Pilates: Move to Flow
Pilates is a method created to rehabilitate lost physical qualities: strength, flexibility,
articular mobility, and muscle balance, thus potentiating the individual’s vital energy. The
more elastic, the stronger a body is and it allows body energy to run more fluidly,
attending the body’s basic needs.
A strong, flexible body saves energy and moves with more freedom and precision.
The Pilates Method’s objective is to improve the way you move and therefore, to improve
your life. There are many books on Pilates, some better than others; the subject of
Pilates has been commercialized too much. This is why I believe that the best is to look
inwards and start moving, going back to the essence; cultivate good habits, eat well,
practice varied physical activities, every day if it’s possible. No high performance stuff,
just feeling what your body is telling you. Nature gave us a great source of energy that
lies within us and even if it’s wrapped in layers like an onion, I assure you, it is there.
There is no new contraption that can deliver the benefits Pilates does. The stress we
accumulate by the minute cannot be removed any other way but with movement, that is
why “move to flow” has been my motto for years.
Muscle and joint rigidity are companions that arrive with the years, which is why we must
tend to them just as we do visitors, always first!
Let’s begin with movements we can do every day as we get up, before going to bed and
-why not? at the beach.
Let’s focus on the most common zones of rigidity: neck, column, and breathing.
Why are these the most common stress zones?
Let’s see: breathing is the first thing affected by stress, hardening the chest to resist daily
activities and we lose awareness that the act of breathing is happening… come to think
of it, life begins and ends with this fundamental action. In the neck there is one of the
groups of muscles closer to thinking; if we pause and consider that approximately 800
thoughts per minute occur, all that information is absorbed by the muscles of the body.
The neck is the obligatory passage for neuromuscular information and much of it stays
here. Josef Pilates used to say that a person’s age is measured by his mobility.
And he was right, I have students of 81 who are younger than others at 25. Mobility of the
spine is fundamental to the optimal functioning of the whole body; all the nervous
information from the brain is protected by the spine and it must remain flexible not to
affect the nervous connections going out to the whole body.
Let’s begin with these simple exercises that can change so much of us, anyone can do
it, and if you have any questions you can talk to your doctor, or send me an email to
marcelo@marcelomico.com
