Were you told Pilates would be a great thing for you to do, but you have no idea what it is and if you’ll be any good at it? There are a few things I always hear from people about WHY they aren’t trying Pilates, and it all comes down to fear.
Did that make you a little uncomfortable? Make you a little annoyed at me? Did you just give me an eye roll? Keep reading, you might just agree with me later!
Truth be told, I’m glad I started Pilates before I even knew what it was. I didn’t have a chance to worry about any of it, talk myself out of it, or freak myself out about trying it.
If you’re like most other people I’ve heard from, you might relate to the following excuses you’re telling yourself about why you’re not doing Pilates:
I Don’t Think I’ll Be Good Enough To Do Pilates
Friend, people don’t start Pilates doing it WELL. 99% of people are terrible at it when they start (me included! My legs shook, I was uncoordinated, and I struggled to keep up).
YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TERRIBLE AT IT WHEN YOU START. Doesn’t that feel freeing?
Great news, you’ll only get better the more you practice! Kinda like everything else in life…
I’m not sure when we started telling ourselves we can’t do something if we can’t do it perfectly, but it’s something we’ve gotta stop.
Seriously. There is ONE person, in the 20+ years I’ve been teaching, that was AMAZING at Pilates when she first started. So much so, when I commented that she must have done it before and she said she hadn’t, I honestly THOUGHT SHE WAS LYING.
So, cut yourself some slack here, please. I’m expecting you not to be very good when we start working together, and I’ll definitely help you with that!
I’m Not Flexible Enough to Do Pilates
Neither was I. Pilates helps with that! That’s the beauty of Pilates. You start where you are and just get better from there.
Learning how to do Pilates well means you’ll progress from inflexibility, instability, and insecurity, to confidence, flexibility, and stability. You get to not only SEE your transformation, but FEEL it as well, in how you look, how you move, and how you feel.
During my first pregnancy, I was on bedrest in the hospital for 6 weeks before my son was born. I discovered that in 6 weeks, you lose a LOT of flexibility and muscle tone. I had to use a wheelchair as a walker to go see him in the NICU for the first couple of days! By 6 weeks post c-section, I decided it was time to see where I was at, flexibility-wise, and it was humbling to find out that I couldn’t touch my toes.
Like, could barely-reach-past-my-knees couldn’t touch my toes.
I had him in May, found out I couldn’t touch my toes in July, and could finally bend over without shaking by September. My hands found the floor again by October. If I hadn’t been doing Pilates, I probably STILL wouldn’t be able to touch my toes!
So, don’t worry about not being flexible. You’re just not flexible YET.
I’m Too Old to do Pilates
Are you kidding me?? Joseph Pilates was 87 and he was still doing Pilates!
I’ve had clients of ALL ages. I’d do Pilates with my kids when they were under 5. One of my keenest students started at 13. Most people who start with me are between 40 and 55, and many are still with me into their 60’s (so far). One of the most graceful women I’ve ever taught was 78.
So, if you’re 52 and thinking you’re too old to start, stop kidding yourself. You’ll never be as young as you are today, and there’s no better time to get started…unless you’d like to just keep getting weaker and more inflexible…
I’ll Be Too Sore If I Do Pilates
First, it’s a GOOD sore. It’s not an “I can’t move for a week” sore. It’s an “Oh, I have a muscle that was working there!” kind of sore, and it’s more encouraging than devastating.
You’re supposed to tax your muscles to make them stronger.
You’ll find muscles that didn’t know they COULD work, that will help make all those muscles that work TOO hard, work less (neck and tops of your shoulders, anyone??).
I promise, you’ll be able to move tomorrow.
You’ll also start to be disappointed if there’s a day after that you DON’T have a muscle that says hello!
Pilates Is Too Easy (“It’s Just Stretching”)
You’re doing it wrong.
Seriously! If you’ve done a class before and just breezed through it, thinking that it was a relaxing day at the spa, you weren’t doing actual Pilates!
You DO get stretching, along with strengthening, but you’re working your butt off. Deep connections mean precision and control, and that makes EVERYTHING work more than you knew it could.
So if this is you, and you did Piloga, or your “instructor” took a weekend course, you did not get an actual taste of real Pilates (because it can totally kick your a$$).
And if this is you, thinking Pilates is so easy and it's just stretching, I think YOU'RE thinking of a version of Yoga thats purpose is to relax you. This is not that.
I Don’t Even Know What Pilates Is
Neither did I when I tried it! I went in blind, just because I couldn’t make it on time to the belly dancing class I wanted to take.
There’s been so much talk surrounding Pilates, but you really don’t know what it IS, until you DO it. Then you ‘get it’. You get that Pilates feeling, you feel that strength and connection, and you wonder how you ever functioned without it!
To describe it to people, I normally say it’s like Yoga meets Strength training, but that really doesn’t do it justice. It’s its own unique blend of awesomeness, and you don’t need to know what it is to give it a try!
You won’t REALLY know until you do.
I Don’t Have Any Abs
For one thing, you don’t need to SEE your abs to be able to USE them. For another, you don’t have to know how to use them before you start (that’s something else I teach you!).
It’s another part of you you’ll appreciate more and more with each session.
We work on connection, on strength, and on stamina. You’ll notice that in each exercise it gets a little easier to feel where you’re at and what you need to do.
I promise, you might not start with any abs, but you’ll definitely find them! You just need to get started.
What If I Find Out I Hate Pilates?
Good news, friend. If you hate it, you can stop doing it!
That’s why I offer an introductory private package of just 3 sessions, or a New to Mat beginner group that’s only 5 weeks.
You sample it, get a great idea of what it is and if it’ll work for you, and decide from there.
Pilates ISN’T for everyone. I’ve found it very divisive! There is no real middle ground on the Pilates spectrum. You either love it, or you hate it, but giving it a few sessions will give you a good basis for judgment. Sometimes we think we hate something because we’re frustrated that we’re not good at it right away (have you read the section “I Don’t Think I’ll Be Good Enough to Do Pilates”? You should!). Sometimes we feel overwhelmed with information.
In 3 sessions, you’ve gotten over the initial overwhelm, stopped beating yourself up that you don’t know everything right away, and gotten comfortable with the fact that Pilates is a journey.
So, if you find out you hate Pilates, you can congratulate yourself for at least giving it a real try, and then move on.
I’ll be sadder for you than you are, because I’m always disappointed when people don’t love Pilates like I do!
What If I Can’t Do Pilates?
Now’s the time to re-read the section, “I Don’t Think I’ll Be Good Enough to Do Pilates”.
EVERY BODY can do Pilates.
I don’t care if you’re overweight, underweight, young, old, in pain, pain-free, inflexible, hypermobile, or anything else you can think of, YOU CAN DO PILATES.
You just need a teacher that will start you where you’re at, progress you at the pace you need, and challenge you (or take it back a notch) when it’s necessary.
I have a story for you, that makes me a little verklempt every time I share it:
One of my favourite clients was waiting for a double lung transplant. Barely breathing (she even needed to be on oxygen), far too skinny and weak for her liking (because her body was just trying to survive), yet she STILL did her workouts. She’d take a lot of breaks, but she always did more work than she thought she could. We worked on strengthening for her recovery, and I was never more emotional than when I heard from her after her surgery. She was so emotional, so proud of herself, and so was I, that she maintained her dignity by lifting herself up when they changed her bedding rather than having someone else lift her. That she sat up unassisted during her monitoring. That she felt capable at a time when her body was dealing with great trauma. That she went home 2 weeks earlier than they said she would, and her doctors were astounded with how well she was recovering. It made us BOTH cry.
If SHE can do Pilates, so can YOU.
If you’re like most people, you’re trying to stay in the safe and familiar. But imagine how you’ll feel when you start? How you’ll feel when your back doesn’t hurt so much, or when you look amazing in that dress because you stopped slouching and feeling bad? When you can do the exercises and look back on how stiff you were when you started, or how uncoordinated you felt, but now you know your body and how good it feels to move well?
So, what excuse are YOU using to not start Pilates? Is it one of these, or are you even more creative? Let me know in the comments, either what you’re currently telling yourself, or what you told yourself before you got started!
If you need a little help figuring out where to begin, let me know! I’ll help you find the perfect place to start. If I’m not the teacher that will best be able to help you, I’ll refer you to one that is.
You won’t make anything happen unless you tell yourself it’s okay to try.
Xo, Kimberly
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