Understanding the parts of anatomy is important. Understanding how those parts move is also important. There have been many discussions that Joseph Pilates studied the movement of animals and took that as inspiration to create his own movements. We know that Joseph Pilates was involved in martial arts, boxing, and gymnastics. All of Pilates interests were in complete body movement.

Gymnastics was initially designed to facilitate body development. In the late 1700’s Friedrich Ludwig Jahn of Germany designed the sidebar, parallel bar, balance beam and horizontal bar. He was considered the father of modern gymnastics. Its popularity rose in the 1800s, and by 1880, it had made its way to the United States mainly through immigrant Europeans. By 1896, men’s gymnastics were part of the Olympic Games, and women’s gymnastics appeared in 1936. Interestingly, Joseph Pilates was born in 1883, right in the eye of the gymnastic storm.
I’ve been lucky enough to study with Tom Myers, Leon Chaitow, John Sharkey and Joanne Avison who is the author of an amazing book, called Yoga Fascia anatomy and movement (it’s a highly detailed book to read; you won’t read it from cover to cover, buts it’s packed with content from how anatomy language began, how fascia is a continuous form along with the benefits of yoga and its close relationship with fascia.
Of course, we, as Pilates teachers, are starting to become part of that story, too. Pilates is but an infant born in the 1900s to that of its ancestor, Yoga, which has been around for thousands of years.
Pilates is growing up, evolving and maturing, and we, as Pilates teachers, are part of that wave of change. Noted in the last 2 years, the language of Pilates has started to soften, the original dictatorship, possible a characteristic from Joseph Pilates cultural background as a German is shifting to facilitator.
How can I teach and facilitate a person rather than instruct and tell the person what to do?
The common denominator of all martial arts, gymnastics, boxing ,yoga, etc., is full-body connective movement. When you study fascia, you understand that forces operated in the human body are not linear. Which means we don’t move like a lever or a machine. John Sharkey often uses the term we are soft matter not hard matter, therefore we can’t move like hard matter, we cannot be compared to structures i.e. columns, or machines.
Graham Scarr the author of Bio tensegrity, The structural Basis of life. He says, “Everything has to be balanced to make it stable; there is no hierarchy in the human body “.
It’s ok to have isolated movement to use as transitions, but ultimately, we need continuous full evolved movement. I’ve pieced together all the information I’ve learnt about fascia to connect our traditional Pilates movements with our evolved, mature version of Pilates. Feel free to share my Movement for life series.
Thanks for reading, learn more about my next teacher training workshops here. If you or a friend would like to hear more about next year’s event I’m organising with Anula Maiberg add your name to my mailing list here ( if you are not already on it). I spend more time moving than I do on a computer, so I can promise you that you won’t be bombarded with emails when you connect!
Happy hump day, Tara x