Start with the foundation before you expand

New Pilates instructors have access to more exercises, variations and programming ideas than they could possibly need.

You finish training with the repertoire you learned in your program, but Instagram is already showing you hundreds of other options. You take classes from different instructors. You see creative transitions, new props, different spring choices and movements that may look completely different from anything in your training manuals.

There is value in continuing to learn. I take classes from other instructors, study different approaches and expect my own teaching to continue evolving.

But before you expand, you need to understand the foundation.

And I don’t mean the foundation as one possible place to start before moving on to something more interesting. The foundation is integral to understanding Pilates. It is what gives you the context to understand why an exercise is Pilates in the first place.

Where you go from there can evolve.

The foundation is non-negotiable.

Learn the work you were taught

Teacher training does not give you every exercise you will ever teach, every cue you will ever use or every answer you will ever need. It does give you the body of work you need to begin understanding Pilates.

Practice the repertoire. Learn how the exercises feel in your own body. Understand the setup, springs, movement, breathing and intention. Study which joints are moving, what needs to stabilize and what the body is being asked to accomplish.

Then teach it.

That is where the material begins to deepen. An exercise that seemed straightforward during training suddenly has to make sense to several different people at the same time. One person interprets your cue exactly as you intended. Another doesn’t understand it at all. Someone needs a different setup, while another needs more support to find the movement.

You have to understand the exercise well enough to teach the body in front of you while still understanding what makes that exercise what it is. I wrote more about that process in Learning Pilates well enough to teach it.

The foundation is more than a list of exercises

This is where I think an important distinction can get lost.

Learning the foundation isn’t simply memorizing a collection of exercises so you can eventually graduate to more creative ones.

The repertoire teaches you how Pilates works.

You begin to understand relationships between movement and stability, resistance and assistance, breath and control. You learn why setup matters and why a small change in position can change the demand on the body. You begin to recognize the intention of an exercise instead of seeing only its shape.

That understanding gives you something to work from when you eventually make different choices.

Without it, it becomes very easy to collect movements without understanding why they belong together or what makes them Pilates beyond the fact that they are being performed on Pilates equipment.

Repetition is not a lack of creativity

New instructors can feel pressure to make every class different.

There is so much creative Pilates content available that foundational exercises can start to look almost too simple. You see experienced instructors producing seamless sequences and interesting variations, and it is easy to assume that becoming a better instructor means continually adding more.

I don’t think it does.

You can learn an enormous amount by teaching foundational work repeatedly and actually paying attention to what happens.

The exercise may stay the same, but the bodies won’t. Your cueing will change. Your eye will improve. You may notice a compensation you missed the week before. A spring setting that made perfect sense for one client may give another person too much assistance or not enough support.

That repetition is where you start understanding the work beyond the choreography.

It is also where you develop judgment.

Understand what you’re changing

There is nothing wrong with learning a variation from another instructor. There is nothing wrong with finding inspiration through continuing education, a class you took or something you saw online.

But before I change an exercise, I want to understand the exercise I started with.

What is moving? What is stabilizing? Where is the resistance coming from? What role is the spring playing? What is the intention of the original movement? If I change the position, load, spring or base of support, what else changes with it?

Those questions matter because changing an exercise can change more than its appearance.

A heavier spring may increase resistance in one exercise while providing more assistance or stability in another. Changing the body’s orientation can completely alter the relationship to gravity and resistance. Adding instability, load or another layer may create a useful progression, or it may shift the focus away from what you were originally trying to accomplish.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t change things.

It means we should know what we’re changing.

Build from what you understand

Especially when you’re new, there is nothing wrong with opening your training manuals and building a class around exercises you know.

Choose movements you understand and think about why they belong together. Consider what the body has already done, what you’re asking it to do next and what you want the work to accomplish. Think through your springs, setups and transitions before you walk into the room.

Then practice teaching the class.

Say your cues out loud. Think about when the client actually needs each piece of information. Consider what you might change if someone needs more support and what progression might make sense for someone who is ready for more.

Planning doesn’t have to begin with the question, How can I make this more creative?

It can begin with, What am I trying to teach?

That is a very different starting point.

Your teaching can evolve without leaving the foundation behind

My teaching today is not identical to the way I taught when I first started.

I would hope it isn’t.

I have taught more bodies. I have taken more classes. I have continued learning, and I understand things differently because I now have experience to connect to the information I learned during training.

Some of my cues have changed. My programming has evolved. I teach contemporary Pilates, and I also teach strength. I am interested in different approaches to movement and in continuing to develop as an instructor.

None of that requires me to discard the foundation.

If anything, the more I learn, the more useful the foundation becomes because it gives me a way to evaluate new information. I can look at a variation and consider what changed. I can add a progression and understand what additional demand I am creating. I can incorporate another form of movement without pretending that everything performed on a Reformer automatically becomes Pilates.

The foundation gives me the reference point.

Foundation first, then evolve

I don’t think Pilates instructors need to spend their careers teaching exactly what appears in their original training manuals.

Teaching should evolve. Education should continue. We should learn from other instructors, explore different approaches, ask questions and become better at working with the bodies in front of us.

But evolution and foundation are not opposites.

The foundation is what allows the evolution to be informed.

Learn the repertoire you were taught. Practice it in your own body. Teach it to other bodies. Understand the springs, anatomy, breathing, control and intention behind the work. Learn why the exercise is structured the way it is before you decide what you want to change.

Then expand.

Add layers. Explore variations. Incorporate other movement when it makes sense for the way you teach. Develop your own voice and your own programming.

Where you go from the foundation can evolve enormously.

But you still need the foundation underneath it.