Pilates teaches you about your powerhouse and that it is the center of your body where all your power and stability come from to execute any movement. “Lift up one vertebra at a time.” This helps you realize there are joints between every vertebra and that each joint is meant to move with purpose, with strength, with support, with flexibility! This cue helps you peel your upper body up while focusing on holding your upper body with support. Other cues are there to help lengthen, make space, encourage supportive strength. “Hold your head in your hands” to help lengthen your neck or “tuck your chin as you roll up” to help initiate deep abdominal muscles or “slide your shoulders down and back” to help open your chest and lengthen your back.

These cues are techniques, they are not secrets! These are everyday cues that may help one find space and ease in their movements. Cues in partnership with a helpful like-minded teacher, can bring focus back into your movements and help you concentrate in the movement, help you control the correct movement, help you breathe through the movement. Pilates can be performed with or without equipment. They are called Mat Classes and Equipment Classes, respectively.

Mat Classes:

Pilates Mat Classes are typically done with Pilates-specific Mats - rigid mats that consist of 2 inches of foam cushion and may include a strap at the end for your feet. Yoga mats can be used in a pinch if care is taken. Pilates Mats provide extra support for some of the foundational Pilates movement exercises like “rolling like a ball, open leg rocker, roll ups etc.). Mat classes may also incorporate Pilates props like the Magic Circle and the Foam Roller.

Equipment Classes:

Pilates Equipment Classes provide lessons on the traditional equipment invented by Joseph Pilates; the Reformer, the Chair, and the Tower.

The Reformer is a low table like machine with a sliding platform (carriage) which is attached at the foot of the reformer by springs for resistance. The carriage is moved by pressing on a stationary foot bar or pulling on straps that run through pulleys at the head of the reformer.

The Chair, as the name implies, is a short wooden box padded for sitting or laying on the top. On one side a paddle is attached by hinges and supported by springs connected to the undercarriage of the chair for resistance. The paddle is manipulated by the feet or hands depending on the exercise.

The Tower is the shorter version of the traditional Cadillac. It is essentially a low-lying bed with a metal frame canopy at one end. Springs are attached to the metal frame to provide resistance-based exercises as well as support-based training.

Pilates was started by Joseph Pilates (1883 – 1967), a German athlete, a movement specialist, a philanthropist and an entrepreneur. By surviving the Great Wars in Britain and helping injured soldiers rehabilitate, he invented equipment using springs and pully systems to help with resistance-based exercises in a supportive way.

Joseph's exercises were designed to be done mainly while laying down to help students focus on the exercise task at hand. Reducing gravity and lowering the stress to the heart was a key focus in his exercising regime which helped bring awareness to certain body parts while teaching control of limbs and using breath to guide each action.

Originally, Joseph called his exercising regime “Contrology”. With his passing, his followers and students continued with his practice teaching others and dedicating the lessons in his name: Pilates.

The principles of Pilates are centered around breath, concentration, centering, control, precision, and flow. According to Joseph, when you dedicate some time to Pilates and working towards mastering these 6 fundamentals it will ultimately help ”develop the body uniformly, correct wrong postures, restore physical vitality, invigorate the mind and elevate the spirit”.