Happy International Pilates Day

Happy International Pilates Day! Pilates saved my life. We have been told so many times about its many exercise benefits.Did you know that Pilates is so powerful a technique that Pilates is an umbrella treatment under Physiotherapy in today’s current medical and insurance model. Pilates is the first Physiotherapy!

But, I was unemployed with no benefits and no extra money to go to any therapist of any kind when my husband died leaving me with a 2 year old son and pregnant with our second son (whom he never met). I needed more than stretching and calming. I needed reconnection and rebalance with my nervous systems (yes, you have two “different operational” ones). From my traumatic experience, stress makes our joints go slack. Stressful thoughts and feelings pulls the water out of our cells and organs. Stress makes us destabilize to the left side only (spiral line). If you feel tight or “stronger” on your right side it is only because it is trying to pull you back into alignment when you spiral to the left.

When I was grieving and living like the walking dead, I felt my joints stay slack and ache and hurt constantly, thus, no true inner stability and metaphorically, no standing tall, no getting up off my knees and no moving forward. My inside head, the surface of my brain, itched. I could not breath. I could not see straight. The tightness in my chest would not go away. This was more than just grief. I know now that it was my fascia stiffening, my brainstem and cells dehydrating and my nervous system not able to find clear consistent signals to my centre of gravity and joints, like a GPS. But back then, yoga and stretching was just making my joints more overstretched and there was no corresponding rebalance or reconnection because the neuro-muscular-skeletal re-patterning piece was missing. So, I started Pilates on my living room floor at 2 am when I could not sleep. The 100 kick-started my diaphragm. I taught myself some Pilates at home because it also made me think and feel and sense. It was active cognitive behaviour therapy in my body. I got stronger, physically and figuratively.

Pilates originally called his work Contrology and developed not just physiotherapy and manual therapy but a powerful ideology with pressurization of the joints system which is the key to all health…pressure..constantly adjusting, rebalancing and recalibrating pressure through the neuro-fascial system.

Thanks to Joseph Pilates for his everlasting gift. He was an innovator, inspiration and early influencer of integrative health that also has so many health economics efficiencies, especially in these challenging times. Be your own best therapist and return to trusting your own body!

By Annabel Scott, Owner of Pilates Manitoba Inc

#internationalpilatesday #selfcare #beyourowntherapist #breathing #anxiety #depression #mindbody #mentalhealth
#gratitude #trustyourbody #feelandfollowyourbreath #core