What pilates has taught me:

Pilates is a trending exercise, much like yoga. You don’t need any special equipment, you can access it in pretty much every gym and it’s an easy one for beginners, majority of whom are female.

However, when you really get into it, it’s a whole philosophy. It’s not just a one-size-fits-all workout that you can mindlessly consume. You must switch on your brain. Which I find amusing, since with yoga – an alleged philosophy where everything is based on breath work and mindfulness – I use my brain a lot less than with pilates. I just don’t need as much concentration to downfard face dog.

Pilates doesn’t claim to be a spiritual teaching yet it is one. In actuality, when you search for the word pilates online and land on its Wikipedia page, it kind of roasts the exercise and claims that “it’s not proven to be of much use but it’s better than no exercise at all”. I’ve been doing pilates for the past few years (on and off, thanks to my lazy ass) and I can guarantee that pilates is much more than this.

At the centre of pilates are micro-movements of the micro-muscles. The kind of muscles we don’t know exist in our body. In most cases the only equipment required is a mat and your body. There are numerous variations of exercises, from yoga-like techniques like planks and warriors, to really strange movements like boomerang and scissors.

That’s what I love most about it: with each workout, you never know which muscles you’re going to use, which body parts are involved and how crazy the movements are going to be. It’s a complete surprise, and it always delivers on that aspect of it.

Another great feature of pilates workouts is the number of repetitions. It is ALWAYS enough to feel your muscles burning but just when you’re about to explode, start crying and give up, it stops and you move on to the next body part.

And this teaches me endurance. I know that this pain I’m feeling will go away in a second. And, more importantly, I learn to enjoy pain. Because I know that it has a wonderful quality of fizzling out. I know it will end. And I know that I will grow stronger as a result. Not immediately and not obviously stronger like with break-your-neck fitness and weightlifting but SUBTLY and pleasantly stronger.

This is it: subtle movements of the subtle muscles to grow subtly stronger over time compounding to an incredibly impactful result.

When I walk after a few months of regular pilates, I begin feeling less like a bag of potatoes and more like a ballet dancer. My posture is effortlessly straight and I almost bounce rather than drag myself along this weary planet. The ground feels more like a dancefloor haha.

Now when it comes to the spiritual angle of pilates, I am trying to see every personal challenge or discomfort as:

1. Passing
2. Fruitful

I try to squeeze every drop of pain from some minor discomforts or obstacles to feed my personal growth. Every bit of pain that we experience is not useless as long as we make a 🍹out of 🍋.

Life cannot be fruitful without pain. And instead of counting painful moments, rejecting and feeling annoyed by them, enjoy the small pains. Because it’s much harder to learn from big pains. So as long as you’re alive, healthy and so are your loved ones, the little pains are to be celebrated.

What do I mean by little pains? Conflicts with a boss, argument with a friend, student debt, lack of money, partner cheating, unrequited love, lack of friends, difficult relationships with a partner etc. – as long as it doesn’t affect your or your loved one’s mental or physical health in a serious way, it’s a passing pain, temporary discomfort – a teacher to subtly grow your subtle muscles for a big impact later down the line.

What can I learn from this pain? What is it teaching me?

I even tried to learn during my 3-weeks long covid 😂 It was actually pretty insightful, I learnt that I had a major addiction to my phone and I’m still trying to treat it haha.

Why is it harder to learn from big pains? Because in most cases it’s overwhelming, all-consuming and difficult to process – it’s one big chunk. It’s best to heal under supervision or with help of a professional or giving yourself plenty of time and accepting that it might never go away fully.

It’s kind of turned from discussing how much I love pilates to something a bit too deep and esoteric – but it’s me for you, I’m just like that.

Summary: learn from little pains and use them to feed your growth. And try pilates, especially Move with Nicole – she is a star, I can’t believe her lessons are free on YouTube.

Sending big love! Let me know your thoughts ❤️

Sincerely yours,
Self-love Academy