I had an interesting moment earlier today, when a client asked: are we doing Pilates or are we just doing exercise?

In my last blog post I tried to place Pilates in the context of the history (and philosophy) of exercise, and how it appears to straddle both the fitness industry's demand for accessible movement, (with the focus on quantity rather than quality), and the more internal focus of a somatic practice. I argued that this created a tricky balancing act and that Pilates is often pulled in one or the other of these directions depending on the context of a class or studio. I was slightly taken aback by my client's question because she imagined that Pilates was 'the fancy stuff', the complex and interesting choreography of rolling like a ball, scissors and corkscrew, whilst what we were doing looked more like her list of physio exercises. I took her point.

In my pre-Pilates teaching days I spent years walking into 'advanced' sessions. I couldn't do half the stuff, I certainly had no idea what I was learning, or even that 'learning' was possible. The teacher would walk into the room, set her mat up on a raised platform and shout out the directions and cues whilst doing the whole class herself. I had no idea what I was doing, and the session bored and frustrated me. Until one day another teacher came in to cover the class. All the regular clients stayed away, so it was just myself and one other person in the session. The teacher explained that she was aware that this was a strong class, but that she wanted to meet the needs of those present. And she taught us. She watched and adjusted and for the first time ever, it all made sense. Perhaps this is why I find it difficult to commit to teaching ‘advanced’ or ‘dynamic’ Pilates sessions, where the focus shifts purely towards the repertoire, the choreography of the movements, often at the cost of any real learning. However, my client's question also strikes a chord. Ultimately people want to be able to move, so the question is: how can we support this intention without throwing away the rigour of a somatic practice?

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, my feeling is that it is the somatic approach to Pilates that leads to the most effective practice, rather than the content of the practice itself. But, what does this mean on a practical level? Does it mean reducing everything to the more basic pre-pilates repertoire? What, after all, does a somatic Pilates practice involve? In the list below, I've tried to write out some of my thoughts on what a somatic Pilates practice is and what it is not with the aim of taking on this challenge. I've stuck to 3 of each, though the list could go on. Here's some thoughts:

What a somatically informed Pilates practice involves:

Breath - There needs to be space for the breath, which is not the same as saying ‘one needs to breathe’. It is also not the same as constantly cuing ‘breathe in’ /‘breathe out’, (both of which I am guilty of…). It’s about making a spacious invitation to allow the breath to lead, to fill the movement, allowing it to come into the foreground. Without attending to this continuous underlying movement in the body, no externally imposed movement can really be embodied.

Attention / Presence - The Pilates principles talk about 'concentration' rather than 'attention' or 'presence', which I think is a little different. I find the term 'concentration' slightly negative, often involving a kind of stress or straining which can be counter-productive to movement. For a beginner, concentration might be needed to understand the material. There are a lot of verbal cues in the method and these can be overwhelming for a new client. I often find that beginners over-focus on trying to 'get it right', sometimes at the cost of breathing altogether. Rather than using the idea of 'concentration' I like to think of 'attention' and presence, which is more about being fully self-aware in the movement. Presence leads to an active engagement with the work, you're no longer just doing as you're told, you're in conversation with the movement. In a one to one setting this becomes the basis of the work with a teacher. You're in conversation through movement and language (not discussing what you did on the weekend).

Learning - This, for me, is the key point. The difference between ‘doing’ an exercise and ‘practicing’ in a somatically informed way, is learning. A client who is just doing the moves is in ‘exercise’ mode, and the results are often superficial. By contrast, a client who is sensing into the moves is practicing deeply, working hard and gaining more than simply the sum of the movement parts, so to speak, they are learning from their own body-mind connectivity. It's an inside-out process, rather than an outside-in effect, and the result of this is that the client gains another teacher from listening to the feedback of the body.

What a somatically informed Pilates practice is not (or is not necessarily):

• Fast - at least not at the cost of the above. Rather than focusing on doing something faster, I find it more useful to think of finding an internal Rhythm. In the Pilates principles, we call this flow. This is not necessarily a question of speed, it's about working with the pace of the body at any given day and time of practice. I regularly find that speed changes with the time of the day. Often I tend to want to start slowly, and then the invitation to speed it up nudges me into a more wakeful state. But it's a nudge, rather than a forceful push. This is absolutely essential for a safe practice.

• Slow - I know, I know, now I appear to be contradicting myself. Plus, I always like to slow people down. But this is just to get the above three elements into play. It takes a pretty advanced client for me to feel I can take them into a wider dynamic range, but the truth is we can't always just move slowly and it's not always best for our tissues to do so. The question is, can we keep all the precision of the above elements and take this into a free flow? I also find it useful to engage with a free-flow energy when I'm over-thinking things. Moving slowly can often lead to a very bound-flow feeling and this can lead to over-use and straining. A nuanced approach to dynamic range allows space for both a steady pace and some lightness of flow.

• Advanced Repertoire - Doing a seemingly complicated sequence doesn't necessarily lead to an advanced practice. Though it might be fun to mix things up (and useful for accessing free flow), it's not necessarily appropriate or even helpful and if sustained consistently, it can lead to a very superficial engagement with the technique.

Ultimately it's important not to hold too strongly to any one way of doing, being or moving. Our aim, as Pilates practitioners and as human beings, isn't to know, it's to learn. If we focus on that then we are certainly practicing a somatically informed Pilates.