Far 2 Fabulous

Transformative Pilates: From Nursing to Wellness Empowerment

• Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 43

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What happens when a nurse trading her scrubs for a Pilates mat turns her passion into a thriving wellness career? Catherine describes her remarkable transition from nursing to becoming a Pilates instructor, sharing how a simple gym connection with her husband blossomed into a life-altering journey. From navigating pregnancies with Pilates to founding her own studio in Whitstable, Catherine's story embodies the resilience and adaptability of this practice, especially highlighted during her seamless move to online classes amidst a global pandemic. This episode offers an inspiring glimpse into how Pilates has not only reshaped her professional path but also fortified her personal wellness.

Explore the roots of Pilates with insights into Joseph Pilates' pioneering vision, originally called controlology, and his transformative work with dancers in New York City. Discover Pilates's rich history and six guiding principles—concentration, control, flow, centering, precision, and breathing—all crucial for tailoring the practice to diverse abilities. Catherine also discusses the invigorating benefits of Pilates for perimenopausal women, emphasizing its power to energize rather than exhaust when combined with targeted strength training. Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or new to the mat, this episode sheds light on integrating Pilates into your daily wellness routine with tangible benefits.

Remember—you are very welcome to join one of Catherine's online Mat Pilates classes. Email her at workout@catherinechapman.co.uk, and she can send you the details.
 
A Brief History of Pilates.  By Cathy Strack, written exclusively for Authentic Pilates of New England

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Far Too Fabulous, hosted by Julie and Catherine. Join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistiness, inspiration, candid chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing. Let's dive in. Hello, hello everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of Far Too Fabulous. You have me all by myself today, because I've been dying to do this episode, mainly for me, so you're just along for the ride and we're going to talk about where.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to talk about Pilates, which is my love, my passion, my joy. It was my route into professional wellness, if you like. I mean, as opposed to nursing, which is what I was doing before. But I kind of felt like the nursing side was me looking after people once they had become poorly, whereas the Pilates was me looking after people once they had become poorly, whereas the Pilates was me starting to be on that healthier side of healthcare and trying to help people not end up in hospital in the first place.

Speaker 1:

My Pilates journey actually started when we lived in Wimbledon and Mark worked and then managed a homes place health and fitness club and the only way to see him very often was to go into the gym. So I used to spend a lot of time there. Thankfully, this was something that we both really, really shared a passion for. I mean, in the beginning, I think was probably the only thing that we shared a passion for Well, mean, in the beginning, I think was probably the only thing that we shared a passion for Well, I mean, the only thing we can talk about on a podcast anyway. So I used to go in and see him and so on a Monday I wanted to go and do something in the gym. But you know, I just had that Monday feeling I'd been at work all day. I used to work at Chelsea and Westminster. I used to either cycle or run to work, which was about six miles away, and then do that on the way back. So what I was looking for on a Monday was something I thought was gentle and relaxing, and so I thought, oh, look, there's Pilates on, and it was quite late in the evening evening. I remember coming out at like almost nine o'clock, I think, in the evening and just thinking what on earth was that? That wasn't gentle, that wasn't calm, that was brutal. Yet I loved it and I went back every time and I thank Karen for my formal introduction to Pilates and I still follow her on Instagram and Mark and her are still connected as well in the fitness world. I just loved it and I was hooked and so I used to practice Pilates while I was going to the gym and then while I was pregnant, all the way through all of the all of my pregnancies it kind of held me together.

Speaker 1:

And then once upon a time, after baby number three and I was on maternity leave with Kitty, and Mark said to me what do you think you're going to do now? And he was talking about with regards to work, and I think that what he was thinking I was going to say was oh, I'll go back part-time we were already, we were back in Whitstable by this point. I'll go back part-time nursing, and yeah, and just carry on. And actually what I said was and I think this shocked the life out of him was are you asking me what I think I should do, or are you asking me what I think I should do, or are you asking me what I'd like to do? And obviously he said what you would like to do. And so I said I would like to train to be a Pilates teacher. And so actually, quite quickly, that's what I did, because I remember being in my training only eight months post having Kitty. I remember having to kind of fess up to that and maybe having to be a bit more gentle with some of the things. And that's how my Pilates journey started.

Speaker 1:

And I added that whilst I was still nursing just onto the ends of everything. So I used to teach some classes after work at Chelsea and Westminster to the staff, and that got so popular that I had to do two classes at one point back to back, which was amazing. And then when I was fully back down in Whitstable, I had created in-person classes. We used to run them in the castle and in one of the halls in Whitstable and then I brought them all into the studio here, which poor Mark, when he created this studio our home studio that we've got here, I don't think for a minute he thought he was going to have to share it with me.

Speaker 1:

And then when I eventually stopped nursing on the wards and turned well-being into my full-time gig, he really did have to share gym space with me. That's where I got spoiled and and said can we, can we have it bigger, please? Can we have the entrance somewhere else? Please can we have some mirrors please? And it's turned into such a beautiful space. I'm so grateful to be able to use it. And, of course, then when COVID struck and we had to pivot pivot like Ross does with the couching friends everything then went online. I was so pleasantly surprised at how well it translates into online classes, my one-to-one sessions and my group sessions. I'm able to still adjust people, correct people, cue people so that they can get the very, very best out of their workouts, so I was very grateful for that translating that well.

Speaker 1:

So what I thought I would do, so I've given you a little bit of brief history of my Pilates journey. I thought that I would give you a brief history of Pilates and for those that don't know, it's actually a man. It's Joseph Pilatus. He wasn't so self-centred that he called it Pilatus in his day. The system that he eventually created that we now know as Pilatus, he called Controlology, and he was so far ahead of his time. It still stuns and amazes me now.

Speaker 1:

So he was born in Germany on the 9th of December 1883, and he was the second of 10 children. He was quite a sickly child, it's reported. He suffered with rickets and asthma and rheumatic fever, and this fuelled his thirst for knowledge of well-being and movement. His father was a gymnast. I don't think he was a full-time gymnast, he had a job as well but he was a gymnast and so he encouraged Joseph to come along with him. From that training he then was again spurred on to learn some more and through his own research through the gymnastics and through things like bodybuilding and yoga, tai chi, martial arts, zen, meditation he studied anatomy and animal movements as well and was probably one of the first people to combine western and eastern ideas about physical fitness and well-being. So that gives you an idea why I think he is an absolute genius, and he also looked at work from Roman and Greek exercise regimes as well, so he really incorporated a lot of research and knowledge into the movements that then became known as Pilates.

Speaker 1:

He then moved to the UK in the search of a boxing career. It's reported that didn't go that well, although within my reading for this podcast I actually found out that he coached the police in self-defense, which is very interesting. But his boxing career didn't go very well in the UK and he found himself working with the circus, and it's reported that a lot of his research and work he then used on himself so that he could continue this strenuous work within the circus. So then World War I broke out. Because he was a German man living in the UK, he was placed into a camp on the Isle of man, and it's reported that the conditions weren't great here. However, he got the opportunity to work as a nurse in this camp for German soldiers that had been injured and were kept there, and it's at this time that he started to create the exercises that now look like what we do on a reformer bed. So if you're not sure what a reformer bed is, it's a frame with a sliding bed in the middle that's on pulleys, it's got springs and it looks, quite honestly, it looks like a form of torture, but it's very, very clever. And so this is where he started to create this, with the bed frames and the pulleys and the springs, enabling his patients to be able to find a way that people could rehabilitate and then strengthen themselves enough that there wasn't a recurrence of the injury to good use in the camp and became quite a good coach and referee he was known for being quite fair, apparently, and so he took all these skills back to Germany when he was able and he opened a gym over there.

Speaker 1:

He got a little bit disillusioned with boxing, apparently, but through this time, obviously, he really honed his training skills and so then he headed off to America and that is where he had his first Pilates studio in New York City. People come to his studio and he trained a lot of dancers again because it was ideal for rehabilitation and then strengthening so that they didn't injure themselves again. On the journey over to New York he met his it's reported, actually third wife, clara, who came and helped him set up the studio and run the studio. Now, when he met her, it's reported that she was in poor health, that she had arthritis, I believe, and so I think probably through him rehabilitating her and teaching her became her passion for the system as well, and during this time they also started to teach other people how to teach the system, and thank goodness they did.

Speaker 1:

Thank goodness he didn't keep this to himself by all reports. He really didn't keep this to himself. He really did feel like this needed to be out in the world, and there are testimonials as well from other people who completely agreed with him. They said that it should be in every town and city all over the world, which probably now it is, but it certainly took a little while. So, though, it didn't come back over to the UK, which is ironic considering it virtually started here it didn't come back over to the UK until 1970. And it was brought over by Alan Herdman. He was sent over to New York by the London School of Contemporary Dance to basically find out what was going on what were all these New York ballet dancers talking about? And so he came over and he brought that back with him and he opened a studio in London.

Speaker 1:

Later that year, joseph lived to the grand old age of 84, which in those days was really a grand old age, and it really was a testament to the way that he lived his life and the way that he looked at the physical body and its connection to the mind. He was known to say it is the mind itself that builds the body, which is just brilliant and, again, just so advanced for his time. In his time he wrote two books and he created many other forms of apparatus, much like the reformer, to help his clients, to rehabilitate, to build strength, to connect with their body and move better and feel better. So what is Pilates, or controlology, as he called it. So it's a body mind exercise method that focuses on core strength, flexibility and posture, and I often describe it as a form of exercise or a form of moving that is just reminding you of how you should be moving. I often describe it as you're being reminded how to move like you did when you were a baby, before you got inflexible, before you squished your feet into shoes that weren't foot-shaped, before life happened to you and your body would just move as efficiently as it should. It's just like reminding you how to do it again, and so it comes with six core principles, number one being concentration, and this involves focusing your mind on the movement that you were actually performing at that time. And, if you remember, when I was talking about history, he studied Zen, meditation and mindfulness, and so this is where he can bring all of those other elements of his learning into this, and you're just ensuring that you're creating the best technique possible for you, and that's always in your mind when you're practicing.

Speaker 1:

Pilates is just performing the best movement possible for you. The second one is control, and particularly, I think, reports of Joseph's teaching. He used to boom his instructions at his class and at his clients I think he was very controlling, but it's very much still a part of the exercise is to make these movements as precise as possible, avoiding any rushing or jerky movements, which actually brings us into the next one, which is flow Again, just making it flow smoothly from one exercise to the next, creating a sense of fluidity and rhythm. There is a Pilates repertoire. When I did my training, I was trained very much from a fitness point of view, and there are lots of different points of view when it comes to Pilates. There's there's quite a hierarchy within Pilates and there are kind of different veins that come down directly from Joseph and depending on who you've learned from and how you've learned determines how you come at it. However, I think as long as the basics of what he set out to achieve are there, I don't think it matters where you come from, although I know that there are lots of people that disagree with this. And so, with the Pilates repertoire, I only really learned this myself after my training and I probably have only been teaching my classes the repertoire for the last maybe three years or so. But it's just so lovely to be able to learn these and not have to almost teach it. Just the odd cue, just to remind them what to do, remind them where they're going, and for them to be able to flow through their own practice, just guided. It's beautiful to teach and it's actually it's beautiful to watch and it's beautiful to do.

Speaker 1:

The fourth one is centering, and this refers to engaging your core muscles, especially your abdominal muscles, to stabilize your body and provide the power for the movement. Often refer to your core as the mindfulness feeling that it creates when you're trying to now we don't like the word trying when you are creating the most perfect exercise that you possibly can. Which brings me on to precision, that each movement should be performed with precision and attention to detail. You're getting the running theme here, aren't you? That everything has to be done just as it should be, and I think that that's probably something that, once the physios and the fitness enthusiasts got hold of, this is that, although we are aiming to perform each exercise to perfection, that there are so many different ways that we can modify it for almost anybody whether you're laying, whether you're on the reform, or whether you're sitting on a chair, whether you're standing up, all of these principles can be applied for you to be able to create the most perfect movement for you and that's another reason why I absolutely love it. And here, principle number six is another reason why I love it, because it's breathing Proper breathing is essential in Pilates Inhale as you prepare for a movement and then exhale as you perform it.

Speaker 1:

And often when I am training somebody for the first time, this feels like the reverse for them, and I still remember that. I still remember it feeling like the reverse. Now it feels very, very natural to me and it just helps you not hold onto your breath. I mean, apart from the fact that doesn't help you perform the exercises, you hold onto your breath. Your body's now going. Why are we holding on to our breath? What's happening? And it starts to get fearful and tense and tight and that's not any help to anybody. So we incorporate all of those six core principles in everything that we do, and later on a few more were added, things like awareness I think that's probably pretty covered in many of them Stamina it is surprisingly hard work.

Speaker 1:

Again, I'm going to remind you that when I first started Pilates, I went because I was under the impression it was going to be a relatively easy class. Every week I walked out of that class going. What on earth was that? That was not easy. My Monday evenings were completely hijacked and were not easy at all, but I still went back every single week, so it really does help your stamina, especially when you're going through the repertoire and flowing through these exercises absolutely incredible. And then relaxation was added on to that as well. I get the impression that Joseph Pilates was not necessarily the most relaxed of people. However, he did manage to incorporate learnings from eastern and western ideas of fitness and well-being, and so relaxation would have been one of those.

Speaker 1:

As I was putting things together for this podcast, I actually went and looked on my own website to see what I had written about Pilates, and my last sentence was Pilates leaves you feeling energized, not exhausted, and the programs are designed to eliminate weakness and to challenge the strengths within our bodies. And two things struck me with that. The first thing is that it truly is something that can be created for everybody to eliminate weakness and to challenge the strengths within our bodies, and that changes from person to person. I wasn't very flexible. I still am not incredibly flexible, but it has really challenged and changed that within my body, and I can still see progress every single time I do this, it's never ending, which is just a beautiful thing, and the other thing about this is talking about it leaving you energized and not exhausted. And this made me think about when I've been researching recently about exercise for perimenopausal women, and the suggestion was to lift heavy, heavy weight to about an eight to 10 reps, to the point to get to eight and just think that you can't do any more. And the idea of this is obviously, as well as challenging your body and strengthening your body, is that the effect that it has on your body and your mind is not this exhausting effect where you come out of the gym dripping with sweat and just completely wrung out, that you actually leave feeling alive and with some energy because of the energy systems that you're, that you're tapping into. And so this is what it made me think about with Pilates. It's such a beautiful, beautiful exercise and, as I hope I have shown you, joseph Pilates was so ahead of his time. It's unbelievable, and my hope is that we can use Pilates as a preventative. It was designed and is brilliant at rehabilitation. I think that's how most people find it. I know that physios love it and it's a go-to for people's rehabilitation. But you don't have to wait until you are injured. To start and I know that it's the way us humans work is that we do n't ever do something until we really need to. We don't ever go and look after our health whilst we are healthy. We wait until we are unhealthy and then go and look for the fix. So I implore you to not wait until you are inflexible and vulnerable to injury or that you just do like and I think these subjects are going to be coming up a lot more in the podcast Things like traditionally women hammered the cardio, or traditionally men would hammer the weights, or maybe when they got a bit older, they'd hammer the cycling. It was like all one thing. And to be able to use pilates as something to balance that out for one and to be able to lay down that core strength and that flexibility to then be able to, if you still want to go and you know, hammer the weights or the cardio or the bike or whatever it is you want to do to use this to go hand in hand with that is just a beautiful thing and it balances out. You need that balance, that yin and that yang. I hope that I've educated you in the world of Joseph Pilates. There is so much more. I had such a lovely time reading up and I will post a link in the show notes to a blog about that. Went quite into detail about his life and his history, which was so interesting, so I'll post that in the show notes below. But I hope I've gone a little way into giving you some insight about Pilates if you weren't sure what it was before and maybe sparked your interest to give it a go. If you do want to give it a go, I am very, very happy for you to send me a message and I will send you a link to come and join us for one of my online classes. It is that easy to just get a mat or a towel or a rug and put it on the floor, press, zoom and away you go. Don't think that you need all the bells and whistles. Obviously, if you love it and you want to go further, there are lots and lots of avenues of equipment that you can go down, and I definitely have a Reformer on my Christmas list. It's been on the Christmas list for a long time now because they're rather pricey and apparently Santa doesn't stretch that far. They are such an incredible way of training, such a unique way of training. Perhaps I will post a picture of a reformer bed in the Far Too Fabulous Facebook group, if you've never seen one of those, and you can go and have a look there. If you have got any questions or you've got any discussions that you want to continue, then please do come into the far too fabulous facebook group and have them with us. Julie and I are always, you know, ready and willing to have a discussion about anything fitness, well-being and nutrition based. Well, we'll talk about anything quite frankly, so you don't need to narrow it down and you will have us two back together next week, but until then, have a fabulous week. Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us on our mission to reach a thousand women in our first. So share with your friends and family. You might just change a life. Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast mailing list. You'll find the links in the show notes. Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode.