those arches, because in daily life, we really don't think about our feet and their impact on overall alignment very much, do we?
When I got back to the studio, I was so thankful for a session. The springs called me out on the reformer and I felt like I just bashed about - I had to find that flow again to be able to recover and restore - clunks all over the place! I'm learning to trust the springs when doing reformer work - rather than feeling frustrated at being 'off kilter' you just need to use it as a helpful tool instead. Whatever part of your body needs it will thank you for it.
The longer you do Pilates the more body aware you become. I'm aware of my 'go-to' defaults that stop me finding that lift or try to prevent me doing an exercise properly. Maybe you've had them too - grippy abs, tense bum cheeks, locked knees, those sorts of sneaky things? When something tenses up of course you can't stretch and lengthen, and so being aware of your slightly unhelpful 'default setting' can really make a difference.
I like to announce them to Kirstin so she can tell me what adjustment to make 'I feel like my legs are taking over!' I shout... 'soften your knees!' is the reply. Or, randomly this week... 'lift your little toe!'
I find this really helpful as a beginner - vocalising what doesn't feel right, rather than just pretending it all makes sense.
As we go into this next month, keeping this awareness of body is the main aim. It's truly helping me to learn. As well as keeping this at the forefront of my mind, I'm also still trying to consider my powerhouse more in every day life. Walking to work I lift my ‘inside body’, I try to not sit cross-legged as much at the desk, I think of breathing deeply and making that space.
Little things learned in Pilates can make a difference, and I know that next time I plan to do a 100 mile trek the thing that will make the biggest different is taking one of those blinkin’ Pilates balls with me to roll me feet over - forget packing the clean clothes!
See you all at the studio soon,
Sophie x