Tides, Pilates, Mindfulness: The Whole Movement
As we head with mask and visor at the ready back to our thorougly anti-bac wiped and mopped ‘new normal’, I have, like many, been thinking about how to hang on to some of the positives of the last few months. Now I do know we have all been in the same storm, but in some very different boats but it did give me time to stop a little longer, look a little closer and let my wandering mind wander where perhaps I didn’t have/make/find time or choose to before.
We were lucky enough to get away to the coast this August. I feel that the weather really excelled itself in the early part of lockdown and had really just run out of sunny-juice by August, so we had sun, rain and unbelievable wind and with that, some amazing waves and tides. We spent a lot of time looking at the waves, and in those moments I thought what a lovely metaphor and guide they are to our Pilates Practise.
No matter how tall or small the wave, how strong or placid the wind, that wave gets to its destination – it’s a whole movement. It knows where is needs to go and gets there. The getting there is essential to the destination point. Then with the same flowing strength it retreats and the whole pattern begins again. No two waves are ever the same. There is no one perfect type of wave. The wave before and wave after are irrelevant. Each individual wave has its moment in the moment, but is essential to the whole.
And so, it is a lovely metaphor for how we could approach our movements and our breath in our Pilates practice. To help us find The Whole Movement. Each is unique. Even if you are doing several gentle tennis ball risings or core challenging single leg circles, only the movement you are doing matters in the moment, and it can be taken through its journey to its destination and flow into the next one. And each movement builds to make up the whole. The whole being the exercise, the class, your day or your week…you get my drift. If you are in a place where you can match the breath to the movement then it joins in beautifully. Even just focusing on a wave like breath is an amazing skill.
So, really, we are back to the powerful mindfulness we can find in Pilates. For many it is what brings us back to our mat. So, whether on a Zoom or in the classroom, with masks and sanitising sorted, we invite you to focus on your moment and The Whole Movement this term.
