A Joyful holiday message filled with light, warmth, and space to pause and breathe. Today is the 23rd of December. It is our last teaching day. We finish classes today. Live and Online Pilates classes are done. Pantomime is finished. The pace changes. Suddenly. And honestly, it feels welcome. Between now and January the 5th, the calendar opens up. Fewer alarms. Fewer deadlines. More quiet. In many countries, the world softens for a short while. Streets slow down. Expectations

Falling asleep mid chapter, fully dressed, body choosing rest before the mind finishes. Soulful Sunday usually gives us a pause before the week starts. This week feels different. Christmas sits right in front of us. For many, it means time off. For us, there are still two teaching days left. Monday online. Tuesday live. Then we stop. The body knows this. The mind argues anyway. Learning to rest without guilt sounds simple. It is not. Rest often feels earned only after exhaust

Teacher speaking calmly while clients listen, demonstrating how fewer cues support clearer movement. Teaching often fails through generosity. Too much information. Too many corrections. Too many clever thoughts spoken out loud. You think you help. You drown the client instead. Your Pilates client lies on the mat. You speak about ribs, pelvis, breath, shoulders, jaw, neck, feet, intention, imagery, history, and three principles before the movement even starts. Their body freez

The quiet aftermath of celebration, where excess lingers and the body asks for gentler choices. We all know this morning. Heavy head. Sluggish body. That quiet moment where you replay the extra glass, the second dessert, the late night that felt festive at the time and less charming now. Your body is not cross with you. It is asking for a reset, not a punishment. The first thing to drop is guilt. Guilt stresses the nervous system. Stress slows recovery. Beating yourself up ne

Clear cueing and calm hands, language guiding movement rather than forcing shape. I catch myself doing this. All the time. Halfway through a class, something comes out of my mouth and I think, why did I say that? One of those words is “so”. It slips out. Especially in group classes. Especially when you are tired. It sounds friendly. It sounds normal. It feels like nothing. But it is not nothing? I started noticing what happened in the room when I used it. Some people softened

Mermaid on the mat showing controlled lateral flexion without shoulder strain or excessive arm load. Pilates Mermaid often gets treated like a pretty pause between harder work. That misses the point. This movement asks for control, organisation, and honesty. The mat does not help you. It exposes you. When you look at traditional Pilates mat work, the repertoire is tight. Thirty four movements. Thirty two if you include Criss Cross and Can Can. That is not a lot. Teachers know

Angry reaction to a cold call as a man grips his phone mid conversation indoors. Cold calls interrupt your day. You answer an unknown number and someone launches into a sales pitch while you are busy. The reaction is irritation, raised voice, and a demand to stop calling. Then the phone rings again. Solar panels. Again. This week I was speaking with a marketing specialist who said something uncomfortable. Cold calls still work. Not emotionally. Not politely. Financially. So h

Warm wool socks resting on cold stone flooring, highlighting contrast between comfort and winter chill. This weekend I am teaching in Italy. Beautiful place. Built for summer. In winter, it tells a different story. Many places close. Spaces empty. The hotel looks polished and light, but the first thing I noticed was the floor. Stone. Cold. No rugs. No carpet. Perfect in August. Brutal in December. Standing there first thing in the morning, cold came straight up through my fee

Pilates Fitness Friday, What You Wear When You Sweat Matters People think Pilates Fitness Friday is about exercises, but today it is about clothing. You move, you sweat, and your clothes sit against your skin for long periods. This matters more than people realise. Some leggings use treatments that aim to make the fabric sweat resistant or quick drying. These treatments often involve PFAS. PFAS are synthetic chemicals used in many industries. They do not break down fast in th

Early awareness stops habits taking over and keeps the client focused on technique. You spend enough years teaching movement and you start seeing problems before they happen. Not because you are magical, but because you have made every mistake yourself. This is where interception comes in. You catch the pattern early, before it drags the movement off course. Interception starts with how you handle your own body. You carry your habits into the studio. You rush when you are tir

Soft morning light fills the room as you sit with coffee and steady thoughts. Most people move through the week on autopilot. They feel tired, distracted, or unfocused, then blame the usual suspects. Sometimes the problem sits somewhere else. An energy audit brings the focus back to what you do each day and how it affects you. You list the things that lift you. You list the things that drain you. You look at the patterns. You keep it simple. Morning coffee, a short walk, a qu

Quiet moment of reflection in the mirror to reset mindset before teaching. A single thought in the morning sets your direction. It shapes how you move, speak, and respond. It shapes how you teach. When you start your day with one clear positive idea, you give your mind a stable point. This helps you manage pressure, deal with uncertainty, and stay present with your clients. A positive morning thought does not fix everything in your life. It gives you a small reset. It creates

Kneeling long box hip extension showing control, balance, neutral spine, and strong glute work. Today looks at a controlled strength movement on the Reformer. You kneel on the long box, place one foot into a strap, take a four point position, and set a light spring. A blue spring keeps the load sensible. Your goal is to avoid fighting the machine. The movement is simple on paper. You extend the working leg straight back and lift it to hip height. You hold a neutral spine. You

Calm seated twist highlighting focused breath work and easy embodied awareness on the mat. Embodiment is something teachers talk about often, yet it fades once you start teaching full schedules and taking on clients. When you are learning as a teacher you get plenty of natural practice. You move, you repeat, and you spend time in your own body. The shift happens later. Once clients fill your week your attention shifts to them and your own practice slips into the background. E

Warm socks, Pilates mat, and Omega 3 showing simple winter care for skin and joints. Winter does its best to rough you up, especially your skin and joints. The heating runs all day, the air dries out, and suddenly everything feels tight for no good reason. You handle Pilates studios full of people moving with ease, then step outside and feel your own hands turning into sandpaper. Skin needs steady care this season. Moisturise right after a shower while the skin still holds so

Protein sources sit on a wooden board with eggs, salmon and lean meat. Protein helps your body repair tissue after training. Your needs change with age and how hard you work. Strength sessions drive the highest demand. Cardio still needs support because it breaks tissue down, only less aggressively. Spread protein across your meals, aim for steady portions and pick sources that fit your diet. Plant options work well when you mix them. Older adults often need a little more to

Colourful display of words that reflect diverse Pilates approaches and teaching identities. There is a lot of noise about classical and contemporary Pilates. The labels follow us around. People toss them into conversations as if they decide the value of the work. The pressure to pick a side feels constant. The name is not the technique. The technique lives in how you teach, how you think, and how you adapt. Your history shapes it. Your training shapes it. Your clients shape i

Balance between tradition and evolution in Pilates and yoga teaching. Yesterday I read a post on a classical Pilates social media thread that stopped me for a moment. The writer claimed that in the method you needed 25 personal training sessions before you were allowed into the open studio to practise. According to them, if you had not done those 25 sessions, you were not considered classical. This was new information for me. New, but not surprising. Even inside the classica

Malcolm shows a strong lumbar flexion curve, holding steady control through the centre. Pilates Movement Monday looks at the Short Box Series, a clear way to strengthen your abdominals and sharpen your control through the centre. The work looks simple, but the challenge sits underneath. You train the deep muscles that support your spine while the larger global muscles learn to move in harmony without gripping or taking over. Breath links the whole thing together. Set the Refo

Athens at dusk reflecting the mix of nostalgia, change, and purpose in teaching. Back in Greece for the first weekend of the Apparatus course, and Athens pulled something out of me I wasn’t expecting. It felt familiar, but it also reminded me how much life has shifted. We had a good time here, but it was a contained life. Quiet. Focused. Different from Scotland, where things feel wider and more connected. You only notice the contrast when you return. Travel itself is its own