Benjamin the Brave

January 22, 2020

by Christina Maria Gadar

Throughout my Pilates apprenticeship and the many years of continuing education that followed my Pilates certification, I learned to believe that Pilates was not appropriate for children. On the first day of my Pilates apprenticeship, I jotted down “No children under 16 years” on the first page of my Pilates notebook. But as I wrote it, I knew that my note was antithetical to what Joe Pilates wrote in his first published work in 1934. In his book, Your Health, the heading of chapter eight reads “First educate the child!” Those words echoed in the back of my mind every time I looked at what I had been told to write on that first day of my apprenticeship.

When I became a mother, I attempted to teach my children Pilates as soon as they showed an interest in what their mommy did for a living. Because of what I had been taught about age restrictions, I assumed that the equipment was off limits, so I introduced them to Matwork. They had fun, but I had a hard time keeping them focused and interested. I grew skeptical about teaching children. Perhaps their shorter attention spans, growing bodies, and preference for play-based movement were challenges that could not be overcome. Just when I started to accept the skepticism about teaching children Pilates, I was presented with a challenge.

On December 31, 2014, Benjamin, my children’s classmate, dear friend, and neighbor, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Benji, as his friends called him, had just turned seven years old. Sadly, this was not the first time that a child that I knew personally was diagnosed with cancer, but it was the first time that this happened to one of my children’s friends and, as a mother, it affected me deeply. I was eager to find some way to show my support for Benji and his family. They were beginning what they were told would be a two-and-a-half-year journey of healing, which would include a lot of chemotherapy. Benji’s father suggested that Benji take Pilates lessons as a means of offsetting the muscle weakness that would most likely come with his chemotherapy treatment. I felt certain that Pilates would be good for him, but my difficulty teaching my own children the Pilates Matwork left me feeling insecure.

After explaining the situation to a teacher trainer who has experience working with young students with special issues, he agreed that my instinct to put Benji on the Pilates equipment was right. To get the extra support he needed, Benji had to use the equipment. In my son’s first lesson on the Cadillac, I realized that I had to find new ways of describing the exercises to children. I worried when he didn’t “get it” right away. In our first lesson, my son sensed my uneasiness. He looked straight into my eyes and said, “Just give me a chance.” Hearing him say those words put everything back into perspective. I realized that teaching children was no different than teaching adults, in the sense that each person learns at a different pace and in a different way. For the next three months, I taught my children, my children’s classmates, and quite a few of my adult students’ children and grandchildren. These young students gave me the feedback I needed to develop new verbal prompts and imagery, modify movements, and build my confidence.

Photo courtesy of Laura Gilkey

Three months into his treatment, Benji felt ready to start Pilates and I felt ready to teach him. Benji’s mom warned me that there would be emotional factors as well as physical ones at play. Benji was dealing with changes in his physique because of the medications he was taking, and those changes made him feel self-conscious. We decided to schedule lessons during my thirty-minute lunch break so that I would always have a time available for him.

Since Benji was being home-schooled during this phase of his treatment, I regarded the Pilates part of his day as his physical education class, remembering that Joe Pilates wanted his method to be integrated into the school curriculum. On day 96 of his treatment, I welcomed Benji into my “indoor playground.” As he entered my studio, his eyes opened extra wide and he said, “Wow! This is so cool!” I wanted to give him a sense of control, so I asked him what his body craved more, strength or stretch. He replied, “I just want to move.” His answer could not have been more perfect. He went over to a piece of equipment and asked, “Wow, what does this do?” I had him try a few movements on different pieces of equipment to help satisfy his curiosity. During the lesson, I emphasized two main points: lifting the abdominal muscles in and up, which he learned to do by imagining that he was zipping up tight pants, and squeezing the seat muscles in and up, which he learned to do by imagining that he was squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. After his introductory lesson, he walked away with a very good understanding of how to lift his powerhouse muscles simply by thinking about zippers and toothpaste. Benji was in awe of the studio and I was in awe of him because I knew that he had had three different types of chemotherapy the day before his lesson with me.

A few days later, Benji returned for his second lesson. He found different pieces of equipment that he hadn’t noticed in the previous lesson and asked about them. I used that as an opportunity to explain the difference between equipment and machines. Romana loved to say that the Pilates apparatus was not a machine, because a machine does the work and in Pilates we are the ones doing the work. I told him that the different pieces of equipment truly did nothing, but he could do a variety of things on them. Near the end of the lesson, when he was sitting on the Arm Chair for the Boxing exercise (which he renamed the “High Five” exercise), I asked him who was doing the work, him or the spring, to which he answered, “I am. I am the machine.” I could feel the sense of power in his voice. At that moment, the term Contrology took on a deeper meaning for me. I truly understood why Joe Pilates said that his Method uses the mind to control the body.

As time went on, Benji’s bravery continued to impress me. One of his lessons came only two days after a bone marrow aspiration. Even on the days when he could barely get through one exercise, I was still impressed with the courage which brought him into the studio. In a relatively short time, I could see improvement in his body image, his strength, his control over the springs, and his understanding of the fundamental Pilates concepts.

Eventually Benji’s leukemia went into remission and he was able to return to school and a more normal life. Unfortunately, Benji experienced a relapse and it was revealed that Benji had a gene that left him predisposed to other pediatric cancers. But his family never lost hope and aimed at getting him to Pennsylvania to participate in clinical trials. Sadly, Benji never made it to those trials. He died less than two months later at the age of nine.

A few months after Benji passed away, my son shared something with me that he had learned from his science teacher. He told me that there is no such thing as a neutral encounter because our actions either enhance or diminish the way another person feels. Benji’s life was not a long one, but it was very full, and he most certainly enhanced the lives of all who knew him. My interactions with Benji enhanced my thinking about love and courage, and my interactions with his mother taught me much about family and gratitude.

When I hear people say that children cannot handle Pilates, I think of Benji the Brave, his devoted classmates and friends, and what my son told me the first time I gave him a lesson on the Pilates equipment…”Just give me a chance.” It is my sincere hope that Benji’s story will enhance the way we view teaching young children the Method that Joe Pilates appropriately referred to as “body-mind-spirit development.”

Benji’s family has created The Benjamin Gilkey Fund for Innovative Pediatric Cancer Research to honor his legacy. To learn more please visit:

www.BenjaminTheBrave.com

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ined and certified by Joseph Pilates’ protégé, Romana Kryzanowska, Christina Maria Gadar has been teaching Pilates in her Sarasota, Florida studio since 2000. She is the author of Pilates: An Interactive Workbook, Discovering Joe Pilates, and Pilates for Children (all available at Amazon). In addition to teaching and writing about Pilates, Christina is an international presenter. She will be the featured presenter at the Simpósio Internacional de Pilates in Porto Alegre, Brazil this April, and will offer her first Pilates for Children workshop at Capitol Pilates in Washington DC this March.