Inside the Pilates Studio: Kathryn Ross Nash

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Welcome to the first installation of Inside the Pilates Studio. I am excited to bring to you a small window into the hearts and minds of perhaps some of your favorite – well at least my favorite – Pilates Superstars. Stars! They’re just like us!

For a short interview I will seek out those in the Pilates world whose work, presence and mojo speaks to me and inspires me in my own journey with this amazing exercise system. Even for those individuals that I know rather well, there is still something about them that makes me want to know more. More about their POV on the Pilates Method, their business, their life and how they present themselves, their essence and ultimately their humanity.

James Lipton, host of the fabulous television show Inside the Actors’ Studio and former student of Joe Pilates (I know, right?) has a series of signature questions. Jimmy, If you are reading this, please email me!

According to www.senselist.com: 

”Fans of Inside the Actor’s Studio are familiar with James Lipton’s list of questions, which he poses to each of his guests at the end of an interview. Lipton always gives credit for this list to French talk show host Bernard Pivot, who hosted Apostrophes from 1975–1990 and Bouillon de Culture from 1990–2001; he often mentions that the list originally came from French novelist Marcel Proust (1871–1922). Proust did not actually create the questionnaire that frequently has his name attached, though he did famously answer two versions of it (once at age 13, and a second time at age 20), and thereby gave the lists a certain notoriety. Their original author is unknown.” 

Each Inside the Pilates Studio interview will include ten questions, in the style of Lipton’s and tweaked towards Pilates. I will also include a short bit about said Superstar and/or what enticed me to seek the interview.

So try to imagine the blue 5×7 index cards if you can…

 

Inside the Pilates Studio: Kathryn Ross-Nash

I first met Kathryn Ross-Nash in 2007. The workshop was on the Wunda Chair. Initially I became a fan though Romana’s first series of videos. Although I consider myself to be a reasonably flexible person, we all have the experience of the exercises through the filter of our own body. Watching Kathi’s Pilates workout enabled me to expand my horizons, shall we say…and of course the grass is always greener…

”Wow – my arms can end up over there??” and “Oh…that’s what I am trying to do…” 

…Sigh…but back to that wunda chair workshop. 

Kathi was speaking about the use of touch as a teacher, which led us to a discussion about our need to feel touch as humans – it is communicative, empowering, reassuring, necessary. And humanity kinda always moves me – so now I am misty-eyed and trying to do the Mountain Climb, the Pull Up or something equally not suited to weeping…and Kathi’s prancing about in a sassy red outfit…I was so deeply in Like at that moment…

I love teachers that simply teach their own particular subject, yet at the same time speak volumes about the big picture: Life and what it means to be human. 

Well now I’ve said it. There’s no taking it back. Kathi Ross Nash is a human. Sorry to let that one out of the bag.

Romana says it all in a video teaching Kathi and Jerome on the Cadillac. Romana evaluates Kathi, while she does the standing stretches, to the side, one leg up on the canopy of the Cadillac – no fuzzies required, I might add – and her shin nearly in danger of pressing against her ear. “Stretch your leg a little, honey.” 

Okay, enough hype…here we go!

Kathi Ross-Nash: I will try to behave…

1. What is your favorite Pilates exercise and why?

KRN: Gosh! I have to pick. It actually changes as I change. Right now it is the High Bridge. You need an equal balance of control, stretch and strength to achieve the correct position. Post-illness I had lost my ability to do the High Bridge. So it is a shining example of how the method is amazing. By doing my Pilates workout – not modifying or changing the work – I was able to regain all the components needed to find this delicious exercise again.

2. What exercise is your least favorite? Pick only one.

KRN: I do not have one. There are ones I am horrible at, but they make me work harder.

3. What turns you on creatively, mentally or physically about the Pilates method?

KRN: It is a complete method. If we stopped adding and changing it, we would appreciate it for its completeness. Every exercise is interwoven and tied together like a beautiful tapestry of exercise. When I found The Red Thread(tm) of the work, Joe’s genius became so apparent. As instructors we need to trust in the work – his work – and let the exercises do their magic.

4. What is your idea of earthly happiness?

KRN: Wow. For everyone’s today to be better than yesterday and for tomorrow to be better than today. For infinity.

5. What to your mind would be the greatest misfortune?

KRN: To lose hope.

6. What is your favorite Pilates word?

KRN: Lengthen.

7. What is your least favorite Pilates word?

KRN: Core.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

KRN: (laughing) A veterinarian. 

9. If Heaven exists, and by some chance when you arrive at the pearly gates Joseph Pilates is also there, what would you like to hear him say to you?

KRN: “Would you like some Schnapps?” Just kidding. That I knew the work and spread the word.

10. What did you learn today?

KRN: That there is always more to grow. No matter how much you have improved today. Tomorrow there is more. 

How to Make Time for Your Own Workout…and Other Fairy Tales

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Several weeks ago Alisa asked me to write about how one can manage, as a practitioner, a teacher or a devoted enthusiast of the Pilates Method…

 TO FIND THE TIME FOR YOUR OWN WORKOUT. 

I agree, it is easy to put off doing good stuff for yourself until you actually begin your workout and then you remember – “Riiiiight… I feel better already.”

Well, I dashed off an email to a dozen or so colleagues to see if others had any helpful hints about carving out some space for their own workout. I had my own ideas, but I thought I would inquire anyway…Very telling what came back to me…or should I say, what did not come back to me. Initially I received only one response. It just so happened to be from the fantastic lady in the photo above. 

Surprised? Well, I have to say, no, not really. That is why she is Kathi Ross-Nash.

Kathi actually employs some of the same strategies that I do. Yay me  :)

Get on the KRN plan!

Start with the High Bridge. NO.

Set Goals

While maintaining your over-arching goal of perfection in every exercise (no pun intended) it is often helpful to have some stepping stones along the way. In Pilates when one exercise gets better, everything gets better. Look for exercises that you can use as components to the bigger, perhaps fancier exercise. What is the challenging part of the exercise? Where can you find this same action elsewhere in the system? More specifically, see if you can find it in an exercise that you do well. Use these components to cultivate all facets of the goal exercise. Be diligent and perfect every skill necessary to execute the goal. 

It is all the same work, now just in a different, more challenging scenario – so a little more Double Leg Pull I say!

Use your mind to stimulate your workouts and mark your progress!

Schedule workouts with friends

Kathi & her workout buddy Chris Robinson

 

This one works like a charm – put it on your calendar! Sometimes we think it is okay to flake out on ourselves, but when there is a friend involved it helps you to be more accountable. Kathi likes to Skype with friends and colleagues to workout – especially fun if you like to workout with your technology (I [heart] iPhone). No excuses if your workout friends live far away.

 

Wait! This just in! Another instructor friend of mine, Ethan Carter weighs in at the 11th hour, just as I’m writing this post!

Ethan has spent countless hours playing team sports and says he enjoys the social component of a group workout combined with the mental component of perfecting one’s skills. We usually plan to meet once a week in my home studio in pursuit of the perfection of form that is the Pilates Method. While we are at it we can catch up during those brief moments that it’s acceptable to chat it up on the Reformer. Seems to happen mostly during the Short Box Series.

Keep Moving!

“I exercise for sanity, not for vanity.” Ethan cracked me up with this one, but it is so true. Honestly, for me, it is a little bit of both…as I do like to keep my girlish figure…

But do whatever you have to do.

Stay in the moment.

If you tend to get distracted during your workouts (hey, did I hear my phone ring? what’s for lunch? wow, my toes look terrible, I really need a pedicure…). Aim to strike the delicate balance between focused precision and moving it along. Hear your instructor’s voice (or even your own voice) in your head spurring you on!

Remember how great you’ll feel afterwards!

And eyes on the prize, people – remember that one of the reasons you do your workout is because you love the way Pilates makes your body feel afterwards. Return to Life!

PS – Stay tuned for next week’s post, Inside The Pilates Studio, featuring Kathryn Ross-Nash

BTW Joe Pilates was a Genius

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This just in: Joseph Pilates was a genius. 

I realize this with the usual Duh!/Aha! realization that is my constant companion on my journey as a teacher and practitioner of the Pilates Method.  I know I run the risk of exposing my inner Pilates geek, but I’m sure some of you will not be surprised.  

One of the many reasons that I personally love Pilates is because left to my own devices I have terrible posture.  For this reason, the Reader’s Digest article from 1934 has been a great inspiration to me. Joseph Pilates explaining his own method – I love to get to the source as much as possible. I am just as JP describes in his article:

 “Head forward – two or three inches out of alignment with the spine; shoulders rounded, chest hollowed…” and I’ve got a swayback as well and some muscular thighs…Gosh!

As an advanced practitioner I’m being pretty harsh on myself, but let’s just say if I weren’t me, I’d want to give me a pillow. But shhhh…JP is talking:

“Lie down and try to make the whole length of the spine touch the floor, likewise the shoulders and arms, stretched above the head. You can’t do it, but trying is what counts.”

So let’s see what happens. Oh, the floor, she is so unforgiving… and of course no cheating by moving my pelvis! At first I confess I feel like a three-legged table…but I must persevere…

I am now lying on the floor and wailing on achieving better neck posture and opening my chest – it seems like so much work just to get the whole line of the shoulders – across the top of the upper back – on the mat.  And for one brief, shining moment I feet –although horizontal – as though my skeleton hangs vertically from the topmost point of the skull.  That’s when the magic happens.  With that feeling of hanging the whole body from its proper point – the ribcage softens and eases closer to the floor, the whole front of the hips and thighs relax – I know, who knew? – and my stomach draws in and up even more effortlessly.  Almost as though I could use my muscles to create one long continuous line from heels to crown of head, the entire back of the body all on the mat – the key words here being “as though” because… 

“You can’t do it, but trying is what counts.”  Thank you, Joe.

Since I do have quite the swayback, I really wanted to see if my back could possibly be on the mat at this point. Wow! Although it felt as though it were perfectly flat to me – I could still fit my hand nearly halfway under my low back. This was the magic part  – by following JP’s directive to try to get everything to be on the mat, my own anatomy had still been maintained! 

It was at this point that I couldn’t help but halloo his name to the reverberate hills:

“Joseph Pilates was a genius!”

A big xo to Mr. Joe Joe.

The 7th Principle of Pilates: MOVE!

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Most all Pilates training programs – mine included – spend the first hour of the first training weekend imparting some basic information about Joe Pilates and his method. On my first page of notes: Pilates in 3 words = Strength, Stretch and Control.
Okay, cool.

Next my notes tell me what most if not all Pilates instructors also learn very early on:

The six principles of Pilates. These 6 principles (concentration, control, centering, precision, flowing movement and breathing) do accurately describe what differentiates Pilates from other forms of exercise, true. They do not, however, come from Joe Pilates.

Jay Grimes points out that Joe Pilates did not come down from the mountain one day with stone tablets proclaiming the Six Principles of Pilates. I like to laugh when he says this because all I can think of is Mel Brooks as Moses in History of the World Part 1. Moses comes down from the mountain with 15 Commandments, accidentally drops one stone tablet of 5 and quickly changes the number to just “…10… 10 Commandments!”  But Joe Pilates would have had the stone tablets, the tiny white shorts and a cigar I think, yes?

I know, getting a little off topic.

So if not from Joe, from whom do we get these 6 lovely principles?

The Six Principles first appeared in The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning by Philip Friedman and Gail Eisen, two students of Romana Kryzanowska. Originally published in 1980 (more than a decade after Joe Pilates died, yo.).  It “was the first book of its kind – bringing Pilates out of the elite studios and into the lives of millions of Americans.”

The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning

Jogging and running had exploded in the late 1970s. By 1980 a fitness craze was sweeping the country and an obsession with health, beauty and youthfulness was having profound effects on American culture. Students Gail and Philip met with Romana seeking specific ways to differentiate the Pilates Method from other forms of exercise that people were doing. What made Pilates special?

Certainly the 6 principles they created are inherent in the Pilates system. But another more important principle is missing.

Let’s call it the 7th Principle of Pilates: Move!
Who knows, maybe when Joe dropped his stone tablet just like Moses other precious gems were lost as well such as “Thou Shalt Not Bang the Carriage,” “Quiet the Clips,” and “What you don’t like, you do twice.”
Try it for yourself. Simply follow the 7th Principle of Pilates. Move! You will have no choice but to do all those other 6 automatically or perish. 

You will remember the exercises and focus on what you are doing (concentration), you will move in a safe and effective fashion (control), you’ll be toast without your stomach (centering), you will maintain your form (precision) and you will most certainly breathe (Yup) as you MOVE (flowing movement)! All this involves trust of course. Trust in the work. Trust that it is getting the job done without you micromanaging and getting all up in its grill. Let the body lead you without your mind working overtime, or over-indulging in the breathing, perhaps…you know who you are. 

Trust. Let go. Let go and Let Joe…awww…