“Sorry I’m late,” the disembodied voice came from a pint-sized, spandex-encased woman juggling armfuls of Pilates rings. “My name is Hadwigis and I’m your Pilates instructor for the day.” For a second I thought I heard her say that her name is Hedwig, Harry Potter’s snowy white owl, but aside from her piercing dark eyes and stern countenance, she was all sinewy muscles and lean lines topped with a massive bob of wild salt-and-pepper curls.
I’m in the mezzanine of my local gym and I’m joining the Pilates group class. Started by Joseph “Joe” Pilates in the beginning of the century, the Pilates method focused on how to use the mind to control the muscles—helping build flexibility, create long and lean muscles, develop a stronger core (abdominals and back), and improving coordination and balance, among others.
Joe brought his exercise method to New York from Germany in the 1920s and after a successful practice of training ballet dancers and Hollywood actors, Pilates became an eponymous exercise regimen. Today, Pilates has entered the fitness mainstream and there are millions of Pilates practitioners worldwide. (A trademark lawsuit in 2000 declared that Pilates is an exercise method like yoga, and therefore ruled as generic and no one can monopolize the trademark.)
Unlike the rest of the gym dwellers, we had to take off our shoes before starting the Pilates class. Hedwig led us to a series of warm-up exercises, constantly reminding us to breathe in through our nose and exhaling through pursed lips. The logic behind breathing fully is to take tons of fresh air while expunging stale air from the system and of course to oxygenate the blood and to get the circulation pumping. However focusing too much on making the abdominal muscles taut, stitching the ribs, breathing properly and following the instructions made me gasp for air, causing inhalation depravation—a feeling similar to sucking in a bagful of air from a Helium balloon and the needing to belt out a Lady Gaga song in a Chipmunk voice. Hedwig plopped herself next to me and demonstrated, which I quickly followed and in the process ingested a full breath of falafel-flavored air.
While immersed in a series of moves in the 60-minute class, I realized that Pilates has some funky-named moves such as The Hundred. Counting to 100 is easy but trying it on a supine position—lying down face up with your legs on a 45-degree angle with upper body lifted from floor and your arms flapping forward while breathing in for five counts and breathing out for another five counts? The result is one massive tension—the upper body is protesting while the legs are shaking, making it the longest 100 breaths or countdown.
Move over John Travolta, sans the white suit, we were led to a series of arm pointing to the ceiling while the other arm is drifting downward. Called Saturday Night Fever, this exercise flexes the upper back and lower lumbar region. Some other exercises include Threading the Needle and The Windmill, which work the rotator cuff muscles and flexes the shoulder and neck muscles. One of my favorites, The Dart works on the extensor muscles of the upper back and stretches the front of the ribcage. Hedwig tapped my knee and said stop moving like a sack of potatoes (which made me think of French fries).
The end of the session was a series of stretching exercises and a narrative on how Pilates has a lot of benefits from building flexibility to mobilizing the spine, boosting positive behavior, developing the immune system, etc. I think I caught the Saturday Night Fever; I’m doing Pilates from now on.
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