Image courtesy of Pilates Anytime
Issue #454
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Jean TEASER Process
by Ruth Alpert
The backstory:
Jean was a client for several years at Simpatico, a pilates studio in Santa Barbara, CA. She lives in a retirement community one mile away. When I first moved to Santa Barbara and started teaching at the studio, I subbed some privates for her regular teacher, (and studio owner) Mindy Horwitz, and then we shared her for a year or so. When the pandemic shut down happened we all discovered zoom, and after the studio reopened, Jean chose to stay on zoom instead of coming back in person. I teach her on Mondays, and Mindy has her on Thursdays. It works out well. She was willing to purchase some tools, and now has a soft gym overball, a theraband, a soft foam roller, 2 and 3 lb. weights, a round Disc ‘O’ Sit Balance Disc (what OPTP calls it). It’s amazing how much one can do with just a few tools and floor space!
Jean has two daughters who are athletic; she goes to LA to visit with them and sometimes they travel together. Jean just turned 85, and her recent goal is to do Teaser, so she can show off to her daughters.
Hmmm… how to build her up to it… safely?
The process
Teaser requirements: open and connected hamstrings, deep (“bikini level” ie, transversus) ab control, articulate hip sockets, soft hip grippers…and everything else, of course! It’s Pilates, after all!
We always start with a warmup, basically Eve Gentry fundamentals, as that is my lineage. Tail curls, knee sways, knees to chest rocking/massaging lumbar area, elbow circles, angel wings into full circles or side lying “feel good” arm circles; upper body curls or arch/curl on the roller with head resting in hands (preferred, to target the movement to rib cage/thoracic spine so abs truly do the work and not just head/neck). If her neck feels especially tight, we do the beginning section of my Foam Roller class, lying vertically on the roller for specific arm exercises.
Then leg work… I anchor the body from the southern end first. Emphasis on hamstring stretches and socket articulation within the movement, which I keep choreographically simple (it takes discipline: as a dancer I always want to add rhythm and sequencing which is too challenging for Jean). Sometimes we do the leg spring Cadillac series with the foam roller under her pelvis, sometimes we use a theraband for single leg hamstring stretches and circles, sometimes I make up that day’s leg exercises. Kneeling hip circles are great, too.
Next, we focus on her spine. Cat/cow (although it really should be cat/horse… how many hyperextended cows have you seen? Swayback horses are more the visual!) The arch/curls with the foam roller under her mid-thoracic and hands supporting head if we didn’t do it already; Michele Larsson’s schlump/chest lift sitting; upper back extension with squishy ball under chest face down, etc.
If we haven’t spoken to arms enough in the warm-up, I have her do simple exercises with her weights, lying on her back. Or “bird dog”, weight bearing in a crawling position taking one leg and the opposite arm off the floor.
Then Teaser prep: sitting, knees to chest with hands supporting under thighs, finding the balance point on sitz bones. Each body has uniquely shaped bones, so finding that sweet spot where the still-point resides is crucial. We did this for months, establishing in muscle memory the end point, so her body could find it because it knew where it was going to end up. Then I added teeny tiny rocking on her sitz bones, to build control in destabilization, in the midst of movement. The smaller the movement, the more and deeper control is needed. Then we added one leg straightening, then both legs.
She is now holding the teaser position for up to 10 counts, easily and consistently!
Goal accomplished!
But wait, there’s more! (as the late-night TV commercials used to say when selling you things you didn’t need). Next challenge: getting her from horizontal up to Teaser. This is more complicated because of her history of an old herniated lumbar disc; her spine flexion disconnects in the lower lumbar area when going from flat to curved. She can do it if she throws herself up with force – but that is neither useful nor safe. We’ve begun doing the Roll-Back from sitting with the squishy ball behind her thoracic, gradually moving the ball further back, so she doesn’t go all the way down but still must negotiate the coming up truly from her core support and not force. We’ve tried adding her legs coming up, with knees bent and grabbing behind her thighs to mitigate the challenge and focus on her center. As I watch where she loses it, I can then identify what is missing and will create an exercise to address it. A work in progress at this point, stay tuned!
PS: We work on Teaser for a section of the hour but then go on to standing exercises and balance challenges. Working on balance with Jean has been really fun, and thus far it has helped prevent her from falling, the biggest fear of all. I have her stand on the foam roller or Disc ‘O’ thing, and engage her in conversation so her nervous system gets used to being unstable (continuously falling and recovering) while not paying attention, and her eyes are not fixated – which is a more useful real-world situation. And yes, she is holding lightly to the back of a chair, letting go for moments.
Ruth Alpert has an extensive background of professional training in New York City in classical ballet, beginning with George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in 1960; modern dance, starting in 1956, including early training at Juilliard and eight
years of Merce Cunningham technique. Ruth graduated from Bard College with a BA in dance in 1973 and has done graduate work at the California Institute of the Arts. She was certified as a practitioner of The Trager ® Approach in 1987, certified in Pilates in 1993, certified in GYROTONIC® Method in 2002, and graduated as an Alexander Technique teacher in 2007.
Ruth has performed with modern and post-modern choreographers. She was an original member of Douglas Dunn & Dancers Company in New York City and while in Austin was a guest with the Deborah Hay Dance Company. Ruth has been Appalachian flatfoot dancing for 42 years. She has taught workshops, danced with Old-Timey string bands, busked (street performed) in various cities in at least 6 states. She currently does foot percussion as a member of The Honeysuckle Possums, a local Santa Barbara all female Americana band.
In 1977, Ruth began to look for a solution to the chronic pain and injury that seemed to be part of a dancer’s life. She began to work with Susan Klein, and studied Release Work (Lulu Sweigard lineage) and the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen of The School for Body-Mind Centering. She was a student of Emilie Conrad’s “Continuum” work for over 8 years. Ruth was trained in pilates by Michele Larsson in 1992, and has been an Associate of Core Dynamics Pilates Teacher Training since 1998.
www.RuthAlpert.com