This is your guide to the fundamental principles which are at the heart of the Pilates discipline. Understanding these important principles will greatly influence the benefits you achieve from your Pilates practice.

1. Breathing

It is vital to appreciate how important correct breathing is for each Pilates exercise. Joseph Pilates believed this to be an important component to achieving the full benefit of each movement. Deep rhythmic breathing provides the vital oxygen to fuel your body and your mind. Most people are inclined to take shallow breaths, using only the top part of their lungs. Their bodies become accustomed to this and when exercising there is little improvement without some concentrated effort over a period of time. The operation of the diaphragm is interrelated with the deep abdominal muscles of the pelvis (the pelvic floor) and the external abdominal muscles. As the pelvic floor muscles are vital in maintaining a stable spine, balance and co-ordination, you will appreciate that correct breathing is directly linked to the way we move with control and grace. It is essential therefore, to study the video training to learn abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing. With practice, the lungs will take in a far greater volume of air with minimal effort. Think of all that air feeding and relaxing your muscles. It will help relieve tension and stress and lift your spirits too.

2. Concentration

Joseph Pilates was very clear that concentration on moving carefully and slowly in all movements was to be of paramount importance. Students do need time to learn that speed is definitely NOT the goal. Clean, fluid, precise movement is the target and that requires connecting the mind with the body to work in harmony. Try and exercise in a private and quiet environment if possible.

3. Centring.

The centre of the body relates to the muscles forming a continuous band at the front and back of your trunk. These muscles control the nature of your upright posture whilst also supporting the organs. Joseph often referred to this as your ‘Powerhouse’. Lower back pain is frequently associated with weakness and / or imbalances of these stabilising muscles. Centring is the ability to allow these muscles to work functionally to maintain good posture, regardless of the position an exercise or days to day situation puts you in. This requires fine control of the abdominal muscles and the development of a clear subconscious awareness of where your centre lies at any time.

4. Precision.

Precise adherence to the details of the exercise instruction is important to the effectiveness of the exercise. It is a matter of practice to achieve the degree of precision required to improve postural alignment, and to learn to move correctly without developing compensation patterns in the body. The best approach is to watch the exercise videos very carefully through and listen to the points raised by the instructor before trying them yourself. Remember, the students used in the videos are human and the session you see is the result of several takes on film. Even then, you are likely to hear the instructor correcting movement details. That’s good, because you may find yourself needing the same corrections.

5. Balance and Coordination.

Flowing movements are achieved when we regain our natural ability to coordinate our body parts. This may sound simple, but you will be surprised how awkward we can feel trying to breathe out and just move one leg at the same time. Do not worry though. All beginners find the same problems at the start. It is a shame but commonplace that as we become adults, we lose our inherent ability to coordinate. Pilates exercises train our mind and body to re-awaken the communication necessary to work precisely together. The neuromuscular connection takes some perseverance to re-establish, but over a short while the connection does return very well indeed. This then helps enormously with our balance and ability to benefit fully from the exercises.

6. Flow.

The Pilates exercises enable you to achieve your full potential as your ability to maintain smooth rhythmic movements improves. This will take time and practice. At first you are likely to find your movements tend to be irregular, until you learn to relax and your movement will then become more fluid and graceful.

7. Relaxation.

The Pilates method focuses on eliminating tension from the body as we move. We are particularly focusing on releasing tension from muscles whilst we exercise. By engaging in the exercise routines regularly, we find that the ability to relax the muscles gets easier to achieve. The further effect of regular exercise is that feelings of mental stress are alleviated, thus making the exercise routines flow more easily, with better breathing, flow and control.