February 3, 2009--Snowbirding: Pilates
Rona swears by it, my sister in law Sharon is a devote, and so with time on my hands I decided to try Pilates.
Thus last week I found myself, after sweating my way through the Hundreds, doing the Elephant. How to describe it to the initiated?
You do it on the Reformer, a bench-like contraption that features a sort of sliding seat attached to a set of springs. At one end is an adjustable bar on which sometimes you place your feet while, laying face-up, you press against the bar to slide the seat back to engage the tension supplied by the springs and in this way get various forms of leg and abdominal exercise.
But when doing the Elephant, rather than lying on your back on the Reformer, you stand or kneel on the sliding seat and hunch over so that your hands are able to grasp the bar, all the while encouraged by your trainer to arch your back and suck in your abs and by so doing assume a concave position that I suppose from a distance someone might think makes you look like a baby elephant. Thus the name. But this is only the beginning.
The Elephant is not some adult version of the kids game Statues but, since it is after all a Pilates exercise, the way the exercise part works is that by using your abs, and only your abs while squeezing your butt--without being tempted to cheat by taking the easy way out by pushing back on the sliding seat with you arms--you are expected to activate the slide, again extending the springs, and thereby get the ab-building benefit. Strengthening what our instructor, Kirstin, calls The Powerhouse—the core of one’s being, your abs, the exercising of which is the principal goal of Pilates.
I must admit, in my decades-long neglected shape, the very idea that I am working on building anything even remotely resembling a powerhouse is more daunting than inspiring. But since I have already pre-paid for 10 sessions and thus far have gone to only four, I probably should wait until at least next week to see how I my Powerhouse-building is progressing. Kirstin, however, though a serious taskmaster, who emphasizes technique as much as the strength-building part, is nothing but encouraging. Even for someone in my condition.
After my shaky attempts at The Elephant and The Hundred (where you lie panting on your back and with hands inserted into a pair of springs that are attached behind your head to the Reformer and then, with them fully extended, you flap your arms up and down a hundred times as fast as you can while alternately holding and releasing your breath) after struggling with these, it is time for The Tree.
Still on your back, you are directed to lift both legs off the Reformer and with quivering abs hold them suspended in air at about a 30-degree angle. Then, when thus more-or-less stabilized, you are expected to lift the right leg “up to the ceiling,” keeping it straight (“Try not to bend your knee”) and with your calves and hamstrings burning are told to lift your head about four inches, tucking in your chin so you can look down at your abs (which in my case is not difficult to do since they are still far from toned up and flat) and, thus crunched, are instructed to use both hands to grasp your raised leg behind the knee and “walk them up” toward your ankle.
The Elephant I understand but why this is called The Tree still escapes me. Maybe by the eighth or ninth session I will get it; but at the moment, though when in that curled-up state, gasping for air, though attempting to fool Kirstin who doesn’t miss a trick, that I am breathing properly “with control,” I do feel in my literal gut that I am doing something good for my Powerhouse. So be it The Tree or, as I prefer to call it, The Crab—all that counts is that I am certain I am making progress.
Still, to me, since I always think of a tree as vertical with a trunk and protruding branches, while prone and curled up on the Reformer and walking my hands up my legs I do not as yet see why this in any way is tree-like. Unless, of course, the Pilates tree image is of a fallen or cut down one with its branches pruned off.
This, however, I prefer not to contemplate. Not while stretched out on the unforgiving Reformer and attached to various sets of powerful springs or while I still have six sessions to go and remain committed, at least in my mind, to growth and strengthening.
So later today I will be back at Kirstin’s immaculate studio and place myself again in her capable hands, trusting that whatever she has in store for me on the Cadillac is not only well-designed for someone like me (no need to go into further detail about that!) but by the end of the session, certainly by the end of all ten, I will begin to resemble Joseph Pilades himself who, when about my advanced age, as revealed in pictures that line Kirstin’s studio, looked as if he indeed was carrying around quite a Powerhouse.
Or at the least I’ll stop thinking that the Cadillac, with its springs and pulleys and bars and restraints, is not something inspired by the Inquisition but actually something carefully devised to yank me into shape.
To tell you the truth, there are mirrors lining the studio walls and though at first I was reluctant to catch even a wayward glimpse of my stooped self, last week I did take the risk to do so and was surprised and pleased to note that things that were supposed to be flatter were indeed a little flatter (assisted a bit by sucking in my gut) and I was I noted standing a little taller.
Who knows, maybe . . .
Thus last week I found myself, after sweating my way through the Hundreds, doing the Elephant. How to describe it to the initiated?
You do it on the Reformer, a bench-like contraption that features a sort of sliding seat attached to a set of springs. At one end is an adjustable bar on which sometimes you place your feet while, laying face-up, you press against the bar to slide the seat back to engage the tension supplied by the springs and in this way get various forms of leg and abdominal exercise.
But when doing the Elephant, rather than lying on your back on the Reformer, you stand or kneel on the sliding seat and hunch over so that your hands are able to grasp the bar, all the while encouraged by your trainer to arch your back and suck in your abs and by so doing assume a concave position that I suppose from a distance someone might think makes you look like a baby elephant. Thus the name. But this is only the beginning.
The Elephant is not some adult version of the kids game Statues but, since it is after all a Pilates exercise, the way the exercise part works is that by using your abs, and only your abs while squeezing your butt--without being tempted to cheat by taking the easy way out by pushing back on the sliding seat with you arms--you are expected to activate the slide, again extending the springs, and thereby get the ab-building benefit. Strengthening what our instructor, Kirstin, calls The Powerhouse—the core of one’s being, your abs, the exercising of which is the principal goal of Pilates.
I must admit, in my decades-long neglected shape, the very idea that I am working on building anything even remotely resembling a powerhouse is more daunting than inspiring. But since I have already pre-paid for 10 sessions and thus far have gone to only four, I probably should wait until at least next week to see how I my Powerhouse-building is progressing. Kirstin, however, though a serious taskmaster, who emphasizes technique as much as the strength-building part, is nothing but encouraging. Even for someone in my condition.
After my shaky attempts at The Elephant and The Hundred (where you lie panting on your back and with hands inserted into a pair of springs that are attached behind your head to the Reformer and then, with them fully extended, you flap your arms up and down a hundred times as fast as you can while alternately holding and releasing your breath) after struggling with these, it is time for The Tree.
Still on your back, you are directed to lift both legs off the Reformer and with quivering abs hold them suspended in air at about a 30-degree angle. Then, when thus more-or-less stabilized, you are expected to lift the right leg “up to the ceiling,” keeping it straight (“Try not to bend your knee”) and with your calves and hamstrings burning are told to lift your head about four inches, tucking in your chin so you can look down at your abs (which in my case is not difficult to do since they are still far from toned up and flat) and, thus crunched, are instructed to use both hands to grasp your raised leg behind the knee and “walk them up” toward your ankle.
The Elephant I understand but why this is called The Tree still escapes me. Maybe by the eighth or ninth session I will get it; but at the moment, though when in that curled-up state, gasping for air, though attempting to fool Kirstin who doesn’t miss a trick, that I am breathing properly “with control,” I do feel in my literal gut that I am doing something good for my Powerhouse. So be it The Tree or, as I prefer to call it, The Crab—all that counts is that I am certain I am making progress.
Still, to me, since I always think of a tree as vertical with a trunk and protruding branches, while prone and curled up on the Reformer and walking my hands up my legs I do not as yet see why this in any way is tree-like. Unless, of course, the Pilates tree image is of a fallen or cut down one with its branches pruned off.
This, however, I prefer not to contemplate. Not while stretched out on the unforgiving Reformer and attached to various sets of powerful springs or while I still have six sessions to go and remain committed, at least in my mind, to growth and strengthening.
So later today I will be back at Kirstin’s immaculate studio and place myself again in her capable hands, trusting that whatever she has in store for me on the Cadillac is not only well-designed for someone like me (no need to go into further detail about that!) but by the end of the session, certainly by the end of all ten, I will begin to resemble Joseph Pilades himself who, when about my advanced age, as revealed in pictures that line Kirstin’s studio, looked as if he indeed was carrying around quite a Powerhouse.
Or at the least I’ll stop thinking that the Cadillac, with its springs and pulleys and bars and restraints, is not something inspired by the Inquisition but actually something carefully devised to yank me into shape.
To tell you the truth, there are mirrors lining the studio walls and though at first I was reluctant to catch even a wayward glimpse of my stooped self, last week I did take the risk to do so and was surprised and pleased to note that things that were supposed to be flatter were indeed a little flatter (assisted a bit by sucking in my gut) and I was I noted standing a little taller.
Who knows, maybe . . .
posted by Steven Zwerling at
7:21 AM
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