My First Pilates Class
I taught my first Pilates class online to a Jehovah’s Witness. She knew me and asked me to teach her because the studios she had gone to all incorporated elements of yoga.
This was my first student, so I was nervous already, and now I had to be careful to use all technical, science-based terminology. So instead of “magic circle,” I was sure to call it a “Pilates ring.” And instead of “reach to the sky,” I said, “reach to the ceiling.” And I didn’t end my class in the way I’d practiced—by bringing our hands to the center of the chest, bowing, and thanking the students. Instead, I just said, “And we’re done.”
Not only did I have to think about my language, but she was a very frail girl with chronic knee pain that she was seeing a doctor for. So I focused a lot on knee and hip stability, strengthening her abdominals and teaching her to use her core to move throughout her daily activities. That was challenging for a new instructor.
And then to make it more complicated, she didn’t have a mat. She had only a plastic chair, so I did our first couple of months of classes standing and in a chair. I had been trained on the mat, the reformer, the pedi-pole, the wunda chair, cadillac, ladder barrel, and all the rest, but I had not been trained on how to teach Pilates on a plastic chair.
I taught these classes in my first language--English, but it felt similar to my first class in Spanish. The first class I taught in spanish was a beginner level reformer class, but I didn't have any training on teaching in Spanish. I felt lost, and I was scared to make a mistake.
But I did it. It was hard and I still did it, and eventually it got easier.
Do you remember your first real Pilates student or students? Have you ever had to modify your teaching style or language for cultural sensitivity?