Pilates Principle: Concentration
For the next few months, I want to do a deep dive into each of the Pilates principles. There are 6 guiding principles: breath, concentration, center, control, flow, and precision. I covered breath last month.
Let’s get into CONCENTRATION, and its relationship to Pilates!
During my teacher training program, there was required reading, and they were 2 books written by Joseph Pilates. One book he wrote titled “Return to Life Through Contrology” was published in 1945, and so much of it still applies today. I want to share with you excerpts I highlighted on concentration.
Contrology is complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit.
Contrology develops the body uniformly, corrects wrong postures, restores physical vitality, invigorates the mind, and elevates the spirit.
One of the major results of Contrology is gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control of your body.
The brain itself is actually a sort of natural telephone switchboard exchange incorporated in our bodies as a means of communication through the sympathetic nervous system to all our muscles.
Contrology begins with mind control over muscles.
Make up your mind that you will perform your Contrology exercise ten minutes without fail.
Continued use of Contrology steadily increases the normal and natural supply of pure rich blood to flow to and circulate throughout the brain with corresponding stimulation to new brain areas previously dormant. More significantly, it actually develops more brain cells.
Concentrate on the correct movements EACH TIME YOU EXERCISE, lest you do them improperly and thus lose all the vital benefits of their value.
It’s clear that Pilates is a type of mind-body exercise. You have to be present, aware, paying attention, focused on what you’re doing, what you’re moving, how you’re moving, to make an improvement with each rep, with each exercise as you move from one to the next. To do this, you must concentrate!
In fact, I find Pilates a movement meditation. It is a mindful practice. It has elements that can be either very calming to the mind, or very invigorating to the mind, depending on your practice, and what you need in that moment. Do you need active energy, or do you need a release? One of the ways you can start is just by noticing physical sensations without judgment. Embody your presence without the chatter in your mind.
Let’s practice together now by going through 5 spine shapes using Pilates exercises.
Flexion/Round Back – Using the hundred exercise as an example, concentrate on pulling your low ribs in, AND lift your low belly up (between your pubic bone and belly button) BEFORE lifting the head, chest, shoulders, and legs. Vigorously pump the arms from the back of the armpits. Extend the reach of the legs from the butt below the butt. 5 arm pumps for 1 inhale, 5 arm pumps for 1 exhale. 10 breaths in and out through the nose. 10 arm pumps x 10 breaths = hundred exercise.
Tall Back – Sit on the floor with your legs out in front of you, or cross-legged for accessibility, and your back against a wall. There will be some space between your low back and the wall. Place your sacrum at the wall, shoulder blades, and ideally, your head. If there is a gap between your head and the wall, put a small pillow to close the gap. Concentrate on pulling your low ribs back to the wall, and reaching up through the top of the head to lengthen your spine. Keep it for 10 breaths in and out through the nose.
Extension/Arched Back – Using the swan prep as an example, stack your palms on top of each other, and place your forehead on your hands. Press the pubic bone down, and lift the low belly up (between your pubic bone and belly button) as you lift your head, hands, chest off the mat WITHOUT your head and hands leaving each other. Concentrate on pulling your heart forward to get longer as you get higher WITHOUT dumping to your low back. Repeat 3-5x.
Lateral Flexion/Side Bend – Using the mermaid as an example, lift both sides of your waist up then over, so there’s no collapse on the bottom waist. Concentrate on staying between two panes of glass to get longer. Repeat 3-5x.
Rotation/Twist – Using the spine twist as an example, place your fingers on top of your shoulders. Lift your spine up, then twist to one side, while keeping both legs squeezing together to provide a still and stable base. Concentrate on twisting the spine only with 2 long sides of your waist WITHOUT moving the arms to give the illusion of a deeper twist. Switch sides. 3x to each side.
You may have noticed with concentration that you may have found more connections in your body, or maybe with each rep, you may have found more engagement? More strength? More stretch? More length? Or maybe it was all just the same whether it was the first rep or the last rep. Or maybe your concentration was not here today. Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, all of it is ok. Wanna know why? Because you can practice again, and see if there’s improvement. Remember that Pilates is a mind-body exercise.
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