No handstands yet, but I am making progress.
Danae tells me, in one of our sessions, that I’m body aware and that’s good. It makes it possible, I believe, for me then to connect what she’s telling me with what’s going on. How certain muscles are engaging, or not engaging. Of course the downside is that I get so focused on trying to engage one muscle that I forget to keep those stomach muscles pulled up and in. They are pretty much always supposed to be up and in during Pilates. Lead with the core. Draw the stomach muscles up and in as you push out against the equipment with the feet. Lead with the stomach, let it do the work.
These are things I sometimes lose track of in the middle of an exercise. Danae has been adjusting my positions to really target the muscles that seem to have simply stopped working sometime before or after the surgery (other muscles have been compensating for them). And, as I feel those muscles—in my hip, in the outside of my thigh, in the back of my thigh—begin working again I often forget about the stomach muscles all together, I’m so focused on that one muscle I haven’t felt in two years.
Take, for example, the exercise Danae has me doing on the reformer. The reformer is probably the most used piece of equipment in the studio. It has a series of springs, used for resistance, and features a gliding platform that the student can lay, stand, sit or kneel on. By pressing against a bar at the end of the reformer I move the gliding platform along a set of rails. As the bed moves, the controlled tension in the springs works the muscles.
And this is where I have my first “ah ha” moment in Pilates. Danae makes a minor tweak to my stance, adjusting my foot so that weight and pressure is distributed evenly across the front of my foot. Suddenly, I’m not just pushing through the ball of my foot underneath my big- and second-toe, but through the whole ball of the foot clear out to the little toe.
It’s one minor adjustment to my position, but the results are instantaneous. Immediately my leg becomes weaker and I feel those muscles responsible for the external rotation of my hip actually kick in and, well, try to work. I push out against the tension of the springs and they tremble then engage. I slowly bend my knees and come back in, trying to maintain control of the springs as I do, and my right leg wobbles like jello. Well, at least we’ve found my weak points. I get a little stronger every time.
