Tweaking

I’ve become a firm believer in the idea of tweaking.

I prefer the word tweaking over the word perfecting.  But perfection is exactly what I’m striving for.

In the work of Pilates we’re asked to be better, work harder, think deeper because we may only have 3 or 5 reps of a movement and we want to make sure each movement showers it’s magic on the body.

The other day I was perusing the bookshelf in my bedroom.  This shelf houses all my books on Pilates, on anatomy and on other disciplines.  Just because we teach Pilates doesn’t mean we don’t investigate and study other methods or ideologies.  Tweaking comes to mind once again because the study of the body doesn’t begin and end with Pilates.  It’s an ongoing affair and in our studio, we work to tweak the method, to make it more effective on the body and the mind.  That’s one of the reasons we have such a good reputation.  We truly study the body with open minds and hearts.

Enter stage right: The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion, written by Pete Egoscue, an anatomical functionalist.  This  book was sitting on my shelf and I can’t remember when I bought it or how I heard about it.  But there it was, this little gem of a book that certainly espouses all the same beliefs Joseph Pilates did.

Health through motion.  Absolutely.

The body as a unit.  Absolutely.

Form and function, the health of the spine, returning to a proper alignment –  all topics that can be written about (separately) in book length.  And all topics Joseph Pilates wrote about and believed in.

The book is laid out simply with the lay person in mind.  Egoscue addresses very common conditions relating to misalignment; the  cause of myriad muscular problems.

He’s created a  list of  stretches and strengthening exercises in a particular order. There are four different lists and depending on what body condition (misalignment) you feel best represents you, you then work from that particular list of exercises.

It’s interesting because some of the exercises are simple yoga stretches.  Some remind me of an old fashioned gym class and a few were created by Egoscue.  But putting them together in the order he defines, somehow creates a deep sense of well-being and connectedness.  Many of our clients find that the work of Pilates comes easier after doing even a few of these exercises as a warm-up to Pilates.

The point here is simply this: there’s no one magical discipline that recreates the body as it was meant to function.  Movement is important, but how we move is more important.  Pilates helps us move effectively.  But it’s not the cure all.  Often times we need a deeper understanding of how powerful the mind is in directing the body’s muscular ignitions.  If we begin a motion with incorrect alignment, we’ll continue working in that misalignment throughout the movement.

Sometimes we need to scatter the brainwaves a bit – to help remind the mind that the body needs to function as it was meant to function.  The Egoscue Method helps us rearrange the mind and let go of muscular tension where muscular tension isn’t needed.

Tweak, tweak, tweak…..onward and forward.