AUTHENTIC PILATES

Is your pilates instructor teaching you authentic pilates or just something that resembles pilates?

Pilates is one of the fastest growing forms of exercise and quality instructors are in great demand. Due to this enormous growth, there is now a deluge of “short-cut” courses for instructors wanting to put out a shingle and teach; educational short cuts for those who are not willing to put the time, dedication, and money into true pilates training programs. Unfortunately for the consumer, it’s hard to know the difference.

BUYER BEWARE

How does the consumer determine authenticity when choosing a pilates instructor? One can ask, and even be shown a “Certification”, but how do they know it was not for completing one of these ”short-cut” two-day workshops?

Having been exposed to these workshops, I know exactly what they offer (and don’t offer) and any authentic Pilates program is far more detailed (and of course far more time consuming and costly). Not only is the consumer being deceived by these “Certified Pilates Instructors”, but they run the risk of being injured in a class setting by these under-educated instructors.

I recently called a local gym that was advertising a Pilates program. This will totally illustrate my point. Here is a synopsis of the conversation that I had with the gym’s “pilates” instructor:

Q: What type of Pilates programs do you offer?
A: We do Reformer sessions.
Q: What kind of Reformer sessions do you do – Classical reformer? Stott reformer?
A: We just teach basic Reformer exercises.
Q: Who were you trained by? I understand that you need several hundred hours of training to be certified to teach Pilates (and this can be very expensive).
A: I took my basic two day Reformer training program through a fitness organization. All the pilates trainings are basically the same. You don’t need one of those big, expensive training programs to be able to teach Pilates. Those are a waste of money; I am already a certified personal trainer and understand form and alignment.

As I hung up the phone I at first I thought the whole conversation was amusing because it was so bloody absurd. Then my thoughts turned to how awful it was that they are advertising themselves as pilates trainers and how potentially dangerous it could be for a prospective customer. Not to mention consumers would not be getting what they thought they were paying for – all the benefits of authentic pilates.

The said training program was a two day/15 hour training program sponsored by a company that sells in home pilates equipment – not the commercial models you find in fully equipped pilates studios. I have 3 major personal training certifications, one of the certifications I was the program presenter, and let me tell you – these certifications in NO WAY qualified ME to be able to teach pilates without taking an authentic training program. (I liken this to saying because you teach fitness kickboxing that you have the equivalent of a black belt and you don’t need any martial arts training.)

For what reason would a consumer want to be sure they are getting authentic pilates training (aside from wanting to get their money’s worth)? I can sum that up in two words: EFFECTIVENESS AND SAFETY.

EFFECTIVENESS

Joseph Pilates stated these results with regards to classical pilates:
“In 10 sessions you will feel the difference.”
“In 20 sessions you will see the difference.”
“In 30 sessions you will have a brand new body.”

SAFETY

More than likely an under-trained instructor (whether they are a certified personal trainer or not) will focus on the wrong muscle groups and will miss the all important alignment cues that distinguish pilates as a superior form of exercise that produces unbelievable results. Worse yet, the under-trained instructor will not know important and necessary safety cues that make pilates a safe form of exercise that needs to be done properly. What a disservice to a client to say one teaches pilates with little or no training. And how awful to be ignorant enough to make such a statement as: "All the pilates trainings are the same."

AUTHENTIC PILATES

WHAT TO ASK