Speaker 1: Welcome to Moving Conversations, a podcast for movement professionals, by
Speaker 1: movement professionals. If you coach, train, or teach movement, pilates
Speaker 1: or fitness, then this podcast is for you. With more
Speaker 1: than sixty years of experience and fitness and pilates, your host,
Speaker 1: Brian Richie and Norse Saint John explored to science of
Speaker 1: human movement, diving deep into the facts, myths, and common misconceptions,
Speaker 1: hoping to spark thought and conversation about how we view
Speaker 1: fitness and movement. Now let's jump into Moving Conversations and
Speaker 1: welcome back to Moving Conversations. I'm Brian Richiejunim as always
Speaker 1: is Norse Saint John. Morning Nora.
Speaker 2: How you doing very well? Brian? Is a sunny day
Speaker 2: here right after the palstice in California. It's going to
Speaker 2: start to get darker soon but hasn't yet, so it's
Speaker 2: very sunny and beautiful and just fantastic. I understand you
Speaker 2: were just in Chicago and Cleveland, where our guests, our
Speaker 2: mystery guest is from.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are watching on YouTube, you'll
Speaker 1: see that we do have a mystery guest. We'll be
Speaker 1: introducing him in just a second inviting him in the studio.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we decided at the end of school year,
Speaker 1: for a combination of my wife's birthday, Father's Day, end
Speaker 1: of school, we decided to take a road trip. Okay,
Speaker 1: my first road trip. I come from an island. I
Speaker 1: come from a tiny island called o' wahoo. You can
Speaker 1: go around the whole thing in three hours, maybe three
Speaker 1: and a half driving from DC to Chicago, two days
Speaker 1: of six hours of driving and through the hills of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that was I'm not gonna say agony,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was a long time to be
Speaker 1: behind the wheel and around huge semi trailers and things
Speaker 1: that I was like, Okay, yeah, I can see that
Speaker 1: there's a romanticism about it. However, I don't see it.
Speaker 1: And I'm very willing to say that I've crossed that
Speaker 1: off my list. I don't need to do it again.
Speaker 1: I really am. Yeah, but I will say this, maybe
Speaker 1: we can talk about this, and we'll talk about this
Speaker 1: in another episode. I want to tell people about the
Speaker 1: Pokemon exhibit at the Field Museum. I know he was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what is he talking about. They did
Speaker 1: the Fossils of Pokemon and they did them basically the
Speaker 1: same as they would for the dinosaurs and things. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1: It's phenomenal. I'll be sharing some things on Instagram and
Speaker 1: I'll post it up there. It is so neat and
Speaker 1: coming from an anatomy standpoint and looking at the pelvic
Speaker 1: structure in the hip joint and looking at all these things,
Speaker 1: it's phenomenal. It was really kind of neat the way
Speaker 1: that my kids.
Speaker 3: Don't absolutely absolutely well before we bring I let before
Speaker 3: I let Nora take take it away with our introduction,
Speaker 3: do us a favor hit that like and subscribe button.
Speaker 1: I really would appreciate it. It helps us with our algorithms.
Speaker 1: It really helps us bring on more guests. It helps
Speaker 1: us to reach out to more people and to get
Speaker 1: more people interested in what we're doing. We're reaching out.
Speaker 1: We had some one of our podcasts couple weeks go.
Speaker 1: We had more downloads then than we've ever had before.
Speaker 1: So it's phenomenally. Either one of you downloaded every single
Speaker 1: episode we've ever had, or we're reaching out to more people.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping that it's the latter. So do us
Speaker 1: a favor hit that like and subscribe comment why you can.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it, even if it's just a thumbs
Speaker 1: up or a you know, hallelujah, or I don't know
Speaker 1: about that. Whatever it is, we love to hear it.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. You can do it through Instagram
Speaker 1: Moving Combos. We have all of our stuff posted on there.
Speaker 1: You can also check us out on YouTube under my
Speaker 1: name Brian Richie. And if you want to reach us
Speaker 1: by email, you can do it at movingcnbos at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. And now, without further ado, I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn it over to Nora.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of Cleveland, we have a guest here Troy McCarthy.
Speaker 2: So if any of you don't know Troy, Troy's been
Speaker 2: educator for Bounced Body for a long time. He's been
Speaker 2: teaching pilates I think even longer than I have. And
Speaker 2: one of the reason you wanted Tom on is because
Speaker 2: Troy has studied with many of the elders and has
Speaker 2: a a real rich understanding of we're calling it the
Speaker 2: history and the evolution of pilates over many really over
Speaker 2: a long time, and he's got a really nice perspective
Speaker 2: on all of that, and it's again an amazing, amazing educator.
Speaker 2: If any of you haven't ever followed him on Instagram.
Speaker 2: He had just a whole wonderful assortment of little Vignette's
Speaker 2: little teaching tips that were just incredible, especially during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: You just kept all of us going for a long
Speaker 2: period of time there. So anyway, welcome Troy McCarty.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Nora, thank you, Brian. It's so nice to
Speaker 4: join your podcast with you.
Speaker 2: So tell me, tell us a little bit about tell
Speaker 2: us your history. So give us the shorter of the
Speaker 2: long version.
Speaker 5: Sure well, I started plats when I was a ballet
Speaker 5: dance sir.
Speaker 4: I was at school American Ballet. I got injured and
Speaker 4: I thought that was going to be the end of me.
Speaker 5: But the lady goes, now, there's some guy that does
Speaker 5: something with spring on the upper East Side. I don't
Speaker 5: know anything about it. We're gonna send you over there.
Speaker 5: So I grabbed my little dance bag, I had my
Speaker 5: leg warmers on. This is during the period of fame. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I even did PK turns around the fountain at Lincoln
Speaker 5: Center on my way up to the side, and I'm
Speaker 5: knocked on the door, and sure enough it was a
Speaker 5: lot and Bruce King. Now Bruce King was one of
Speaker 5: those original teachers that we don't hear so much about
Speaker 5: because Bruce died pretty early on with the HIV pandemic
Speaker 5: crisis that you know, took many of our great artists
Speaker 5: away from us in New York City. But anyways, I
Speaker 5: got to study from Bruce, and Bruce was really really
Speaker 5: well known for.
Speaker 4: Breaking the exercises down for a beginner. I don't know
Speaker 4: if this is.
Speaker 5: An urban legend or you know, you might get some
Speaker 5: you know, some call back on this, but somebody once
Speaker 5: told me that Actually Clara asked Bruce first if he
Speaker 5: wanted to take over the studio, and h Bruce said,
Speaker 5: I still have a dance career. I'm very active in
Speaker 5: the dance community. I don't have time in my life
Speaker 5: for this. So yeah, he didn't, so it went to Romana.
Speaker 5: I don't know how true that is, because I've only
Speaker 5: heard that from one person. Usually, when you get to
Speaker 5: study from elders, if you hear it from two of them,
Speaker 5: you can pretty much bet that Joe said that. If
Speaker 5: you hear it from one, you're like, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, I've heard the same story from from Eve Gentry. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: And I think it was like Bruce because Bruce is
Speaker 2: close and then Eve, but Eve was in New Mexico
Speaker 2: by that point, so she was like, no, I've you know,
Speaker 2: I've got my own life going on. I mean, from
Speaker 2: all all, from all the elders that I've heard, Romana
Speaker 2: was not the first choice, right that there was other
Speaker 2: people that first.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just so you know, Yeah, so that's good, so
Speaker 5: that it's a source there that you know, that story
Speaker 5: hasn't changed too much, so wonderful.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So Bruce was very good with me.
Speaker 5: He really took my injury, which was lower back and
Speaker 5: hip from lifting a very h a ballerina that was
Speaker 5: not size appropriate for me to lift, and I was
Speaker 5: so amazed that I couldn't get her up in here.
Speaker 5: I looked up at her and then it all went
Speaker 5: south and crash boom. Yeah, I pretty much wrenched my back,
Speaker 5: did some damage to the hip, and he rehabbed me. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: you know, I got to study from Bruce for a
Speaker 5: good two years. Bruce started getting very ill. We're talking
Speaker 5: a period when you know, like didn't have health insurance
Speaker 5: and stuff like that, so it was very sad. So
Speaker 5: he I went over to Romana and studied from Romana
Speaker 5: and it was like a contrast.
Speaker 4: Because Bruce was so much into like breaking.
Speaker 5: Things down and and really getting to the essence of
Speaker 5: that exercise, you know. And I felt like when I
Speaker 5: went to Romana, Romana really knew the spirit of Joe
Speaker 5: Ploates and it was like, you know, you were hearing
Speaker 5: you know, maybe Joe say things through through Romana. So
Speaker 5: it was very interesting. It was a very interesting contrast
Speaker 5: both both teachers. I learned in an immense amount of
Speaker 5: knowledge from.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that strikes me about that
Speaker 2: is again I haven't say with Bruce. I said Romana
Speaker 2: and Eve and Corolla and you know, and a few
Speaker 2: more modern versions too, and that that breaking down piece.
Speaker 2: When I studied with Romana, she was very like, we
Speaker 2: don't break things down. She always just joys said, that's
Speaker 2: for the back room, like all the breakdown stuff that's
Speaker 2: in the back room. We're just going to do pilates.
Speaker 2: Uh and and she really that was that was at
Speaker 2: least that was the impression I got it from her
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 4: This was many years ago.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting because I know Eve did a lot
Speaker 2: of breakdown, a lot of breakdown. Kathy Grant did a
Speaker 2: lot of breakdown, you know, trying to get people up
Speaker 2: to the level of skill to be able to do
Speaker 2: the work appropriately.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think was what was so interesting about Bruce that
Speaker 5: he just really understood the essence of each exercise. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and he was he was able to get into that
Speaker 5: raw material, that knowledge that exercise was going to put
Speaker 5: into your body, and he could break it down to
Speaker 5: a point both in his language skills and his movement
Speaker 5: skills that my body could understand.
Speaker 4: So you know that that really worked for me.
Speaker 2: That's you know, for me that that's the essence of
Speaker 2: the teaching that we all do. Brian as well, Brian
Speaker 2: has both the ploties background and personal training background. But
Speaker 2: you know, the best teachers can figure out where they're
Speaker 2: trying to get to in terms of a movement skill,
Speaker 2: and then how do I build up the pieces to
Speaker 2: that movement skill, right, whether it's mobility or strength or stability,
Speaker 2: like what are they trying to do and then find
Speaker 2: a way to get there. It sounds like Bruce was
Speaker 2: really a master at that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Bruce could could help you go inside your body
Speaker 5: and that was that was a big thing for me.
Speaker 5: What am I feeling inside? You know, I come from
Speaker 5: a movement background. So you know, I know how to
Speaker 5: move my arms, I know how to move my legs
Speaker 5: connected to my core, but I want to understand more
Speaker 5: what should I be feeling inside? And I think that's
Speaker 5: where Bruce really really was stellar and his teaching approach
Speaker 5: really getting me.
Speaker 1: I think you kind of like you, yeah, sorry interrupt.
Speaker 1: I think that is so important from a teaching perspective,
Speaker 1: whether it just comes from dance, pilates, any type of movement,
Speaker 1: you really have to understand the reason for the movement,
Speaker 1: the why, and you really need to understand what's going
Speaker 1: on within the body and the importance of how to
Speaker 1: verbalize it, how to get that person to understand it
Speaker 1: at the same depth that you do, even if they're
Speaker 1: a beginner, so that they may not have the same depth,
Speaker 1: but they still have the essence that they can still
Speaker 1: get you to move the way that you need to.
Speaker 1: I've seen choreographers who you would look at them walk
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, how are they a choreographer? And then
Speaker 1: they start dancing. You're thinking, oh, now I know why,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, they were the most beautiful movers and
Speaker 1: they understand they have an essence in their body they
Speaker 1: have something, and to be able to verbalize that and
Speaker 1: to do it easily and quickly to someone that is
Speaker 1: a skill, and that is a gift.
Speaker 4: I think, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: I think as approaching the method from a dancer, my
Speaker 5: body was hungry for knowledge, yeah, and hungry for a
Speaker 5: movement that was gonna structure and organize me more. So,
Speaker 5: you know, he was able to take that and really
Speaker 5: put it into my body. And therefore, you know, years later,
Speaker 5: I can you know, I teach the little bit like
Speaker 5: Bruce now, so I'm able to do the same thing
Speaker 5: with my own students. So it was a very very
Speaker 5: very incredible, valuable experience that I learned from.
Speaker 2: It having watched you teach a lot, Troy, because I've
Speaker 2: set in on workshops with you, and I think one
Speaker 2: time we had to co teach something because somebody was
Speaker 2: down or something. I would say, the focus that you
Speaker 2: give to each body is what I find remarkable. Like
Speaker 2: your presence, your awareness, your ability to just like take
Speaker 2: in the entire body and what's happening and then to
Speaker 2: give that one correction that makes all the difference was
Speaker 2: what I really have always admired about your teaching. It's
Speaker 2: just it's focused, it's incredibly present, it's incredibly whole bodied
Speaker 2: and very efficient. And it sounds like you learned some
Speaker 2: of that anyway from Bruce King that those are the
Speaker 2: seeds that were planted in you about how to help
Speaker 2: a body figure out what to do and do it better. Right.
Speaker 4: So Bruce really instilled in me that this.
Speaker 5: Is a whole body workout, working from the top of
Speaker 5: the head down to the toes, and your whole body
Speaker 5: is working to achieve this, you know, whatever we're doing,
Speaker 5: if it's short box, long box, whatever. So he was
Speaker 5: able to really help me see that whole body, get
Speaker 5: that whole image, you know, moving into my body. So
Speaker 5: and you know, and coming from a ballet background where
Speaker 5: I was a ballet master for a company for a while,
Speaker 5: you know, be able to able to just give one
Speaker 5: correction to a dancer that's going to make the difference
Speaker 5: in so I was able to take that from my
Speaker 5: dance career and brand into.
Speaker 4: The plates you know, studio. So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: One of the things I've I've thought a lot as
Speaker 2: I have grown up in this world is so many
Speaker 2: of our of our teachers come from a very, very
Speaker 2: very rich movement background. Right, you Gentry, certainly Bruce King,
Speaker 2: Ramondo to some extent. You know, all of them. We're
Speaker 2: intense dancers, many of them for their whole lives, before
Speaker 2: and during their Parti's career. And there's something about just
Speaker 2: watching that many people move and trying to help them
Speaker 2: move better that you know, creates that efficiency. Like for
Speaker 2: you being a ballet master, this is the one thing
Speaker 2: you need to work on, but shift your weight over here,
Speaker 2: right or whatever? It is that one little cue that
Speaker 2: is like, oh now I get it, you know, And
Speaker 2: and I understand the body enough, not in a broken
Speaker 2: down and natty way, but in a whole body. How
Speaker 2: does it integrate way to be able to give that
Speaker 2: one cue is just as remarkable.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think like you know, as a dancer,
Speaker 5: you know, you approach, you know that alignment of the body.
Speaker 4: You're constantly scanning that alignment.
Speaker 5: And you're you know that the reformers is like beautiful grid.
Speaker 4: It's like you know, a canvas and.
Speaker 5: It's got lines and you can just really line everything
Speaker 5: up to see that you know, impurity of that alignment
Speaker 5: and it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like you know, it becomes an eyeshord.
Speaker 5: Me I get fixated on one thing, like I can't
Speaker 5: get off of it.
Speaker 4: But as I get older, I've learned how to control that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: That, you know that that part of me there, So yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: You must have a fun time going through you know,
Speaker 2: like a supermarket or walking down the park, right, because
Speaker 2: I'm like, at this point, I can't I can't not
Speaker 2: see the weirdness that's happening around me. And sometimes it's
Speaker 2: like what is that? You know, and you're trying not
Speaker 2: to look horrified, but you're horrified what is happening over there?
Speaker 4: It's airports for me, but.
Speaker 5: I'm sitting waiting on a flight and I'm purely bored.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be there.
Speaker 5: I start looking at people's movement and I'm like, if
Speaker 5: that person came to me, I charge him double. You know,
Speaker 5: how did that person ever like walk from their car
Speaker 5: to the airport without you know, like majorly injuring themselves
Speaker 5: or somebody else. Yeah, And I start shaking my head
Speaker 5: and my husband's floy stop it.
Speaker 4: That's not so Yeah, Yeah, Joe.
Speaker 2: Judgment is pouring out of you in those moments, right,
Speaker 2: like just it's just happening, Like I can't help myself,
Speaker 2: this is not happening. This is not attractive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what, I think we go through that.
Speaker 1: It's funny.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you know.
Speaker 5: I wonder if our elders went through that with students too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 5: You know, we will see that one video of Joe
Speaker 5: teaching the one guy was pushing on the head. I
Speaker 5: first thing, I don't think he's pushing that hard because
Speaker 5: we have to step back in time of that video
Speaker 5: because the cameras were not that good.
Speaker 4: It's like you have now.
Speaker 5: But I love that video because it shows to me
Speaker 5: that even Joe struggled with some of his students. You know, yes,
Speaker 5: getting that guy to go where Joe wanted him to
Speaker 5: go was a struggle. And I think as teachers, you know,
Speaker 5: we all have those, you know, special clients and students
Speaker 5: that we have a little bit of a struggle with.
Speaker 5: So I mean, I'm not going to push on there.
Speaker 5: I would like to, but I'm not going to raise
Speaker 5: my hand on a client, you or a student.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you something. I'm going to
Speaker 1: tie in with this. In the age of I do
Speaker 1: a number of people through zoom or FaceTime, however you
Speaker 1: want to put it through online and sometimes I find
Speaker 1: finding that one HU can be challenging because some of
Speaker 1: us already have clients who are body dyslexic. They really
Speaker 1: don't know they're right from their left, they're up from
Speaker 1: their downy, they're so they don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And to be able to do it when we're not
Speaker 1: present and we can't put our hands on them, when
Speaker 1: we can't touch them, we can't cueue them physically, we
Speaker 1: have to do it purely through our voice. It can
Speaker 1: be so much more challenging, and it's so important to
Speaker 1: be able to find that one que to make the
Speaker 1: biggest difference, and sometimes knowing when to just back off
Speaker 1: and say, well, we're not doing that one today, or Okay,
Speaker 1: this is about as good as we're going to get.
Speaker 1: It's good enough for today, we'll work on it in
Speaker 1: the future. Have you found that in the age of
Speaker 1: online it's become a little more challenging.
Speaker 5: Yes, And I find that a teaching online has definitely.
Speaker 4: Helped me with my visual skills, really really.
Speaker 5: Happening to like, you know, see the person and like
Speaker 5: making them stop. It's like can you repeat that right there?
Speaker 5: You know during zoom I'm a tactow guy. I love
Speaker 5: to use my hands. You know, these are probably the
Speaker 5: most important tools we have as plottys teachers. But you know,
Speaker 5: during the pandemic, I was like, you know, they're talking
Speaker 5: that we can't touch anybody.
Speaker 4: Help. My whole career is changing in front of my eyes.
Speaker 5: So like, yeah, so I started really kind of developing
Speaker 5: that you know, that visual uh with with the students,
Speaker 5: you know, and I teach that in my courses.
Speaker 4: You know, what are we looking at? What? What exactly
Speaker 4: are you looking at? Are you scanning the body?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 4: Are you too busy worrying about how many springs or whatever?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: So, yes, the visual is very important, and doing online
Speaker 5: is definitely can be a challenging you know atmosphere to
Speaker 5: do it and exactly, yeah, very challenging that way. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I always wonder, like, what what do you think the
Speaker 5: elders would think of us doing plots?
Speaker 6: I'm zoom, Yeah, I mean, so a couple of thoughts
Speaker 6: because I have thought about this actually a fair bit,
Speaker 6: thinking about their different personalities.
Speaker 2: I mean, Joe, I think I would do you think
Speaker 2: he would be happy about the incredible popularity of pilates, right, now,
Speaker 2: I mean, that was kind of his dream, but I'm
Speaker 2: not sure he would picture it being quite such a
Speaker 2: kaleidoscopic variety that I doubt that's what he had in mind,
Speaker 2: you know. And then I also think about all the
Speaker 2: others that I worked with were so precise and detail oriented,
Speaker 2: and by the time I met them, they were all
Speaker 2: in their sixties or seventies or eighties for that matter,
Speaker 2: and so they're all a little bit like, this is
Speaker 2: what to do, Like they did not have They're just
Speaker 2: this is how it is. They're not going to make
Speaker 2: you feel good necessarily, They're just going to tell you
Speaker 2: what it is. So I think many of them would
Speaker 2: be horrified, honestly, because they also most of them taught
Speaker 2: privates or small groups, you know, they really they didn't
Speaker 2: teach classes. They didn't teach twenty reformers in a room
Speaker 2: and everybody doing the same thing. So, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's a different world. It's a much less intimate, much
Speaker 2: less personal world, you know.
Speaker 5: In some of right, Yeah, I think I think you know,
Speaker 5: you're you're You're absolutely right, Nora. I think Joe would
Speaker 5: like that this has really evolved all around the world,
Speaker 5: you know, plats is really popular right now, But I
Speaker 5: don't know if he would be so into everything that we're.
Speaker 4: Seeing that's going on.
Speaker 2: Horrified.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I don't want to be the plots police,
Speaker 5: because we have plenty of those on Instagram and I
Speaker 5: a few times, you know, yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: But you know, I like the variety that I see.
Speaker 5: I love the creativity I see, but some of the
Speaker 5: you know, the other things that I'm seeing, I'm like,
Speaker 5: you know, that's pretty dangerous.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: I hope you're not teaching that to your students or
Speaker 4: your clients, you know.
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, there was a few years ago I was
Speaker 1: teaching in Boston and at a pot and I was
Speaker 1: teaching in the anatomy in three dimensions, and there was
Speaker 1: someone in the class who was very classically trained and
Speaker 1: was almost refusing to wrap their brain around movement in
Speaker 1: any way. That wasn't the original repertoire anything that I
Speaker 1: would bring up about movement. It was well, that's not
Speaker 1: what Joe said, that's not what Joe said. And finally
Speaker 1: I just said, Okay, when did he pass away? When
Speaker 1: did he stop evolving as a human being? If he
Speaker 1: were to live now, with all the new technologies that
Speaker 1: we have. Don't you think he would have taken in
Speaker 1: a lot of that and created things that we may
Speaker 1: never have just because his brain was working at a
Speaker 1: level that obviously for what we he's created on a
Speaker 1: wavelength that no one else had before. So I look
Speaker 1: at it from that standpoint and say, if he was here,
Speaker 1: would he take to things like zoom or whatnot? Would
Speaker 1: he take to all of this and really acclimate and
Speaker 1: even evolved into being so much more? I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I like to think that he had that mind
Speaker 1: that was more wanting to expand rather than you know,
Speaker 1: be so rigid in the end. And I could be
Speaker 1: completely wrong, but that's how I.
Speaker 5: Think you're right on track, because you know, if we
Speaker 5: look at Joe and his inventions, there's a lot of gadgets. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, we got the foot corrector, we got the
Speaker 5: toe separator, we got the pedopol We've.
Speaker 4: Got all these.
Speaker 5: We got the what is that the breathelmeter or yeah.
Speaker 2: The weightings like he waited, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so the shoes, the weighted shoes, yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: So I you know, the man was into gadgets.
Speaker 5: So I think, like, you know, having this technology, I
Speaker 5: think that he would have totally embraced and and really, yeah,
Speaker 5: let's do it, you know, let's go for this. And yeah,
Speaker 5: but but again I think, like, you know, like what
Speaker 5: Nora says, become a kaleidoscope. We're seeing so many different
Speaker 5: different things that like sometimes somewhere off Joe's rolling around
Speaker 5: in his grape going, I never meant it to be
Speaker 5: that way, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. I think I think
Speaker 2: we're all kind of sure that there's a there's moments
Speaker 2: of what the heck. I mean, how many people do
Speaker 2: you know now who say, oh, yeah, I've done pilates
Speaker 2: and you're kind of like and then you you know,
Speaker 2: they come into your studio and they show you what
Speaker 2: they do and it's like, has no bearing whatsoever to
Speaker 2: anything you would recognize as pilates. And you've been exposed
Speaker 2: to a good bit of the world for a really
Speaker 2: long time, you know, it's like, Okay, well that's interesting
Speaker 2: that that's called pilates. But let's just let's just get
Speaker 2: you moving in the right way and we're going to
Speaker 2: go We're going to go over here and do this.
Speaker 2: So you're talking about about Bruce King, which I think
Speaker 2: is great, and then I know Ramana was another stream
Speaker 2: right through a stream for you. What was that? What
Speaker 2: was that about?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: How do things change when you were started working with her?
Speaker 4: What was that?
Speaker 2: That difference in teaching.
Speaker 4: Romana was truly understood the spirit of Joe.
Speaker 2: Do you like explain that?
Speaker 5: I think like like she would give quotes that Joe
Speaker 5: used to say, and she would talk about Uncle Joe,
Speaker 5: you know a lot, and so tell stories about Joe.
Speaker 5: And in some of the moments, you know, I can
Speaker 5: remember her saying, you know, Joe wanted it done this way,
Speaker 5: you know, whereas Bruce, you know, said I learned this
Speaker 5: from Joe. But I you know, I want to break
Speaker 5: this down for you so that you really understand this.
Speaker 5: So I think it was two different types of teachers,
Speaker 5: you know, happening here.
Speaker 4: And you know Romana. You know, at the time that
Speaker 4: I studied.
Speaker 5: From Romana, you know, it was a Drago's it was
Speaker 5: a very is he plays. Platus is now starting to
Speaker 5: get you know, a little bit more known, you know,
Speaker 5: and a lot of people are coming in to Dragos
Speaker 5: to find out about this method, to learn it with
Speaker 5: their own bodies. So Romana, you know, was teaching the
Speaker 5: Dragos and platus Is is now really getting really really popular,
Speaker 5: a lot of people are coming in. So I think
Speaker 5: Romana was very very worried, you know, that there was
Speaker 5: going to be injuries. So it was a different a
Speaker 5: different type of instruction going on, you know, and she
Speaker 5: had her daughter helping out and things like that. So, yes, exactly,
Speaker 5: so it was it was quite different. Bruce was really.
Speaker 4: One on one Romana. You know.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I was in the class, you know, but she was.
Speaker 5: She was really a lovely person. I really learned a
Speaker 5: lot from Romana and I'm you know, I'm very very
Speaker 5: very you know.
Speaker 4: Happy that I got that experience in my life. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: and you'll start teaching what I started. I started teaching
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty five. I opened up my first studio.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, and uh, Romana used to say, I remember
Speaker 5: her saying this, you know, if you become a teacher
Speaker 5: and if you injure somebody, I'll hear about it and
Speaker 5: I'll come and visit you. And I was like always like,
Speaker 5: I can't enter anybody. I don't want Romana coming up
Speaker 5: to my door. I was a little bit, you know,
Speaker 5: I was a little.
Speaker 4: Afraid of Romana at times.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, so you could be tough. So yeah,
Speaker 4: so yeah.
Speaker 2: So what inspired you to start teaching?
Speaker 5: I was like, either going to stay in the dance
Speaker 5: world and become you know, full time ballet masterwork and
Speaker 5: as you know, it's not the most glorious job. Dancers
Speaker 5: will blame their everything on the ballet master.
Speaker 4: I tried to, you know, it was not what I wanted.
Speaker 4: I thought they were all my friends.
Speaker 2: You know, until you had to tell her what to do, right,
Speaker 2: and then yeah.
Speaker 4: The table turned and they were like not nice to me.
Speaker 4: So I was like, yeah, I don't think I want
Speaker 4: to do this. You know, I have all this training
Speaker 4: and plots.
Speaker 5: I was teaching a little bit on this side, so
Speaker 5: I went full blown into plots. Dennis now Hot from
Speaker 5: the Cleveland Ballet gives me a call and says, hey,
Speaker 5: you know, bring bring it down here. You know you
Speaker 5: can do you can teach, you know in the school,
Speaker 5: you know, and things like that, and he goes, bring
Speaker 5: that stuff you do with springs, we don't have it
Speaker 5: in Cliven, Ohio again.
Speaker 4: So that's how I arrived here.
Speaker 5: So I was like, you know, one of those first
Speaker 5: studios in the Midwest nineteen eighty five and.
Speaker 2: You know, seriously in their first studios anywhere.
Speaker 5: Actually yeah, you know you know, uh, Vogue magazine did
Speaker 5: an article about the top ten studios.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I had made that that article, and boom
Speaker 4: if Susan made that article. That next Friday came.
Speaker 5: The lawsuit letter from a person I don't want.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say the person's name. Came the
Speaker 4: lawsuit letter.
Speaker 5: And I was so in sense that I got this
Speaker 5: letter that I wrote on the letter, no effing way,
Speaker 5: And I said that registered.
Speaker 4: Mail to him.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 5: Not my smartest move in my life, because it put
Speaker 5: me on the radar.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd be put in the firing line right exactly.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, he was kind. I used to get it.
Speaker 5: I used to get a letter every Friday morning, registered mail.
Speaker 5: I got seven of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's no fun. No, it was.
Speaker 5: It was time to because you know, you're teaching this
Speaker 5: new method. Everybody's there's a buzz about it. Everybody wants
Speaker 5: to get into it. Madonna's doing it, She's spreading the word.
Speaker 5: You know. I would get phone calls I want to
Speaker 5: do this exercise that Madonna does. I hear you have it,
Speaker 5: you know, and then all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 5: you have this letter saying you know you can't use
Speaker 5: that word. If you use that word, we will take
Speaker 5: you on, you know, in court. And then to use
Speaker 5: that word, you've got to retrain, you've got to pay us,
Speaker 5: and blah blah.
Speaker 4: It was like it was. It was a bad situation.
Speaker 4: It was our dark period of the plates world so well.
Speaker 2: And it had to be because I mean, every every
Speaker 2: studio that I know, with very few exceptions, had had
Speaker 2: no There was no deep pocket there, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're all out there being pioneers in a field that
Speaker 2: nobody knew about, nobody cared about. There was not a
Speaker 2: lot of financial reward, and we're trying to make it happen.
Speaker 2: I mean I was at Saint Francis, so we had
Speaker 2: a little bit of a legal background behind us. But
Speaker 2: most of the students, like yours or Debra Lessons or
Speaker 2: you know the ones in LA you got nothing and
Speaker 2: suddenly somebody's threatening you with a lawsuit which could cost
Speaker 2: you who knows, I'm told amounts of money that you
Speaker 2: don't have, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, litigation is expensive, so you know, and and I
Speaker 7: was very worried about that, and I was trying to
Speaker 7: figure out ways to get around.
Speaker 5: This situation, and I was upset. I was like, yeez,
Speaker 5: you know, this guy's really after me. And and now,
Speaker 5: in hindsight, I'm like whatever. You know, it made me
Speaker 5: more of a teacher because it made me teach stronger,
Speaker 5: because it's just like, listen, if I can't use the
Speaker 5: word plot east and then I'm going to have to
Speaker 5: really develop my teaching more and we're gonna have to
Speaker 5: you know, say tru McCarty or whatever, you.
Speaker 2: Know, right right.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I was just thinking, is how shortsighted
Speaker 1: someone can be to want to get these few studios
Speaker 1: out there there to pay them money instead of let's
Speaker 1: grow this brand, to really establish something so much bigger
Speaker 1: than New York City, so much bigger than just the
Speaker 1: United States. And now, I mean we've all been all
Speaker 1: around the world. It is gigantic. And just think how
Speaker 1: short sighted that was way back then, to oh, I
Speaker 1: want to be paid just so you can use the name.
Speaker 1: That's that seems ridiculous. To me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I found a lot of that.
Speaker 5: It was a little bit on the ego driven side,
Speaker 5: and it was it was hard that, you know, to
Speaker 5: see you know, I can understand why roman I wanted
Speaker 5: to get involved because she was probably tired of working
Speaker 5: on an hourly wage, you know, at the studios, and
Speaker 5: she wanted to try to make some passive income.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 5: You know, passive income is a wonderful thing for all
Speaker 5: of us, you know, but it was just the way
Speaker 5: it was, and then, you know, it was it was
Speaker 5: really hard, and it was a scary time, you know,
Speaker 5: for all of us.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and it was a moment when honestly, the
Speaker 2: method could have died, you know it really there was.
Speaker 2: I mean I remember at the first meeting of the
Speaker 2: whatever it's called Plotti's Institute in Santa Fe, there was
Speaker 2: like one hundred and fifty of us basically. That was
Speaker 2: pretty much it. Most the people that were involved in
Speaker 2: any serious way in the industry. That was it. So,
Speaker 2: you know, and that was right before the lawsuit, and
Speaker 2: the lawsuit could have could have killed it. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: could have. It could have been like that was the
Speaker 2: end of that and smash, the whole thing was gone
Speaker 2: because based on the future from there, Ramana and the
Speaker 2: classical people were not capable of really bringing it out
Speaker 2: in a way that would make it what it is today.
Speaker 2: You know, the classical world was so insular and so
Speaker 2: specific and so kind of whatever they want that that
Speaker 2: I think if it had been everybody else had left
Speaker 2: and they were the only ones left in the promoting
Speaker 2: the method, I don't know where it would have gone.
Speaker 2: I don't think it would have been able to grow
Speaker 2: like it did.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the thought exactly right now, and that God,
Speaker 5: you know things turned the way it did, and that
Speaker 5: you know, we can all teach this wonderful method that
Speaker 5: this man left for us to teach, you know, and daily,
Speaker 5: like every time I'm teaching, you know, I think I
Speaker 5: learned something more about it, you know, a deep you know,
Speaker 5: deep dive in the jackknife or deep dive into you know, you.
Speaker 4: Know, short box.
Speaker 5: And it's like, oh yeah, why didn't I think of
Speaker 5: that twenty years ago? And I think as teachers we
Speaker 5: mature a lot. I definitely have a different style than
Speaker 5: when I first started, you know, and I'm very selective about,
Speaker 5: you know, my cues that I give somebody.
Speaker 4: When when I first started, it was thousand Q sessions. Man,
Speaker 4: I was throwing those babies out there the scene. What
Speaker 4: would stick?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 8: And I can't remember this one lady goes Troy.
Speaker 5: I loved your class. All thirty thousand ques really worked
Speaker 5: for me. She's like the exhausted. I'm hoarse because I've
Speaker 5: done nothing like you know, so, you know, nerves and
Speaker 5: anxiety of you know, like you know, when we're one
Speaker 5: more young to how are you Norah?
Speaker 4: When you first started.
Speaker 2: Teaching, you know, I was just thinking about that. It's
Speaker 2: a shotgun approach because you don't really know what's gonna work.
Speaker 2: You just keep throwing stuff out there, hoping, like like
Speaker 2: throwing spaghettian in the wall, what's gonna stick? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because I remember I studied a lot
Speaker 2: early on with Alan Herdman. He was a real influence
Speaker 2: at Saint Francis and and then I went into this
Speaker 2: whole you know, very kind of scientific phase and.
Speaker 8: Anatimi and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And then I came back to take a class with
Speaker 2: with Alan at a at a p m A and man,
Speaker 2: the efficiency, the clarity. He didn't say a lot, but
Speaker 2: everything he said landed tall and said everything it needed
Speaker 2: to say. And it was like and and and that's
Speaker 2: kind of that's that was actually my I didn't realize
Speaker 2: that he was my model when I first was teaching,
Speaker 2: you know, worching out, we're learning under him. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize how much of that had absorbed until I saw
Speaker 2: that and went, oh, that's what I've been aspiring to
Speaker 2: all this time. Yeah, you know, and with the like
Speaker 2: of all the fanciness and just say the.
Speaker 5: Thing and with the British accident, it just sounds so
Speaker 5: much more, so much better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so much more meaningful.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just like, you know, like I'm turned on
Speaker 5: Masterpiece Theater and I'm gonna really really watch this to
Speaker 5: understand this. How do you feel how do you feel
Speaker 5: your your teaching is evolved through the years.
Speaker 1: I was one, so yeah, so yeah, this is interesting
Speaker 1: because my my way is more just pure movement. So
Speaker 1: I do it through whatever tool is in front of me.
Speaker 1: So I'm not traditionally pilates based. I do a lot
Speaker 1: more fitness, but I bring in pieces from everywhere because
Speaker 1: to me, it's whatever tool is going to work for
Speaker 1: the client in front of me for what I need
Speaker 1: to get them to do. And my queueing has become
Speaker 1: very specific and very focused over the years. I think
Speaker 1: at the beginning, like you said, I think I was
Speaker 1: much more tactile at the beginning that I would just
Speaker 1: put people in the right position, that it'd be like,
Speaker 1: just do this and just sort of move them because
Speaker 1: if you can feel it, you can do it sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And as I've gotten a little older, I
Speaker 1: think I've understood, Okay, you need to make sure that
Speaker 1: the verbalization is there, the tactile Q is there. Everything
Speaker 1: is there to get the client to do whatever they need.
Speaker 1: Because we all learn differently, So whichever client is in
Speaker 1: front of me, I want to make sure, Okay, are
Speaker 1: they kinesthetic, are they auditory? However they're learning, do they
Speaker 1: have to watch me first? Whatever it is, I can
Speaker 1: you know, Q in on that person and say, okay,
Speaker 1: they need this. I had a client today who needed
Speaker 1: to see me do an exercise I could I realized
Speaker 1: at that moment, okay, she's so visual, so I immediately
Speaker 1: jumped down showed.
Speaker 4: It to her.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, she did it perfectly, but I was trying
Speaker 1: to get her to do it auditorially and it was not.
Speaker 1: It was not working. So it's like, oh okay, boom here,
Speaker 1: look you got it, and she was able to do it.
Speaker 1: So I think I've learned more about that as I've
Speaker 1: gotten older and my evolution. I haven't been in the
Speaker 1: industry quite as long as you have, but not that
Speaker 1: far off. I think Nora and I started around the
Speaker 1: same time, in the very early nineties. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think the older I get, the more, like you said,
Speaker 1: we're focusing on different things. We're learning every day. We're
Speaker 1: always re relearning things and thinking why didn't I learn
Speaker 1: that before? Why didn't I think of that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been doing the.
Speaker 1: Same thing though for how long? And I didn't think
Speaker 1: of it like that.
Speaker 5: So I think as we mature with our teaching, we
Speaker 5: begin to look at the body in front of us,
Speaker 5: and we're starting to think more about their nervous system,
Speaker 5: their emotions, absolutely, what background do they come from, what's
Speaker 5: going on in life that might be affecting this. Okay,
Speaker 5: at the age when I started, I didn't.
Speaker 4: Think of any of those things. It was like, how
Speaker 4: much fads? What's the movement?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: You got to sit down on that reformer, right, you know,
Speaker 5: it was like, you know, there was nothing.
Speaker 4: It was just like you pump your arms and your breathe.
Speaker 4: What's so hard about this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: And then yeah, and then you know, as I started
Speaker 5: maturing and getting older and more secure with my own teaching,
Speaker 5: it's like, you know, there's a whole nervous system.
Speaker 4: Thing going on with this methodad.
Speaker 5: You know, there's some emotional content going on, and you know,
Speaker 5: and that's why, like, you know, like working as an educator,
Speaker 5: I tell these young teachers, you know, you really got
Speaker 5: to discover the body that's in front of you.
Speaker 4: You've got to.
Speaker 5: You've got to really look and look past the movement,
Speaker 5: look inside that body, look inside that mind, and it's
Speaker 5: going to give you a lot of answers.
Speaker 4: So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things I uh thinking about that evolution.
Speaker 2: There's there's certainly seeing the person, the whole person behind
Speaker 2: the movement and recognizing, you know, learning to adjust your
Speaker 2: teaching style as Brian was talking about, to that body
Speaker 2: in front of you, just so that they can hear you,
Speaker 2: because you know, you say the same thing to three
Speaker 2: different people and one hears you and the other two
Speaker 2: are like, what are you talking about? So there's that piece,
Speaker 2: But there's also in terms of I've spent so much
Speaker 2: I've spent so much time doing rehab, so mostly I've
Speaker 2: been problem solving, like for most of my career and
Speaker 2: then teaching teachers, but problem solving has really been part
Speaker 2: of it, and so much of that. I want to
Speaker 2: tie this back to what you said earlier, which is
Speaker 2: how exercises just keep opening up, right, Like you think
Speaker 2: you got this, you've done it, You've taught this twenty
Speaker 2: seven thousand times, and then one day you're teaching it
Speaker 2: and going, ah, there's a whole other piece of this.
Speaker 2: Like this is gonna sound This may sound stupid to
Speaker 2: many of you, but I remember with short spine. Okay,
Speaker 2: short spine is a basic plates exercise, right, And for
Speaker 2: the longest time I was really focused on the front
Speaker 2: of the body. Yeah, right, this should all be done
Speaker 2: from the front of the body because Plates a sort
Speaker 2: of focused that way in a lot of ways. And
Speaker 2: I was like, oh no, this is a back body exercise.
Speaker 2: Like if you can't lift up yourself up from the
Speaker 2: back and get that length of the whole back body,
Speaker 2: you can't actually hold that position up at the top
Speaker 2: and then you'll go through the whole thing. And that
Speaker 2: was a moment many years ago, but that was a
Speaker 2: moment of like, oh, all the things I wasn't getting
Speaker 2: or hadn't gotten yet, you know, until i'd really explored
Speaker 2: it and taught it a whole bunch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think some of it too, with what
Speaker 4: we're seeing now, is that a lot of.
Speaker 5: These new teachers really do not know the so these exercises.
Speaker 5: They're young, they don't know what they're after yet. And
Speaker 5: I think it's educators, it's it's up to us so
Speaker 5: we preserve this method because you know, lately, I've.
Speaker 4: Been feeling for count losing control.
Speaker 5: Here method, and I think it's up to us as
Speaker 5: educators to really drive you know that that into their
Speaker 5: heads and into their bodies. So this carries on and
Speaker 5: we can keep you know, some resemblance to you know,
Speaker 5: the original method. And I think, you know, Joe really
Speaker 5: wanted us all to experience.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago. I just wanted to touch
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, a few weeks ago we talked, uh,
Speaker 1: Nora and I talked about influences versus educators, and I
Speaker 1: kind of want to get your opinion on this because
Speaker 1: as we've gotten further along in the evolution of pilates
Speaker 1: and the evolution of movement and fitness and everything else,
Speaker 1: that this sort of comes into what I'm finding is
Speaker 1: the younger trainers, the younger pilates instructors, the younger movement
Speaker 1: professionals are trying to do too much too soon. They're
Speaker 1: trying to be the top of the food you know,
Speaker 1: the top of the food chain within their first year
Speaker 1: before they know anything. Because they see other young people
Speaker 1: that look like them and sound like them on all
Speaker 1: the social media things, they automatically assume that they should
Speaker 1: be the same way and that they should have all
Speaker 1: of this information. Whereas the three of us together have
Speaker 1: nearly one hundred years of movement background. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of experience that we've got under our belts. So we
Speaker 1: can say things that we know to be true because
Speaker 1: we've seen it, done it, been there, you know, got
Speaker 1: the T shirt, you know, years ago. And so I
Speaker 1: wanted to get your opinion on that on when you're
Speaker 1: training those younger educators or these younger plates instructors, how
Speaker 1: to keep them I hate to use a phrase, but
Speaker 1: how to humble them without humbling them, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? How to let them know that they still
Speaker 1: have a lot to learn and that this is a
Speaker 1: progression and an evolution within themselves. Not just within the industry.
Speaker 5: I when I teach, I try to create dialogue. So
Speaker 5: it's just not me giving them, you know, lecture lecture,
Speaker 5: lecture lecture. I try to create communication with them and
Speaker 5: I try to get up in their heads with them.
Speaker 5: And you know, these are young people that they're so
Speaker 5: used to instant gratification because they you know, if they
Speaker 5: don't get to go to the next one, oh, that stiffies.
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5: So I kind of like, you know, bring that into
Speaker 5: play and say, like, you know, you're not scrolling, You're
Speaker 5: working with movement. You're working with a person or a
Speaker 5: human body, a human being, and it can't come overnight.
Speaker 5: Teaching is going to evolve as you're going to see
Speaker 5: this body involved in front of you, and what works
Speaker 5: now may may not work in a couple of years
Speaker 5: because that body will change a little bit as you
Speaker 5: are going to change because you have now more experience.
Speaker 4: They all want to, like, you know, become these big.
Speaker 5: Name teachers and travel the world. Well, it took me
Speaker 5: years to get my you know name. I don't know
Speaker 5: if I'm a big name out there, but it took
Speaker 5: me years to get where I'm at and to get
Speaker 5: invited to teach at these places, and I just feel
Speaker 5: like with our younger generation, they want right now, and
Speaker 5: that's you know, that's the the you know, the mindset
Speaker 5: they're in, you know.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot comes from our social media.
Speaker 5: I mean, like like your your your last you know episode,
Speaker 5: you talk about influencer.
Speaker 4: Do they really do plotis? I don't know.
Speaker 5: Maybe they really not how to work Instagram and they
Speaker 5: really know how to believe algorithm to benefit them and
Speaker 5: that I'll give to them.
Speaker 4: And I've learned a lot from watching those people.
Speaker 5: And I've had some you know, consultations where I've like,
Speaker 5: you know, hired somebody, all right, tell me how to.
Speaker 4: Do this, you know, because you know, Instagram is a.
Speaker 5: Very powerful application for PLOTUS teachers. We put ourselves out there,
Speaker 5: you know, and I get a lot of imitations from
Speaker 5: you know, across the globe to come and guests each
Speaker 5: because they saw me Instagram.
Speaker 4: So you know, I play that out.
Speaker 5: But we're finding too that people is like, why do
Speaker 5: I want to pay you all this money to get
Speaker 5: trained when I can go on Instagram and oh look
Speaker 5: somebody's doing the hundreds.
Speaker 4: I'll just mimic that, you know, I was.
Speaker 1: I was literally just talking to an educator and a
Speaker 1: couple of hours ago about this very thing that she
Speaker 1: went to a PLATES conference and one of the people
Speaker 1: who was teaching was one of these influencers out of
Speaker 1: I think Los Angeles or something, and spent the entire
Speaker 1: session teaching things like how to put on the springs
Speaker 1: properly and how to adjust the spring tension. It wasn't
Speaker 1: teaching anything beyond the most basic information. And this educator said,
Speaker 1: I don't really think that they knew very much about PLATES,
Speaker 1: but they had a huge following and that's all that mattered,
Speaker 1: and that's all that got them invited to teach in
Speaker 1: the first place. And I think we're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of that where these people don't have very much to say.
Speaker 1: They don't have a voice, but they're really good in
Speaker 1: thirty second clips. But put them in a hour of course,
Speaker 1: that's a little different. What do they have to say.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they don't have the attention span first of all,
Speaker 5: is what I'm firing now, And it's very hard, you know,
Speaker 5: like I'm trying to.
Speaker 4: Hit those sixteen hours in some of these courses, and
Speaker 4: I'm telling you about.
Speaker 5: That fourteenth me included I'm like, okay, guys, you know,
Speaker 5: let's repeat this exercise.
Speaker 4: One more time.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: So the attention span, you know, social media has roomed
Speaker 5: that for us, you know, because we just instantly can
Speaker 5: change our attention to something new and fleshy and shiny.
Speaker 5: So yeah, exactly. And teaching, you know, around the world,
Speaker 5: like you know, I get to do, which is you know,
Speaker 5: quite an honor. You know, it's a problem we're seeing
Speaker 5: all over the place, everywhere, everywhere. I was just every
Speaker 5: Mexico city teaching a couple of weeks ago, and there
Speaker 5: were some influencers.
Speaker 4: Now I will give them this. They could move and
Speaker 4: they understood it, but they were so incredible with their phones,
Speaker 4: you know, and you know, getting it right on Instagram
Speaker 4: and boomed. It was like I was amazed with it.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, teach me. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 4: very very interesting.
Speaker 5: Do you I kind of feel like, you know, do
Speaker 5: you think Instagram is going to be the the downfall
Speaker 5: plates or do you think it's gonna be.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, take this for what it is,
Speaker 2: but I feel like Pilates has an incredible amount of value.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the best, most complete foundational
Speaker 2: movement systems on the planet. And I think I think
Speaker 2: if you really, if you do pilates for a period
Speaker 2: of time, your body will be in better shape, Like
Speaker 2: you'll be able to do more things with more resilience
Speaker 2: and less injuries than if you didn't do pilates. Like
Speaker 2: that's just been my experience for you know, thirty plus years.
Speaker 2: So I think I think that will stay. And I think,
Speaker 2: like with any of these bubbles, because this is a bubble, right,
Speaker 2: everybody's jumping on the bandwagon. And I mean I think
Speaker 2: you know too, from teaching educators or teaching teachers like
Speaker 2: I've taught for years, there's there's about I call it
Speaker 2: the five percent. There's about five percent of any class
Speaker 2: of any group of teachers that I ever work with
Speaker 2: that are going to take this on as a profession.
Speaker 2: They're gonna to be serious about it. They're going to
Speaker 2: do the work, they're going to learn the stuff, and
Speaker 2: they're going to move forward, and they'll be doing this
Speaker 2: for twenty years, roughly ninety five percent. And I could
Speaker 2: be I don't think I'm actually too generous with that.
Speaker 2: Are are like, oh, this is cool, I'm going to
Speaker 2: do this for a little while, they pop in, they
Speaker 2: teach for a couple of years at club, pilates or
Speaker 2: wherever else, or at a studio it's too hard, it
Speaker 2: doesn't make enough money. Then they you know, they go
Speaker 2: off and get married or have a kid, and they
Speaker 2: move on to the next phase of their life. I
Speaker 2: think a good chunk of the bubble right now is
Speaker 2: going to end up being part timers, hobbyists. You know,
Speaker 2: they'll they'll get whatever they get out of it, which
Speaker 2: may be great, and then then move into whatever the
Speaker 2: next thing is. That's always been true. I mean when
Speaker 2: when I look at the numbers from Bounce Body and
Speaker 2: how many students start with Mount one and Reformer one
Speaker 2: and then go on to be comprehensive, Like, there's always
Speaker 2: a small percentage that goes on. I mean it may
Speaker 2: be twenty five thirty percent, but there's a big chunk
Speaker 2: that go, oh, this is great, I want to be
Speaker 2: a PLOTA teacher. And then they try it for a
Speaker 2: while and go this is too hard. Yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 2: it kind out yeah what it actually is.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I think they don't get that fame. I
Speaker 1: think that's the other thing is I think they're looking
Speaker 1: for that gratification that comes not only from you know,
Speaker 1: being famous in all of this, but having that Instagram fame,
Speaker 1: of being recognized and all of this without realizing that
Speaker 1: Pilate's movement fitness is a very small bubble in this world.
Speaker 2: It's very nobody really cares. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think any of us have walked through
Speaker 1: an airport and have had people screaming our names and
Speaker 1: chasing us for autographs. I don't think that's happened. So
Speaker 1: I think that in general, if that's what they're looking
Speaker 1: for and they're looking for Pilates to do that for them,
Speaker 1: I think they're sadly mistaken. And I think that there
Speaker 1: will be a few that can make their name, you know,
Speaker 1: by being but it's more being an Instagram star or
Speaker 1: being a social media star than it is being a
Speaker 1: Pilates teaching star. And I think that's the difference.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, They're looking for fame, that's yeah, looking for fame.
Speaker 2: And this is a funny. Is a friend of the
Speaker 2: world to be famous in I mean, try you. You
Speaker 2: are probably the two more of the better known people
Speaker 2: in this world at the moment, just because we've been
Speaker 2: around a lot in a long time and a lot
Speaker 2: of places. But it's still like this is not this
Speaker 2: is whatever whatever they're hoping for.
Speaker 4: This isn't it Just I think it's glamorous. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm taking off the Florence and I know with I
Speaker 4: love her Joel. I was just on the before. And
Speaker 4: what they don't understand is like, you know, first thing,
Speaker 4: we fly all night.
Speaker 5: Exactly l exhausted, and we put that plotter's hat on
Speaker 5: and we stand up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's just like you know, and you know,
Speaker 4: because my clients kind of feel like I take a
Speaker 4: lot of vacasions because I and I'm like, no, this
Speaker 4: is it's not a vacation.
Speaker 5: I'm traveling to another studio and it's just centry right,
Speaker 5: different students that don't speak our language. And I've got
Speaker 5: a translator now to deal with. And we all know
Speaker 5: when we teach, you know, internationally, a translator can make
Speaker 5: our break. You you know, I have translator nightmare anxiety before,
Speaker 5: as you should.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had one in Russia. Was is not we
Speaker 4: were not.
Speaker 5: We were like that the whole time, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 5: and so it's not as glamorous as what they think.
Speaker 5: But then on the other hand, you know, we get
Speaker 5: to make friends all over the world, you know, which
Speaker 5: is you know, the beauty of you know, of our work.
Speaker 4: We we get to travel and we get to make.
Speaker 5: New connections, and you know, see what I didn't feel that,
Speaker 5: you know, that pulse of the community globally, and I
Speaker 5: think that's like an incredible thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I wanted to roll back just a little bit because
Speaker 2: one of the things that you asked, and I just
Speaker 2: wanted to bring this up. You know, when I see
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff on Instagram, you know, some of
Speaker 2: it is again some of it is fantastic, some of
Speaker 2: it is really nice, I think, additions to the repertoire,
Speaker 2: because the Repipoi does have, in my opinions, some limitations
Speaker 2: in terms of functional movement skills and things like that.
Speaker 2: But the other thing, too is most of my clients,
Speaker 2: and I think most of the clients that I've ever
Speaker 2: met in any ploty studio don't need that yet. They
Speaker 2: need to like get their footwork going and maybe some
Speaker 2: feed and straps and maybe some core work and maybe
Speaker 2: some armwork because they're not there yet. You know, Like
Speaker 2: I look at these things, I think that's great, you know,
Speaker 2: that's fantastic that they can do. That looks beautiful whatever,
Speaker 2: But I'm thinking the clients that I know need to
Speaker 2: basically get their hips and their knees and their ankles
Speaker 2: working together. And if they can do that, that will
Speaker 2: make a difference in their lives. It's not glamorous like
Speaker 2: that is not glamorous. Full work is not like that
Speaker 2: exciting to watch. That makes such a huge difference in
Speaker 2: really changing people's lives. And that's always the thing too.
Speaker 2: And I say this a lot to teachers because young
Speaker 2: teachers always think they need more. I need more exercises,
Speaker 2: I need more things, I need more stuff. I was like, no,
Speaker 2: actually you don't. You just need to teach the exercises
Speaker 2: you have better, right, I see that all the time.
Speaker 2: You just need to really dive in there, really get
Speaker 2: that person precise. And I can make anybody have a
Speaker 2: hard workout, doing a most basic workout by making them
Speaker 2: do it right right. It's not about what they're doing,
Speaker 2: it's like if they're really doing it right and concentrating,
Speaker 2: I can make anybody sweat. I can make anybody feel
Speaker 2: like they've just killed themselves and they're not doing anything fancy.
Speaker 2: They're just doing it well.
Speaker 5: You know, well, I think we're seeing so much of
Speaker 5: you know, these other studios where the music gets pumping
Speaker 5: and there's lights now that yeah, I know, and like
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's a super high buzz they get
Speaker 5: from the class. Yes, and then they come to people
Speaker 5: like us and we go, okay, shut up and lay
Speaker 5: down exactly.
Speaker 4: Attention, Yeah, like you have to pay attention. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4: my other that's my other beat, the attention. It skills
Speaker 4: and both students and clients.
Speaker 5: You know, as I get older, my my my filters
Speaker 5: are starting to diminish, and I have to really let
Speaker 5: some people have about.
Speaker 2: Not you know, put your phone down, listen to what.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you, you know, and you know, don't ask
Speaker 5: me stupid questions like how many springs After I've said
Speaker 5: three times, how many springs disposed?
Speaker 4: Exactly, that's where your head is right now, you know.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I try to, like I really try to
Speaker 5: instill that into you know, the teacher training, to really
Speaker 5: really get them excited about what they're going to teach
Speaker 5: and how to get better at teaching.
Speaker 4: It's like movement literacy. You're going to be a very
Speaker 4: very you know, movement specialists and and you know, and
Speaker 4: it's hard. It's been hard.
Speaker 5: I've seen, you know, I've seen what I thought they
Speaker 5: were going to stick with it, and they drop out
Speaker 5: because they lose their yeah, their gusto and getting the
Speaker 5: whole you know, comprehensive certification under their belt.
Speaker 4: So and I don't know if that's going to get
Speaker 4: better or it's going to get worse.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to get worse because again it's
Speaker 2: just this is hard work. I mean, you know, not
Speaker 2: to put to find a point on it, but if
Speaker 2: you're really want to comprehensively trained, it's just it's a
Speaker 2: lot of work. It's a lot of time, it's a
Speaker 2: lot of attention, it's a lot of practice sessions with clients.
Speaker 2: And if you're not interested or this kind of work
Speaker 2: isn't interesting to you and doesn't feed you in some way,
Speaker 2: why would you go through that much trouble? I mean,
Speaker 2: go and become you know, a finance guy or a
Speaker 2: wealth manager or something else. It's probably less work in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, and certainly more reward. So I
Speaker 2: think I think what I do, I do think and optimistically,
Speaker 2: I think we're going to be left with those that
Speaker 2: are really interested. Those are the ones that are going
Speaker 2: to continue on and keep this going because there's there's
Speaker 2: enough of them, you know, you know many of them.
Speaker 2: I know many of them that are just like they're
Speaker 2: committed and they will keep carrying this, this pilateus world
Speaker 2: forward on their shoulders for you know, until they move
Speaker 2: it on to the next person and those people coming
Speaker 2: up exactly.
Speaker 4: Anyway, that's my home. I hope so too. You know,
Speaker 4: it's it's been.
Speaker 5: It's definitely a challenge, but it's a challenge that I'm
Speaker 5: really you know, I'm willing to take on to really
Speaker 5: help preserve you know, that we have something to teach
Speaker 5: and that it hasn't changed too much. And you know
Speaker 5: that's the other thing, like, you know, like I try
Speaker 5: to stick, you know, with my classical roots a lot,
Speaker 5: but there's just you know, sometimes that body in front
Speaker 5: of me is just not able to take some of that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So you know, I really try to, you know, you know.
Speaker 4: Honor it.
Speaker 5: But you know, I make small changes and you know,
Speaker 5: you know who helped me the most with that was
Speaker 5: Julian Lulford.
Speaker 4: Juliane and I were good buddies.
Speaker 5: I went out to you know, San Diego a lot
Speaker 5: to his studio and he can't leave that a lot.
Speaker 4: We were good friends and Juliane was amazing doing that.
Speaker 4: He really has incredible sense of that person, the movement
Speaker 4: that he wanted. Yeah, so I have a Julian story
Speaker 4: I have to tell. Yes, Julie and I stayed up
Speaker 4: drinking way too much wine one night.
Speaker 5: You know, he's British, so he didn't. Yeah, he was like,
Speaker 5: I'm British, I can drink. So we're drinking lots of wine.
Speaker 5: We get to the studio at seven o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 5: Juliane puts me on the reformer and he goes, okay, mate,
Speaker 5: let's do climatory.
Speaker 8: No warm up, no nothing, me up back. So God,
Speaker 8: I climb that tree. I walked down my I climb
Speaker 8: back down my tree.
Speaker 4: I go into the well, hang out for a moment.
Speaker 4: I bring my head up. I climbed. I threw up that.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, that's what I would have done.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like I'm holding my leg.
Speaker 4: I went.
Speaker 8: And he looked at me with these white eyes and
Speaker 8: he goes, mate, I.
Speaker 4: Can't believe it. You just vomited in my studio. He
Speaker 4: was he was so much fun.
Speaker 2: He was so much fun on this inside the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, how could you know? Did you?
Speaker 4: Did you get to know Julian? Never did, never met him.
Speaker 4: He was He was great, great, great, great teacher.
Speaker 5: And Julian I really like, you know, kind of felt,
Speaker 5: kind of took me out of being, you know, the
Speaker 5: classical world and brought me a little bit more into
Speaker 5: a contemporary world. And the things that taught me were
Speaker 5: so valid and so absolutely And he had that Martha
Speaker 5: Graham technique in his body. He understood that, and he
Speaker 5: was able to take that technique and put it into
Speaker 5: you know, the method. I think that's why Ron Fletcher
Speaker 5: loved him so much, because you know, Ron also Martha Graham,
Speaker 5: and you know certainly knew because Julian was the star
Speaker 5: of the Martha Graham you know, Dan's company. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, Juliane was rehearsing Britson of Cough when Martha
Speaker 5: Graham you know, wanted you know, Brichion and Cough to do.
Speaker 4: I think it was I forget what ballet it was,
Speaker 4: but one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, all right, all.
Speaker 2: Right, thank you so much for a for a wonderfully
Speaker 2: wide ranging conversation. Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 1: This was awesome. Thank you so much for joining us,
Speaker 1: and have you guys honor awesome, awesome, Thank you guys
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Speaker 1: Hey guys,