Why Pilates?
With so much information out there in “physical education” ,magazines and people who are supposedly in the know, why Pilates. With the morass of opinions about exercise and how to pursue it, how do we sort through this information? Who do we trust?
There are certain laws of the universe that hold true for all living things. Our design is elegant, complicated and yet simple at the same time. Joseph H. Pilates said “physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness”. He believed that if our bodies were maintained to the highest level, we had the best chance of being emotionally happy, well rounded people. The goal of his tried and true exercise philosophy was to be able to accomplish all of our daily task with “spontaneous zest and pleasure”
If we look at how a tree is organized we can see that it has a trunk and it has limbs, first and foremost. This is universal. If a tree were to develop its limbs more than the trunk can support the trunk gets overwhelmed by the weight of the limbs. This same philosophy explains the Pilates Method at its most fundamental way.
Pilates develops the trunk of the body in harmonious proportion to the limbs. As a former personal trainer I continually wondered about how to approach the spine. We focused so must energy on the limbs, the arms and legs and always seemed lopsided in that way. Its important to understand that the fitness industry is a function of the bodybuilding industry. Bodybuilders were in the gym so much that they thought that it would be a good idea to make a job of it. I hope that it is clear that the purpose of has very little to do with health. Isn’t it curious that most people who lift weights seem to get thick and chunky either during there weightlifting career or immediately afterwards.
This Blog is designed to help sort through the myths, misinformation and commercialized ideas of physical fitness. While I am obviously biased towards the Pilates method, it is the philosophy itself that I am especially interested in. Balanced and proportional development of the bodymind.
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