Pilates Instruction & Teacher Education
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My Pilates Excel program is tried and true, road-tested, lineage indifferent and a real game changer.
Pilates Excel is a 4-day intensive course based on Joe Pilates' content-packed 8 page manifesto which details the promise of his work, the way he presented and taught his work and how clients were required to submit to the work.
Pilates Excel completes your educational foundation, includes my problem solving techniques and idealized alignment protocols, synthesizes your understanding of the work as it relates to harsh financial realities & sets you free to achieve your teaching, helping and earning potential.
Pilates Excel is the modern teaching application of Joe's stated intent.
Online @ a computer near you! This is my Vimeo channel where you can see & hear Pilates Excel problem solving & teaching technique in action. All videos are free for your viewing and learning pleasures!
Online @ a computer near you! Read long (really long) involved, highly detailed articles all about teaching technique, problem solving, managing your book, owning your studio, living a Pilates life and striving for Joe-like perfection in the wacky, wild, wonderful world of Pilates.
It's free!
Instructional DVD - Pilates on Ice takes you from a slow, solid beginning to a vigorous real-time intermediate Pilates mat workout. Visit our site for video samples and purchasing information.
Instructional DVD for Pilates instructors. Visit our site to view samples of the video and purchasing information.
Pilates Powerhouse NW is the Seattle studio I started in 2001 and in 2011 turned over to my longtime teaching assistant Heidi Byrnes. It's still my US teaching base for workshops so I'm there on a regular basis throughout the year. The studio is located on the west side of Queen Anne, is filled with light, Gratz, excellence in teaching, super strong clients and lots of love for Joe.
From reading the PilatesNun.com
Hi Rebecca,
I just read your wildly entertaining (and then wildly inspiring) story about your many moves, that culminated in chasing the 3 drunk thugs. You are one cool chick :-) Not only did it make me giggle, but something strange happened - I remembered that I have a little crazy in me as well (the good kind, I hope). And in the midst of divorcing and taking care of my kids and flailing about trying to start my own pilates/nutrition business, I have lost that spark. I had a lightbulb moment - I need to access that part of myself - the "spark" - in order to develop a business - and life - that is authentically me.
Look at the effect you have on people! I think you are just awesome, and so incredibly gifted at what you do. I am making a commitment to myself to find my way to your pilates excel program - have to meet you and soak in your wisdom and expertise! I may not have wayward hookers outside my window or random cars crashing into my driveway, but life is crazy nonetheless, and I'm going to attack it with the same spunk and fearlessness as you do!
Warmly,
Michelle Jones
From finding my video website:
Dear Rebecca,
I have recently been introduced to your wonderful and insightful videos via The Pilates Podcast.
It surprised me to hear someone asking these questions and taking a fresh look at things, as this isn't often done in the Work, at least not in my experience. I am not currently teaching, and haven't for almost two years--I moved with my husband to Charlotte, NC and have not been able to establish a teaching practice here, which hurts my heart, but at the same time has led me to question what I was teaching and when I resume, how I will teach. (For the record, I am PMA certifed--but I'm beginning to wonder if that means anything at all--I don't mean that as a slight, but as an honest question). Lifted flexion is essential.
Bless you for bringing this into greater consciousness. Yet where I begin to wonder about things is the work is primarily flexion driven. Mat or reformer. And looking at Mary Bond's book, THE NEW RULES OF POSTURE, and how periphery feeds core kinda blew my mind, along with the work of Serge Gracovetsky (whom I became aware of in Caryn McHose and Kevin Frank's book, HOW LIFE MOVES) which found that bipedal gait is dependent on healthy, supported spinal curvature--and when I look around at the human form as it typically ages--the glutes deteriorate, the lumbar curve collapses and the pelvis moves into a posterior tilt, thoracic curve implodes into kyphosis, the cranium protracts (Donald A Neumann has a great illustraion of the neck/cranium relationship on page 284 of his book KINESIOLOGY OF THE MUSCULOSKELETAL SYSTEM)--basically the body returns to the fetal C-curve, albeit a collapsed one, and is forced to carry the cranium in protraction in order to see to walk, otherwise one is found looking at the floor. It seems to me the extensors need repeated awakening, brightening. It is wonderful to ask them to accompany the lifted flexion, but the exercise in form, in shape, is still flexion.
Most of my mentors take a hard-line view of Pilates, and the necessity of the order, which I feel I can no longer teach in good conscience. I don't mean to say that all flexion exercises need be abandoned--I've seriously been considering obtaining a personal trainer certification to have more freedom in my teaching. Many questions are living inside me.
As for my own practice--I adore the Hundred after lowering my legs till they hover just inches off the floor, as Joe does in RETURN TO LIFE. My hip flexors work very little compared to my hip extensors in that position--so incredibly different than bringing the legs up to the ceiling or down to forty-five degrees. Interestingly, the exercise is also explored in KUNDALINI YOGA, by Shakta Kaur Khalsa, page 46.
I hope I haven't offended you--I feel you are doing noble and great work. As for doing anything for me--such a generous offer--I ask that you continue in the work that you do, as it is a gift that ripples out into the space we live in, and makes this world a more beautiful and compassionate place to be in.
A thousand blessing to you on your way.
Mindi Kessler
