What is Holistic Pilates?

Due to one of those weird quirks of history, since the dawn of modern medicine only a couple of hundred years ago, we have spilt the mind and body and treated them as separate.

Although we know this is wrong, the depth of connection between mind and body is only now being recognised.

Simple connections have been known for a long time. For example, if you are happy, your posture will change without you being aware of it. You will "walk tall", lengthening your body. If you are unhappy, the opposite will happen. You will slump your shoulders and collapse your body so that it looks small.

Probably the most common of problems is stress:

Deep in our evolutionary past our main threat was from predators attacking us. We had to deal with this either by running away or fighting. This is the "fight or flight" response.

Nowadays we rarely have actual predators but there are a wide range of situations which we sub-consciously treat in the same way. Our body automatically gets ready for physical exertion. Amongst the many changes in our bodies adrenaline starts to flow, our heart rate increases, we breathe more deeply and rapidly, and muscles start to tighten in readiness for flight or fight. Not only is there rarely a need for this response any more, but the situations that trigger the response can go on for a long period of time. Unlike a predator situation, which is relatively short-lived, a stressful situation can go on for weeks. Our bodies are simply not designed to cope with that.

What we need to do is to try and cope with the stress to prevent it from causing us problems.

After years of teaching Pilates to both private clients and in group classes it became obvious that for Pilates to be truely successful you have to take into account not just the physical state of the student but their emotional aspects state as well.

So was born Holistic Pilates which combines both Pilates exercises with relaxation and stress management techniques to improve both mind and body.

HP1

Holistic Pilates 1 comprises a set of fundamental Pilates "mat work" exercises combined with relaxation techniques/stress management to help both the mind and body maintain its natural neutral state.