It’s Sunday morning, 9:31am and I have finished a hard-driving run, stretched and sweated and glistened through an hour alone, enjoyed my oatmeal breakfast, giggled at a few friends posts, commented on a colleague’s blog and on this rainy, cold mid-January morning, I am thinking about all the new faces, minds and bodies that have come into the studio in the past two weeks to learn to “resist to lighten and lift.”
None have done so as a result of New Years resolutions, but all have done so because of a choice for a consistent challenge and change to their regimen and lifestyle. Some are healing injuries and were instructed to seek out Pilates as a training methodology. A few have walked away from other alternatives, studios or teachers; one or two are just curious and I am honored to be the choice of change.
All of us are working and practicing to refine and improve our fight against gravity and the pull it has on our bodies.
I tell all my students, no matter what equipment or protocol being used, to “resist against gravity”, to “pull away from it”, to “resist against the down by lifting up and away.”
My teaching mantra has become, “nothing we want is down.” Everything we work for in life is to be lifted.
Lifted spirits, lifted eyelids, lifted cheeks, boobs and jowls. A lifted position, posture, gaze. A lifted and lightened load. A lifting experience vs one that is dragged down, loaded and heavy.
“nothing we want is down.”
It’s no wonder we feel so lifted and upright after a Pilates session! Pilates training, exercises and movements are powerfully energizing for exactly that reason. The oppositional resistance away from gravity’s grounded pull on us is liberating and exhilarating. It is physical, mental and emotionally lifting work that can take every ounce and bead of sweat energy to make happen.
A favorite gravity-resisted Pilates move – on the mat, reformer or with the TRX in the Pilates4Fitness Movement Space, is the Pilates Teaser. The move “teases your mind, body and emotional spirit” as you fight the gravitational pull and resist to lift every thing up.
You can see and feel the intensity and intention in the work below while Evelyn practices her new favorite move.
Gina Jackson, is a classically trained Pilates Teacher and has been teaching along the Gold Coast of Hudson and Bergen County, NJ for the past fifteen+ years.
Certified by Power Pilates of New York, Gina has trained with Master Teachers Bob Liekens, Susan Moran and Brett Howard; loved workshop training with Cary Regan and Blossom Leilani-Crawford and has particularly enjoyed listening to the personal stories as told by Pilates Elders, Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel.
An active teacher and blogger, Gina manages a private personal training business supporting a myriad of clients, teaching all to honor their health, strength and life with the principles of Pilates at its core.