Tuesday, May 31, 2011

My Passion for Pilates


I hadn’t taken very many Pilates classes when I began to notice how differently I moved and how strong I felt.  I simply wore my body differently and that feeling made me feel confident and powerful.  The longer I took classes the more I loved Pilates with a thoroughly unexpected passion.  After a couple of years, my husband began to encourage me to quit my job and get certified to teach Pilates.  In spite of the fact that I had been talking about  Pilates for two years, I was thunderstruck at the idea that this passion could become my JOB.  Suddenly there was a silly grin on my face that I couldn’t seem to wipe off.  It’s still there.
So much has happened since then.  I worked at a studio in Huntington Harbour for two years and then moved to another part of the Harbour to open my own.  But those are just the business details.  The amazing part of this story is the people I have met along the way.  And the privilege of watching them discover how Pilates changes their bodies.  And watching the silly grin appear on their faces.
People come to Pilates studios for a lot of reasons – flexibility, toning, core strength…the list is a long one.  But I was surprised by the large number of people who come specifically for pain relief.  Many come to help rehab an injured or painful low back, knee, hip…   But in addition I found people coming to find relief from syndromes that cannot be exercised away.   These people came with chronic pain syndromes such as fibromyalgia.  This was very different than the work that I did to help people out of low back pain, or to improve movement in a knee or hip after surgery.   These clients responded well to the Pilates method and report feeling better, but I wanted to be sure that I was doing all I could to help them in the management of their pain.   
To better understand fibromyalgia and other chronic pain syndromes Marilyn Koval, an instructor at the studio,  and I turned to my husband who is a Chiropractor in a pain management clinic.  He shared his experience and his wealth of knowledge on this subject and helped us more fully understand chronic pain.    He armed us with a great deal of research and for the past year we have been working  together to develop a system to work with this population based on the research and our experience with our own clients.  
Chronic pain is a terrible burden that sabotages sleep, makes movement feel risky and chips away at a person’s sense of power and strength.  When working with this population I am constantly reminded of the sense of power Pilates gave me when it taught me to wear my body differently.   That is my goal for all of my clients with chronic pain.