HAVING BEEN A devotee for seventeen years, a teacher for fourteen years and a teacher-trainer for Body Control Pilates for eight years, you might think that I am very pleased by the boom - but in fact I am rather concerned at the very rapid rate of growth. Namely, because demand is outweighing supply.
Every student should have a well-qualified teacher to really grasp the Method and enjoy the full benefits. Can the quality of teaching be maintained in the present climate? I reckon I was just about qualified after seven years of training!
I started when I was still a professional dancer suffering from a chronic back injury. My dear friend Heather Sampson (Pilates International) gave me my initial training and I have been studying Pilates and anatomy ever since both here in England and in the United States.
I worked in several of the top London studios and qualified in Sports Injury in 1990 which included weight training, aerobics, diet and nutrition, anatomy and massage.
I couldn’t move away from the dance world completely and found Pilates the only form of exercise to keep me challenged so I accepted a position at Lewisham college and Middlesex university. For the BA dance degree courses I created a three year syllabus from the original mat work and lectured in related anatomy and physiology.
This experience of working within an educational curriculum helped me greatly when Body control Pilates asked me to join their team of teacher-trainers when they set up their Pilates basic mat course in 1996.
For the past two years I have acted as course director for the Body Control Pilates Academy. My work involved writing their educational material: Matwork and Reformer courses from the basic, to intermediate and on to the advanced.
At present I continue to develop the teachers once they have qualified but have stepped down as course director.
Their emphasis has always been on safety and insuring the students develop their own technique and their teaching skills over an appropriate length of time. As Joseph Pilates said himself, ‘Rome was not built in a day’.
The exercises can take years to achieve and you should be under the eye of a qualified instructor.
Even though I was a professional dancer for fourteen years before I became a Pilates instructor and in good athletic shape, it has taken years to achieve some of the exercises and to get a real understanding of the technique and I am still learning!