Pilates Principle: Control
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 and concentration at the beginning of the year. Last month, I nerded out about core vs center, and how I define the differences in my mind.
This month, let’s discuss CONTROL, 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 control.
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.
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.
If you didn’t know, while Joseph Pilates was alive, he named his exercise method “Contrology”, the study of control. As Joe stated: Contrology begins with mind control over muscles. It was only after his death that his method got renamed to “Pilates”. So obviously, the name of the game is control during your Pilates mind-body practice. Your pace during your practice can be slow or fast, but is it controlled? The size of your movement during your practice can be small or big, but is it controlled? As you advance in your practice, it’s because you demonstrated control in other exercises in other planes that are pieces of the “advanced exercise”.
Because we work with springs on various apparatuses in a Pilates studio, how well do you control the springs in both directions? Do you pop the spring open, and slam the spring closed? Is the spring jerky or wavy in either direction? Or maybe the spring cannot even be closed all the way? Or even more telling is when you have a spring for each hand or foot, and your dominant side takes over? Can you recruit more from the less dominant side to engage and come to play so the dominant side doesn’t just push and bully the less dominant side?
You may not be at a Pilates studio now, but you know how I like to insert a movement to practice as we cover these Pilates principles. The prop or tool that acts most like a spring that you may have at home is a theraband. Other options for a theraband is an old pair of tights, leggings, or pantyhose.
Let’s try a couple of movements to warm-up with the theraband to check your level of control in movement in your body. I think we can all agree that we don’t want to snap the theraband EVER. It’s a safety concern that we should keep that as a golden rule in mind ALWAYS.
Upper Body Warm-Up:
Let’s start by holding a theraband in your hands shoulder-height and shoulder distance apart. Be sure to have some “tail” beyond each hand, so you’re not holding the very ends of the theraband. Again, this is a safety concern. Begin to pull it apart.
- Look at your arms. Can the left arm and right arm move somewhat at the same time and same pace as you pull the theraband apart?
- Look at your elbows – are they locked? Let’s not lock those elbows, especially those with hyperextended elbows.
- Look at your wrists. Are they neutral, meaning not bent, nor turned in any direction?
- Notice your grip – is it a death grip? Are you holding on just enough to keep a hold so that it doesn’t slip through your fingers?
Return the theraband to its current state of slack. Repeat the pull and return of the theraband 5-10x to see if you can improve your control of the theraband opening and closing. Whether it’s opening or closing, can you find the same pace in either direction? We’re working the center, of course, as well as the upper back since the theraband is in your hands. How do your shoulders feel? How about the mid-to-upper back?
Lower Body Warm-Up:
Lay on your back on your mat. Pull your knees into your chest shoulder-distance apart with heels together and toes apart. Wrap the theraband around the balls of the feet while holding the ends of the theraband in each hand. Be sure to have some “tail” beyond each hand, so you’re not holding the very ends of the theraband. Again, this is a safety concern. Bend your elbows, and press them into the mat to engage a wide, upper back. Keep them there. Then, begin to press the balls of the feet into the theraband. You can leave your head down, or curl up like you do for the hundred exercise for the following observations.
- Look at your legs. As you press your feet into the theraband, can you aim your legs straight out at 45 degrees? Meaning the legs don’t lower down as they reach out from your center, nor do the legs raise up as they reach out from your center. It’s your thighs moving in and away from you, not your lower legs kicking up and down.
- Look at your knees – are they locked? Let’s not lock those knees, especially those with hyperextended knees.
- Look at your ankles. Are they long, meaning not bent, not over-pointed, not turned in any direction?
- Look at your toes. Are they gripping, squeezing together? Can they be neutral?
Pull the knees into the chest, and press out into the theraband 5-10x to see if you can improve your control of the theraband opening and closing. The wrists can move with your legs bending and straightening, but the elbows must remain pressed into the mat to provide the center and legs the oppositional reach. Whether the theraband is opening or closing, can you find the same pace in either direction? Can you find the same target of the legs reaching away every time? You want the thighs moving in and out of the body, not the lifting and/or lowering of the calves. By moving the thighs, we’re looking for an engagement of the seat and hamstrings. We’re working the center as the legs are connected to your center, as well as the upper back since the theraband is in your hands.
Can you bring the other principles into your practice and within your control? Your breath, your concentration, and the engagement and connection of your center. How much can you control, and hold in your power? I betcha it’s more than you think!
Romana Kryzanowska (a Pilates elder, and a student of Joseph Pilates) has been quoted as saying: “You can say what Pilates is in three words. Stretch with Strength and Control. And the control part is the most important because that makes you use your mind.”
Remember that Pilates is a mind-body exercise. Yet, I believe it can also be fun, possible, challenging, and rewarding. Work with me either at my home studio, or virtually in a mat class.
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