pilates

I went to my first ever Pilates class last night. It's flippin hard!

You have to stand straight with relaxed shoulders.

Then you have to tilt your pelvis so that it's in "neutral" position which is apparently where it's supposed to be but we slouch bad.

Next you have to tense your stomach muscles and only partially release them (like when you're holding your stomach in to wear that dress)

Still relaxing your shoulders, tilting your pelvis and tensing your stomach muscles, you also have to tense and part release your pelvic floor muscles (the ones you use to stop yourself peeing)

Holding all of that, you THEN do exercises.

On top of that, as a musician I'm trained to breathe from my stomach and diaphragm and now do it naturally all the time. In Pilates, you're holding your stomach muscles in tension so you have to breathe from your chest. People who haven't been trained either way naturally use a combination of both.

It's a real challenge - try tensing your stomach without tensing your shoulders too. Try clenching your pelvic floor muscles whilst keeping your pelvis tilted. Try holding your stomach tense and breathing. Try doing all at once whilst lifting one leg and not falling over. Aaaaaaaaaaargh!

I think patting my head and rubbing my stomach is more my level...