The following articles may be of interest. The authors have no connection with BoCo.
Sam Murphy The Guardian, Saturday 18 November 2006
You've almost certainly heard of Pilates, but you may not know exactly what it is. The series of precise, controlled exercises was developed by a German man, Joseph Pilates, as a way of overcoming his own physical shortcomings, caused by childhood ailments. Pilates emigrated to the US in the 1920s and opened a studio in New York, where his method quickly became popular among the dance community. He continued to develop and advance the Pilates method until his death in 1967.
There is no single UK governing body for Pilates - various organisations certify teachers, and their courses vary. Good bets include teachers trained by The Pilates Foundation (07071 781859, pilatesfoundation.com), Alan Herdman Pilates (020-7723 9953, alanherdmanpilates.co.uk) and Body Control Pilates (020-7379 3734, bodycontrol.co.uk).
Pilates can be done in two ways. Studio classes use special machines equipped with straps, springs and pulleys to facilitate muscle lengthening and strengthening. Mat-work classes are predominantly equipment-free, perhaps using only basic items such as blocks . Neither is better - indeed Alan Herdman recommends everyone start with mat classes, which are cheaper and more widely available.
A book or DVD can be a useful addition to your class practice, but it's best to learn the basic principles from an instructor. Pilates Fitness Beginning Mat Workout (Gaiam, £12.99) or Pilates Body with Lynne Robinson (Firefly, £12.99) DVDs are good for newbies. If you already know the basics, try Darcey Bussell: Pilates for Life (Virgin, £17.99). Bookwise, check out Alan Herdman's Pilates Plus, aimed at 50+ participants or Busy Person's Guide to Pilates (both Gaia). I also like Kellina Stewart's Pilates At Home (£10.99, Carroll & Brown), which is spiral-bound and stands up on the floor for easy reference.
Former dancer Alan Herdman set up the UK's first Pilates studio in 1970 after studying in New York with Joseph Pilates' original students. He still teaches as well as writing, lecturing and training instructors in Pilates.
There are many different styles of Pilates. Some people criticise nonpurist forms for not being true to Joseph Pilates' original methods, but it doesn't have to be 'classic' Pilates to be good. Remember, Pilates died in 1967 (at the age of 87) - if he was still alive today he would be doing some things differently.
Pilates takes focus. Try to 'think' yourself into the body part you are working on. Focus on the process of the exercise rather than the outcome. But don't try too hard: that causes you to tense.
Recruiting and working the deep abdominal muscles - the transversus abdominis and internal obliques - is a key part of Pilates, but many people find it difficult to locate these muscles. Lie on your side, with knees bent, heels in line with spine and a pillow between your thighs. Rest your head on your outstretched arm with your back in a neutral position. Allow your tummy to fall forward - completely relax the muscles. Then, keeping the spine still, slowly draw the abs up and away from the fl oor and in towards the spine. Imagine yourself 'collecting them in'. It's much easier to feel the muscles working in this position than when upright or on your back.
It's crucial you find a well-qualified, experienced teacher. Find out where the teacher trained, how long it took, and what their background is. These days, you can almost train to be a Pilates instructor on the internet. If you have specific problems , it's better to have an individual lesson or go to a smaller class where you can get personal attention. Also, if the teacher's style doesn't work for you, look elsewhere.
There is a lot of focus on the breath in Pilates - we talk about 'lateral' breathing, where you try to breathe more into the back, and some movements are coordinated with breathing patterns. Don't get too hung up on getting the breathing techniques right - the main thing is that you breathe rather than hold your breath.
To get the best results, you need to give it time and commitment. And don't try to progress too quickly.
You can wear pretty much anything to a class, as long as it's comfy and you can move freely. You have bare feet.
The only equipment you really need is a mat. A Pilates mat, such as the Stott Pilates Express mat (£32.99, from Proactive Health, 0870 848 4842, proactive-health.co.uk) is thicker than a yoga mat, to support the spine, and non slip for safety. You may also want a head support (£8.99, from Pilates Plus, 020-8892 3403, pilates-plus.co.uk). Pilates rings (circles), blocks and balls can also be useful. Gaiam's BodyRing Kit contains a 14-inch flexible metal ring to add resistance to mat work and a 40-minute DVD workout (£24.99, from Gaiam Direct, 0870 241 5471, gaiamdirect.co.uk).
You can buy your own 'studio' equipment to use at home . NordicTrack does a basic Reformer for £149 (from CCSports, 0800 783 6032, ccsports-online.co.uk), or you can go the whole hog and spend £2,787 on the Stott Pilates Pro Reformer (from Proactive Health, as before).
An American Council on Exercise study found that Pilates elicited a heart rate equating to 54% of subjects' maximum: lower than the recommended guidelines for aerobic training.
You need to be in it for the long haul.
Studio classes can cost £20-£50 a session.
BoCo note: A single class at Boco costs £14, with discounted rates available for regular attenders.
Ron Fletcher was one of Joseph Pilates' original students, and is largely responsible for popularising what Pilates called 'body contrology'. He tells Alice Wignall why he is exasperated that people still mistake the system for an exercise routine
Alice Wignall The Guardian, 10 June 2008
An estimated 12 million people around the world practise Pilates. Conceived and developed in the early part of the last century by Joseph Pilates, a German immigrant who settled in New York, and his wife Clara, it is a series of movements designed to build strength and balance in the body. Devotees include ballet dancers, injured sports people and wiry celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and Jennifer Aniston.
If only they could meet Ron Fletcher. Whether they know it or not, they are probably only practising Pilates because of him. And a session under his guidance could turn the beliefs of even the most dedicated students of the method on their heads. In Ron Fletcher's world, there is no such thing as "doing Pilates". "Well, it's like Kleenex," he says, referring to the appropriation of Joseph Pilates' name as a brand that describes his system of what he called "body contrology". "'I'm doing Pilates' doesn't mean anything." Nor, apparently, does the celebrated "Pilates breathing". "I read something the other day, some annoying person: 'We use the Pilates breathing.' I don't know what it is! I was never taught any Pilates breathing. All I was taught was you needed to breathe." And what about Pilates' focus on strengthening the core muscles? "It's all 'the core' and 'the pelvic floor'. What are they talking about? We never heard anything about that at the studio," insists Fletcher. "What we got was, 'Butt, stomach, shoulders'."
The studio Fletcher is referring to is that of Joseph and Clara Pilates. He trained there, first of all while working with the Martha Graham Dance Company, to avoid having to have career-ending surgery on an injured knee, and later, while in recovery from an addiction to alcohol which culminated in him missing the Madison Square Garden opening night of a show that he had choreographed. He represents the first link in a chain that connects the Pilates with the movement based on their work and, as he travels the world, allows students and teachers a once-removed communion with the source itself, not to mention a sharp corrective to some common mistakes about the method.
For example: "The trouble with this work, in general, is that people mistake it for an exercise regimen, and it's not. It's an art and it's a science and it's a study of movement. Many of the people who are so-called 'doing Pilates' 10 years from now will still be doing the same thing they're doing now. They'll never get up to that point of saying, "Whee! Wow!" where you want to shout with joy at what you can do."
That progression to the next level, he says, with a knowing tap to the temple, is all in the mind. "You think about what you're doing. It was Martha [Graham] who said, 'I could put my hand out and I could do this'" - he limply waves his hand about - "'And then I don't have to think about anything. It doesn't matter.' But, she said, 'If I do that'" - he raises his hand like an emperor, one noble line from finger tip to shoulder - "'it's the most important thing in the world that's happening at that moment.' It doesn't matter that people are dying, and that everything is running rampant and that Bush is still alive ... it's that. Well, that's what it takes."
At 87, Fletcher is still handsome, physically powerful and commanding, with a nimble mind and an elegant turn of phrase. He carries the tang of bright lights and Broadway, not the musty air of exercise studios. It is easy to see why generations of students have fallen under his spell. "It's a performance," he says. "Every time you teach, it's a performance. And it has got to hold your students. Having been a dancer, I know how important that is. If I walk into a room with a group of people I've got to get that audience."
After the death of Joseph Pilates, in 1967 (the same year as Fletcher's first AA meeting), Fletcher was encouraged by Clara to teach the method. Wanting a change of scene, he moved to Los Angeles and set up shop above the beauty parlour belonging to Aida Grey - "the beauty maven of Beverly Hills" - in a prime spot on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard.
It was an almost instant success. "The first people who came were the Betsy Bloomingdales and Nancy Reagans," he recalls. "All those ladies who went to lunch at the bistro and then went shopping. They all came in their Chanel suits and bags to Aida downstairs for the comb-out and then upstairs to work with me. It was the thing to do. But I really had a hard time because they were hard to teach. They were not serious about it. They really didn't quite understand what I was talking about. It didn't mean a whole lot and it was boring me to death. My business manager, who knew me as a dancer, said, 'I just thought one day he's going to march out of there screaming, "Fuck you!"' He was amazed. I was kind of amazed too."
But as news of Ron Fletcher spread - aided by TV slots, magazine columns and the author Judith Krantz, who used the line: "If you're not in Ron Fletcher's Rolodex, you may as well leave town" in one of her novels - so the clientele changed. Fletcher happily name-drops Ali MacGraw, Candice Bergen, Dyan Cannon and Barbra Streisand: "And these were intelligent people and they were performers. All of that group were wonderful students. Wonderful students."
More importantly, as Pilates was withering away in New York, the success of Fletcher in Los Angeles meant that the work underwent a renaissance with his own high profile, and that of his students introducing the method to new audiences. In June 1983, Fletcher participated in a prestigious Los Angeles dance clinic. A key speaker at the clinic was Dr James Garrick, an eminent surgeon and head of the Sports Medicine Department and Dance Rehabilitation Division at St Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, who, impressed by Fletcher's work, went on to open a Pilates facility at the hospital. Fletcher also devised a development crucial to the spread of Pilates: floor work.
Originally, rack-like machines with ominous names like "the Reformer" were instrumental to the practice. But increasingly invited by out-of-town dance companies, and enthusiasts wanting to arrange workshops near their homes, Fletcher had to devise a way of teaching without the machines. "It was very easy to adapt so much of the Reformer work to the floor. It was all there." At his first workshop, the clients were wowed. "They just thought that was wonderful. By the time I left there I think I had five offers: 'Can you come to Lake Placid, can you come to Cape Cod?' So that's the way my roadwork started, and it spread. And everywhere we'd go there'd be more people."
He does agree that it's better if you have the machines. "It takes some talent to do it on the floor," he says, acknowledging that for the complete beginner, familiarising yourself with the subtle tugs and pulls that make for effective practice can take a lot of concentration, especially with no apparatus to help you feel your way. But then if Fletcher hadn't come up with a way for people to practise the method without needing the equipment, you probably wouldn't have heard of Pilates at all.
And that is why Fletcher is still in demand all over the world - a strange development for someone who never thought he knew enough to teach. But, he says, he remembers the rule that Martha Graham taught him about teaching. "You tell them what you're going to tell them, then you tell it to them, then you tell them what you told them. Then you start over".
Acrobat Suzy Barton nearly died when she fell 20ft during a show. But Pilates got her back on her feet – and now she's helping others to do the same.
By Sophie Morris, The Independent, 28 October 2008
One moment Suzy Barton was sailing through the air in the Millennium Dome, suspended from a giant helium balloon to perform a tricky aerial stunt for the delight of the crowds below. The next she was plummeting towards the Dome's concrete floor. "As a gymnast you think you can somersault your way out of anything," she says. Instead she hit the ground within seconds, shattering her left foot and much of her right, smashing her pelvis, breaking her back in several places and narrowly escaping death.
"With the helium balloon, you have this feeling of weightlessness," she says, eight years after the accident in 2000. "But when the pins came away I went down like a ton of bricks. I hit the floor almost instantly. I landed on the balls of my feet, folded over the harness and slapped the floor. I actually heard my pelvis smash."
Despite the extent of her injuries, Barton knew at the time that it could have been much worse. The act involved flying between a number of high walkways and towers, and the accident occurred at the beginning of her performance. They were running late because the harness had been changed for a new one between shows, and it was a rush to get Barton ready to go. So they decided to skip the first high bridge she was to dive from, and to start from a more modest height instead. Her first, gentle flight passed without a hitch, but a sudden pull upwards from the balloon proved too much for the faulty harness. The pins holding her in place were tugged out of their sockets and she was no longer supported by the balloon. "Luckily I was upright," she says. "If I had been somersaulting I could have come down on my head." The other stroke of luck, if it can be considered luck, was that Barton fell six metres. The immense canvas of what is now the O2 Arena reaches up to a height of 35 metres.
Barton was trapped inside the tight corset of the harness, and after her feet crumbled, her body snapped shut like a clam shell. "Your subconscious behaves weirdly in these situations," she says. "I kind of knew I was screaming, and then my head thought, 'OK, this isn't helping. Shut up.'" She propped herself on to her side, still spliced almost in two by the restrictive corset.
Anyone listening in to Barton's remarkable story, here in the bar of a west London health club, would have difficulty believing it. Her tiny frame looks in peak physical condition, as you would expect from someone whose body is their work. Barton used Pilates to aid her recovery from the horrific injuries and is now a teacher, drawing on her own trauma to help rehabilitate other people who have sustained major injuries. Amazingly, she'd only had one other accident in a 16-year career, when she broke her ankle at the end of a two-year run travelling around the US with the Barnum and Bailey circus.
After the accident at the Dome, she was rushed to the nearest accident and emergency. She was given x-rays and MRI scans and learnt she faced at least two months in hospital. Soon she was transferred to St Thomas's in central London, where the foot specialist Mark Davies set about piecing her fractured feet back together. Of 26 bones in each foot, Barton had about 19 breaks in her left foot and another handful in her right. "I did think, 'Why aren't I wearing trainers?'" she recalls. She was in constant pain for three years following the accident; high-impact activities are still out of the question. "The ends of every bone were smashed apart. I have no covering of cartilage on any of them. If I jump, I land straight on to the bone."
It's a miracle she can walk at all. After two months in hospital she went home, but was practically housebound, still unable to bear her weight on her feet. A supportive boyfriend and friends and family got her through those first months. "It was a slow process. Even going out to the pub was a no-no. It changed my life a lot because I used to have an active social life and be really sporty. I was very frustrated. I got tired really easily and felt shattered all the time."
She was also at the top of her career game, had six months of future work planned and had started getting into choreography. "Because I've worked all my life since I was 16, I even felt guilty for lying around and doing nothing. I had six months of not being able to do very much and it was quite tough. But it was best to stay in. If I went out and fell over, I would land on my bottom. My pelvis was so sore, and I couldn't jerk my back to stand myself up." Despite the constant pain, which she describes as "nagging background pain, like a toothache", Barton's body rejected strong painkillers like morphine and codeine, so she made do with paracetamol.
The breakthrough came after regular physiotherapy and 10 sessions of hydrotherapy, which finally got her left foot moving and able to bear weight. "After that, I got my confidence back," she says. She joined the Pilates studio at her friend's physiotherapy practice, started swimming and joined a gym – anything to get strong again.
Barton is strikingly positive, and says she has never been depressed, but she did have some counselling to exorcise her anger. Had the harness been properly welded, she might still be performing today, instead of relying on the £510,000 compensation payout – the biggest to a UK performer in history – to pay her ongoing medical bills. She has never been back to the O2, but has flashbacks to the accident. Two years ago she stayed in a hotel with a glass lift that made her incredibly anxious. "I felt panicked all holiday, but it was just part of dealing with the trauma."
Ultimately Barton's accident led to the end of her relationship. She and her former boyfriend remain close friends, but her injuries meant they developed in different directions: he stayed social and active, while she had to build a new life.
In 2002, she signed up to a Pilates teacher-training course. Her own experiences of chronic pain help her to empathise with clients; but her amazing success in rebuilding her body masks the long-term consequences of the accident. She has frequent joint problems and is worried about arthritis, her long-term medical prognosis. "There are always going to be issues," she says. "I am never going to be the person I was 10 years ago. I loved performing, and hearing the audiences gasp when you first appeared was a real high, but I feel that Pilates has helped me grow in a really positive way. I get something back from the people I help."
* Pilates is a method of maintaining physical fitness through performing a series of postures that focus on the body's "powerhouse" – the abdomen, lower back, hips and bum. It addresses posture and postural balance, and works at muscle tone.
* It was developed by Joseph Pilates during the First World War, to rehabilitate returning veterans and work on their mental as well as physical health. He ran a studio in New York during the 1960s frequented by dancers and actors who were devotees of his techniques.
* The "Pilates Principles" condition the entire body through proper alignment, centering, concentration, control, precision, breathing and flowing movement. The ultimate aim is for the mind to correct physical imbalances as the body moves unconsciously, by training the mind to work with the body and to carry it correctly.
* Celebrities who use Pilates include Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Madonna, and even Martin Amis, John Cleese and Ian McKellen. Belinda Carlisle believes that she has grown over two and a half inches in height thanks to eight years of Pilates.
* One million Brits swear by Pilates, but trouble is brewing between the couple who brought it to the UK, Lynne Robinson and Gordon Thompson, of Body Control Pilates. The pair have sold 4 million books and DVDs, but Robinson now wants to oust Thompson, who wants to promote the use of Pilates machines; Body Control advocates matwork.
The list of celebrities who do Pilates is almost endless, from Liz Hurley, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna to Martin Amis, John Cleese and Ian McKellen. It would almost be quicker to compile a list of celebrities who don’t do Pilates.
Here is what some of them of them say about it:
'I have been going for 13 years... How do I measure the success of Pilates? Certainly, I emerge with a tremendous sense of wellbeing, and even if I do call at the coffee shop for a croissant afterwards, I still feel my health has been served. I remain active and relatively agile.
Joan Bakewell, writer and broadcaster, on the secret of her health and agility at the age of 70 - from a recent article in The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1343883,00.html
'These [Pilates] exercises are really very necessary when you do a lot of sitting… They keep you flexible enough to pull on your socks as you get older… When I get out of the car now, I don't go arrggghhh…'
Martin Amis, novelist and twice-a-week Pilates devotee
'I do Pilates four or five times a week. The benefits are subtle, but it increases your flexibility and really tones you up. It also straightens your spine and improves your posture. In the past eight years, I've grown more than two and a half inches (6cm). I am 5ft 7ins (1.70m) and I am very pleased with that.'
Belinda Carlisle, singer and pop icon
''Now I have muscles of steel and could easily deal with giving birth.'
Hugh Grant, actor and film star
'I have done every diet in the book over the years. What made the big difference was the exercise. Now I do a lot of walking, Pilates and some running and swimming.'
Lorraine Kelly, breakfast TV presenter
'I'm a Pilates person. It's great. I had a hip problem. I had a chronic back, a pinched nerve and a hip problem and it's completely solved all of it. I love it. It makes me feel like I'm taller.'
Jennifer Anniston, TV and movie star
'I've been using Pilates for many years. It's the best system I've found for isolating and strengthening individual muscles without stress to the joints.'
Patrick Swayze, movie star
'Pilates is the only exercise programme that has changed my body and made me feel great.'
Jamie Lee Curtis, movie star
'What do I like most about Pilates? 'The fact that I can really feel my body working. I might do 250 crunches but my body is so used to them that I don't really feel them. With Pilates, I can really feel [my abdominals] even if I only do six or 12 repetitions.'
Joan Collins, actress and writer, who first started doing Pilates over 20 years ago
'You have turned me into a Ferrari; my husband thanks you.'
Ruby Wax, actress, writer and TV personality, to her Pilates teacher
'It helps with a lot of injury prevention. I'd recommend it to anyone.'
Elena Baltacha, British tennis player
'Athers suggested I try daily Pilates exercises. He swore by them.'
Andrew Flintoff, England fast bowler, on the advice he got from Mike Atherton, former England cricket captain, on how to tackle his back problems. Flintoff took the advice and was soon back to fitness and form.
'Lying down doing breathing exercises for one and a half hours a day is not easy. But I believe it is making a difference.'
Seve Ballesteros, the Spanish golfer with a chronic back problem
'I don't like to waste time. I want to spend it doing the best possible thing for me. Pilates has given me the greatest returns. It sucks your butt up, tones the legs and shoulders. Nothing else gives you definition like it.'
Lucy Lawless, best-known for portraying Xena, Warrior Princess fame
'Pilates is not just for the fit. It is wonderful for injuries. My damaged shoulder was taken in hand, special exercises prescribed, attentive care always available. A younger member of our group recently had a hip operation and Pilates helped her recovery; another broke a leg and arrived for classes encased in plaster. Already she's back on her feet. I stop short of making medical claims. I merely report what I have seen.'
Joan Bakewell, writer and broadcaster, on the secret of her health and agility at the age of 70 - from a recent article in The Guardian.
yoga and pilates in Surbiton and Kingston