"Contrology is complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit." - Joseph Pilates -Return to Life.
The focus is not in the choreography or just the exercises but also in the intention. What is the goal of the work, how do you breathe through it, how do you react to it? Where are the arrows of energy and opposition, where is the muscular effort and how is your body leveraging that effort against itself to achieve greater strength, flexibility, balance and control? Just as important as the movement, is how are you breathing, are you breathing? From a spiritual or mental state how are you mentally reacting to the stresses you are putting your bodies through with this work?
Clients and practitioners that do the work always ask, why is it always challenging? Physically we can always keep using the leverages and balances of the musculature against itself to create more suppleness. Mentally, we can always keep working deeper in our connection of our mind to our body, essentially controlling it's every move. Spiritually, we keep handling these challenges, we keep exploring, we keep digging deeper and we stay present through out? One can also say that if our body can no longer be controlled by our minds, we still have control of our spirit and our minds until that is no longer and our last breath is gone. We should all be so fortunate in what we have and take advantage and not let a single day go past with out honoring this beautiful gift.
Our daily lives take us away from these balances, and practicing pilates not only encourages restoring balance in our bodies but also in our minds and spirit. There is this beautiful ying/yang balance that actually must happen both in the body and also in the mind. A push/pull so to speak. If a certain body part pulls or pushes to hard against its counterpart it becomes out of balance when the opposing body part does not react. Therefore the entire body and all its parts must be actively working in balance whether it is physically moving or not. The same is with the mind, there is a certain control of the mind over the body but ironically there is this feeling of freedom when it starts to come into balance. It is through this practice of staying present in this practice and in constant observation that creates self awareness not only what we do in our pilates practice but in our lives.
Sometimes through this work we discover old "holding patterns" whether they are physical, mental or spiritual. How we do pilates can be a really enlightening observation in how we do almost anything in life. We can often hold trauma in our body and we can store emotional, mental, physical stress in our posturing? Working through these using our breath and awareness and sometimes patience and compassion can help us break through in other areas of our life. It can also bring awareness of when we just need to put our heart and soul into it and work through the discomfort and get the work done. These are not separate entities… our minds, spirit and our bodies, they are one in the same, connected, intertwined.
When we breathe and focus our “energy” or “are mindful” of our breath, it changes not only how we breathe but also how we move and how we hold ourselves. Our breath is an indicator of our emotions, our stresses, and our mental state. Amazing how just being mindful of breath can change those patterns, change our outlook and have physical changes in our bodies. Imagine now you are using that same mindfulness and breathing when moving and challenging your body. How is that impacting your present state of mind, awareness and breath? Mentally, how are you getting though this? Are you dreading every second wishing for it to be over or are doing it with gratitude that you have the opportunity to move your own body and challenge these connections. Try looking at this practice with childlike wonder and exploration. Stop yourself from mindlessly moving and really be “present” in your awareness of not only your body in space but how it moves. How does your breath, emotions, mental state also affect your body? When the body feels stress against it due to differently positions, weight, resistance, how does it react? How do you (mentally) react? What do you do? What do you not do? How do you feel? Do you do anything? Be an observer and an active participant in this practice with yourself. It is a beautiful ying/yang playground between our body and mind and spirit. Compare it to a dance, a partnership, or a relationship.
Ask yourself is this relationship between your mind, body and spirit healthy, expanding, exploring, growing, evolving and changing?
Interesting to think of in this way. Have you gotten stale and sluggish, lazy and non-communicative with yourself in this practice? How can you inspire this dialogue between your own mind, body and spirit? The answer just like anything, just try and start by small consistent actions and mindfulness daily to help invigorate that connection again. What will this lead you to? A higher connection to yourself... Vitality…. Life…. Joy…. Freedom