Cultural Pilates.

 
HI There!! Since the last time we saw each other much has been happening! Working deep in more ways then one peace has started to settle in my human existance. More on that later, today I want to talk about PILATES!!
    Pilates for Wellbeing has really started to take off and my mind is thankful, and also challenged. Although a newish teacher to Pilates I have had the privilage to teach abroad many times and with the knowledge that everybody that moves beneath my gaze is different, culterally speaking its a whole new different. It has been one of the most interesting journeys through my young career as a Pilates Teacher. Teaching in France last summer I was amazed at how my clients really found Pilates to be just another epression of the pleasure they found living on the Cote' Azur. In my homeland of the US of A I have found that people take themselves very seriously, almost too much so. Its like if we could combine the south of france pleasure with the intent seriousness of the North Americans we might just fall into a state of grace and fluidity. My experience in the states is that something is always wrong, there is always something that needs to be fixed and movement sometimes is emabarressing not worth a giggle like the South of France culture. Pros and Cons to all things but I found it to be quite a distinct difference, I think its more the head space of those two that are different and now I am in India.
   The Indian culture has been practiving yoga and meditation for as long as the gods have manifested themselves in human form...a long time. I have found in just my short time working with the people in this beautiful, magical land their mind space is open and unattached so much that sometimes they have forgotten they have a body they are living in. My teacher in me is still gathering data on this and as time goes by I am sure I will have more to write about later. My head is full of wonderment on how in different lands we struggle with such different things. We see things on the tube and read things on the internet so im pretty sure that last statment comes to no surprise, like duh Hannah, but when you see it up close, when you talk to someone face to face and hear their words , it makes it real. There are certain things that our upbringing /enviroment changes in our physique and evolution as the human form and the ever changing computer brains we have.  
   My teacher training program one of the best in world, provided me with excellant skills on observing human movement and speaking in way that provides a new way of thinking for my client, thus creating new movement patterns. What I am learning being out here in this big wide world, is that yes you can speak to the body in front of you and hope your cues get met with a shift or "ah ha" moment, but what happens when speaking to the body isnt enough. We are energy,pure and simple, how do as teachers  get out of our own heads and into our hearts, so that we can really connect into the body before us? The answer is in the question.