Issue #384- Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Revelations from a Pilates Purist
by Clare Dunphy
This article is about taking chances, questioning the status quo, and challenging one’s beliefs. I’ve always told myself I knew the answers to keeping Pilates alive and well for future generations. Here’s why I was wrong.
Like many of us interested in contributing to the preservation and continuance of the work of Joe and Clara Pilates, I’ve had various ideas about the best way to approach this. How could Pilates responsibly go mainstream while honoring the integrity of the Work? Would it get diluted and die out like another fad? Who would protect it? Who had the right to defend it? These thoughts have been around since even when Joe was alive. Fraught with varied perspectives, I found myself running the full range of arguments about why my way of thinking was “right.” Was there a chance I could be mistaken? Did I draw conclusions based solely on my experience?
A seed was planted early on, and I knew that my life’s work would revolve around teaching Pilates. I treasured studying with Romana in NYC in the mid-1990s. Romana and the Pilates Method stole my heart. She promised that if we stayed true to the Work, it would, in turn, reveal itself to us. And that promise came true.
Unaware of other Pilates schools, I felt grateful for the opportunity to work directly with Romana and the fantastic team of teachers at Drago’s and 2121 Broadway Pilates Studio during this period. On the positive side, this simplified my decision since there was only one choice, a fully comprehensive education, and that was that.
It was the mid-1990s, a transformational time at both studios. Romana was robust and passionate in her teaching. The teacher training program was undergoing the growing pains of formalizing Joe Pilates’s work into a “proper” teacher training education program. The manual was evolving, and the challenges of “getting it all down” were met with the usual editorial disagreements. My teacher training program was vibrant, with students, teachers, and apprentices occupying the busy studios throughout the day. There was so much to see and learn, and both studios were full of life.
Meanwhile, structural, cultural, and leadership patterns undermined the organization’s purpose, health, wholeness, and solidarity. Despite differences of opinion, the mission was to preserve the work of Joe Pilates – especially his movement rules, philosophy, and design for health and well-being.
“He was a genius of the body,” Romana frequently exclaimed. When teachers veered off course, Romana would deftly draw us back and explain the issue.
Romana taught us to understand each exercise’s essential purpose and structure. Once that was crystal clear, we learned how to make it accessible to students if they needed it. It was crucial to her that we first understand the exercise and only modify it if necessary. She had repeatedly seen that when a teacher altered a movement unknowingly or knowingly, that change sometimes became the new normal. Like the children’s game, “whisper down the lane,” the original phrase, after getting passed through several people and repeated, is different by the time it reaches the last person. “There’s a virus in the Pilates community!” she would say when a modified variation popped up and threatened to become the new norm.
Back then, when my students visited NYC and took sessions with Romana, she saw the fruits of her teaching through me. That’s how it worked. My students were my report card, meaning that Romana would assess my teaching through my students’ performances. She would speak to me if they didn’t know their order, transitions, or springs. This was old school, master teacher to apprentice.
In hindsight, my early experience was rich but limited. I see now, in 2022, the necessity of being involved in the conversation and part of the community (not outside it) to bring Pilates forward honorably into the future.
For a long time, I was guilty of “contempt before investigation” by judging Pilates schools that seemed to be changing the Pilates method – what I saw as watering it down and “how dare they call it Pilates.” This resentment festered and was suppressed for several years until I got to where I felt resigned to this situation as a “fact of life.” I turned off my oomph in that direction to the point where I didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t listen to other viewpoints, nor enter into any conversations that would stir up these emotions. I didn’t realize that it gave it more energy under the surface.
Meanwhile, I continued my love for Pilates teaching, workshops, education, and community. Then something happened – as if my inner and outer worlds came together. For years I’d been listening, reading, and studying mindfulness and spirituality, and the message that came through like a lightning bolt was this: “Clare, if you want to play in the game, you need to get out of the stands and onto the playing field.” In other words, I didn’t have a right to have a say, complain or judge if I wasn’t actually IN the game. Wow. OK. Now, what was I going to do?
I felt moved to volunteer to help with various tasks needed in the periodic rewriting of the Comprehensive Certification Exam with the National Pilates Certification Program (NPCP). I sat shoulder-to-shoulder for many satisfying hours with colleagues in discussion and deliberation toward a common goal. I put my name in the running for the board of directors for the NPCP and now proudly serve on the board with people of diverse opinions and backgrounds. I am excited to be part of a fantastic team, growing our beloved Pilates forward into a promising future.
Almost 30 years have passed since I began my journey, and Pilates has become mainstream “the way Joe envisioned it.” Grown from a small, passionate group of Joe’s students and teachers, would he think of our mainstream Pilates as evolution? We’ll never know. However, our journey continues, and here are some of the questions I’d like us to consider rethinking:
- What can we still learn through his writings, films, teachers, and their students?
- Can we understand what differentiates Pilates from other modalities and embrace that in our portrayal of Pilates out in the world to the general public and our studios?
- What if we had a way to identify the similarity of our teaching to Joe’s actual work?
- What if the general public was more aware of what Joe actually taught?
- How might things be different if our community could come together by understanding and appreciating The Pilates Method based on underlying facts?
- In what ways might our mutual love of The Work allow us to set aside our judgments so we could all share our passion for it and carry it out to further generations?
The keystone question for us all: Are we willing to put aside what we think we know about each other and our beliefs to have a new experience of how we can move together today and into the future?
For me, the answer is YES! And I hope to meet you sometime on the playing field!
Clare Dunphy Hemani
Clare Dunphy Hemani My roots in the field of human movement began in 1980 at Northeastern University in Exercise Science, with certifications from PMA, ACE, and Romana Kryzanowska. Romana’s education program began in 1995 and I continue with master teachers to this day. I am a teacher for the fabulous sources Pilatesology.com and PilatesAnytime.com. From 2001-2013, as co-author of the Peak Pilates Comprehensive Education Program, I guided scores of teachers and teacher trainers in their next steps, which opened my eyes to the value and need to prepare the next generation of teachers. Committed to preserving the authenticity and tradition of The Pilates Method of Body Conditioning, I value creating learning environments that are refreshing, energetic and supportive. I am founder of Pilates Avatar® – designed to support ownership of the work, The Advanced Teacher’s Seminar – an annual Master’s Program, and Elevate – a 10-week Pilates Mentorship program. I proudly served on the Education Board of the NPCP. My gift is willingness to share knowledge generously and explain concepts with clarity. My mission is simple: Get more people doing Pilates!
Follow Clare at www.progressivebodyworksinc.com, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.