Unlocking the Body
I tend to think of the body as a puzzle or a video game. With our Pilates practice, we’re unlocking levels as we go. If we don’t successfully unlock level 1, we can’t fully access level 2.
Unlocking the Body with Muscle Memory
If your IA or previous exercises have shown that you currently do not have the ability currently to access or understand movement related to the ribcage, I’m not going to cue you during footwork or bridges or whatever else to “close the ribcage”.
If I cue you to “close the rib cage” and you have absolutely no idea how to execute that cue, or how to even connect to the part of the body that moves the ribcage, that’s a wasted cue. Instead of guiding you to a connection and a deeper understanding or communication with your body, we’ve guided you towards uncertainty, frustration, or self-consciousness. Or you’ve completely ignored the cue and it’s meaningless anyway.
However, if I observed you naturally closing the ribcage during certain movements in the IA or during other Pilates exercises, we can use those exercises to help develop further understanding of “closing the ribcage”.
The first thing we do is develop muscle memory by repetition. We utilize the exercises you can properly execute to develop really strong muscle memory. We do them over and over and over. When both the brain and the body understand the movement, then we can start cueing that movement in other exercises.
Unlocking the Body with Exploration
Secondly, we may need to address stability, mobility, strength or brain connection before we can access certain movements. This is where things can get tricky.
We may find we need to develop all four to execute an exercise. In that case, we need to prioritize. Do we need to focus most on stability? Strength? Mobility? Brain connection? And how do we best do that?
After addressing form and safety, I tend to lean towards brain connection first. Humans are kinetic learners. We learn by doing. Sometimes we need to explore a movement and just roll with it until we understand how that movement works.
Once we get the basic mechanics of how a movement operates, we can start focusing on stability, strength and mobility.
Frequently, as clients explore different exercises, they themselves find the “missing piece” and are able to identify what’s needed to properly execute a movement.
I’ve found that it’s best to wait a breath or two before cueing or allow a client to fully explore a movement until they verbalize a question or an understanding.
Allowing exploration of movement, without external cues from an instructor, gives clients a chance to unlock the body themselves. This is what creates understanding between brain+body and gets those neural connections firing.