#121 Learn To Do Pilates! With Vivian Jung

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Dr. Donnie Wilson struggled for decades to solve her numerous health issues and heal her body. But with focused determination, she healed herself. And in doing so, she discovered the Dr. Donnie stress recovery Protocol. On this show, you're going to hear from doctors, nutritionists, and Experts along with Dr. Donnie, who will give practical advice and wisdom to help heal your body. This is how humans heal.

Hi, and welcome to how humans heal. I'm Dr. Donnie Wilson, and today I'm excited to introduce you to Vivian Pekong. She is my favorite Pilates teacher.

And so I'm so glad for you to get to know her and to also get to know Pilates as an amazing exercise technique as well, a form of exercise. I suppose there's a lot of different ways to say that. Thank you so much for joining me today, Vivian.

Thank you, Donni. It's my pleasure to be here. I think that what I call Pilates is we call Pilates a.

Method of conditioning the body, mind, and spirit.

Oh, and there we go. That's what we needed, a method. And I like that you're emphasizing that it's not just a physical exercise. It's also in the mind and the spirit. Like, it crosses all these different levels. And this is exactly what I'm hoping to dive into today in this conversation is exactly what is Pilates for someone who maybe hasn't tried it before and has been curious, you know, what is it involved? How do you know if it might be a good option for you or not? And how to find a good instructor, you know, Pilates instructor. And can we. Can you do it online versus in person versus a group class? So thanks so much for joining us today. We're going to be covering all of that information and more. I've been doing Pilates classes with Vivian, I think probably at least six years.

I think so. Yeah.

And I'm so lucky that she has a studio right down the street from where I live. But at the same time, she also has a Pilates studio in Manhattan, and she teaches online Pilates classes, too. So if some of you are listening, listening who are not in Manhattan or Long island, you still, you know, just so you know, will be able to access Pilates or Vivian's amazing expertise in Pilates. So that's just a little, you know, hint from the very beginning. But tell us more, Vivian. Like, what is it. Like, what is it that even made you want to become a Pilates instructor to begin with?

Oh, my. Gosh I know it's such a long story, or not really long, but it was a long time informing itself.

I started learning Pilates, just kind of like, I was taking some class, some ballet classes, and the teacher was like, oh, you should do this thing called Pilates. And I was like, what the heck is that? And so it turned out that I was moving to New York at that time, and then I looked for somewhere to do this thing that my ballet teacher told me to do. I wasn't. A lot of people do come to Pilates through dance, but I wasn't really, like, a serious dancer. I had just been. I had been doing some ballroom dancing, and I was taking ballet as part of that, and then kind of went into Pilates from there. So not everybody that does Pilates came from dancing, but a lot of people do. But anyway, so I was in. I moved to New York, and I found a studio that was like, literally, like, 45 minutes away, because that was the closest thing I could find. And I started taking some lessons, and I really liked it, and just getting more and more into it. And I was already teaching, like, aerobics and fitness. So I was interested in this as. As a teacher, sort of a natural teacher, anyway. And so I started looking into it for that reason, and.

I didn't know where Pilates came from or anything like that. So I just found a place that does training, and I got certified. And it turned out that that certification wasn't very good. And I was like, I don't know. I don't really feel that good about teaching. And so then I looked around and I found another place that was much better, which was Romanus Pilates. And then from there, I found Anelia Garcia, and I did the training program yet again for the third time. So after the third time, I feel like now I have a really good handle on Pilates. In the past, people would get trained by spending years and years just working together with a teacher, like an apprenticeship program. And then at a certain point, their teacher would say, oh, you know, why don't you help teach this person who came in? And then they would start to teach that way. But then at some point.

A certification program needed to be formed. And. And so they're. So that's how they. They started doing it. So Pilates started with a guy. His name was Joseph Pilates, and he had a wife named Clara, and it is his brainchild. But Clara had a lot to do with it as well. She worked with him, and they were both from Germany, and they moved to the U.S. and he moved right into New York on.

59Th Avenue and 59th, I think. And he opened a studio there in 1926. And he literally was there until they both passed away. So they were in that same space for. Till 1970 or something like that.

And so.

And they started training other people.

Carried it on since then.

Yeah. So they, they had some very core group of people that would, that stayed with them for many, many years. And then those people would just go off and start training or open a studio themselves. And it's kind of went like that for a while. And Joseph Pilates didn't really have a serious training program. But when he passed away, Ramona Krasnowska took over. And at that point.

Something had to be done. There had to be an organization because people love this program and wanted to go teach it. So they made an organized certification program.

And what happened then was people would come in and take part of the training and they would go off and start their own certification program. So there's a body of work, it's a huge body of work. It takes years to understand. People would get a small portion of it and they would go off and then they would open another training program. And that was the first training program that I took was like someone who knew something about Pilates and started teaching. Yeah. And so it wasn't that valuable in the end. So that's, that's a problem these days with Pilates is that people are running training programs and teaching other people Pilates. And, and it, it's, it's not what Pilates is, and it's not what is there to heal your body and mind. And so it's just a fitness, it's like a fitness, you know, and so.

For people to be aware of, like if you come across a Pilates class, the person teaching might have only a little bit of training and they could still be calling it Pilates, but they might not be trained to the greatest level of understanding the method fully. I mean, it's. And so you, I mean, I know that you still go to trainings several times a year.

I do, I do.

Like any deeper profession, especially working with the body, it's like you can never know everything, right? So you have to keep trying, working and learning and learning and learning. And you learn also by working together with your clients and kind of feeling their bodies and getting a better understanding of things that way. So. So it's definitely a never ending process of understanding things and trying to.

Get better and better at helping with this method, using the Method to help people. And yeah, like you can go and take a class. Especially nowadays there's these chains that teach these group classes with Pilates and it's kind of fitness. I have a lot of people coming to me after going to those programs for a while and a couple of things happen and it's fine. There's nothing wrong with them. They're fun, people love it, and they get in a certain amount of shape. I have some people come to me saying that they kind of reached a limit with those programs and they feel like they're not getting anywhere at a certain point. And then another thing is sometimes people get injured from them. But they have a place. They have a place. And if you go into a studio and you're saying, I don't know if this person is good or not, in some ways, it's like anything else. You can be a Harvard graduate and you can also be stinky at your profession.

It goes both ways. But.

A lot of the things that you want to see are the experience of the teacher. If the teacher recently graduated from a program.

It'S going to be a little. It takes many years, many years to become a good teacher. So, you know, if it's a very recent thing and it looks like the teacher's been studying for a year or maybe half a year or something like that, then you have to know that, well, then, you know, okay, I'm going in with a newer teacher. And if you have a complicated body issue, if you have some problems that are maybe systemic or long lasting, or you've had pain in your back for five years and you want somebody to help you with it, you might want to be a little cautious about a newer teacher. So hopefully you're in a studio that has some teachers with ranges of experience. A lot of people use the word classical to say they were trained through the line of Joseph Pilates, which is. Which is a good word. But these days it's also, people are saying that they don't even. It doesn't mean anything. But you want to look for someone who was trained from Joseph Pilates through Romana Krasnowska or Kathy Grant, and then from there they were in direct line. If the name is some institution.

And you ask the teacher, oh, you know, do you. Who is Joseph Pilates? Some of the teachers didn't know that there was a guy named Joseph Pilates. So, like, that would be an indication that this Pilates that you're doing is more fitness Pilates. It's more like somebody learned how to, how to do these exercises and they're teaching them to you. And so it's really a complicated issue. I have a hard time sort of breaking it down for people. What I found is Joseph Pilates. He designed equipment to help people to transform their bodies. You don't have to use the equipment. There's a whole mat series where you don't have. You just use your body. But the equipment is so creative and so amazing that it's like you see this piece of equipment, it has these springs and these straps and you can just start playing with it. So you can have fun on that equipment and you can make up a whole class and have no idea what the person who designed it really wanted to do. Right. So. Right. So part of the way to sort of figure out what kind of Pilates you're being taught is the kind of equipment that the people are using. Are they using equipment that's been altered in many ways? It looks real modern, it's got different colors, it has all these different bells and whistles. Then maybe that Pilates that you're learning is more what they call contemporary Pilates, which means they're doing exercises using Pilates related equipment. If you see this equipment that's very stable. It's made of either wood or metal. It's very solid. It has a. Looks kind of like a torture machine. Some people have said that. And then there's two companies. There's Graz and then there's Pilates Designs. Pilates Designs and Graz were both companies that originated from the blueprints of Joseph Pilates. You could ask them, oh, where do you get your equipment from? And if they say those two names, then, you know, oh, this is a Pilates studio that really sticks to the agenda of Joseph Pilates. Anyway, so.

So, because, like, I mean, I think I just lucked out that you again, your studio was down the street from me. And I was. When I first had it was actually my mom and my sister had said to me, oh, we went to a Pilates class and we really enjoyed it. Donnie, we think you should try it. And I'm like, oh, I keep driving by this Pilates studio. I'm going to go in there. And at first I was, you know, kind of like, like anything. When we do something new, you're like a little bit nervous. I'm sure a lot of people say that when they come in for a first time, you're like, I don't know what to expect, what's going to happen, you know, and so. But I tend to do. I tend to Jump into new things all the time. So I. I'm like, okay, I. Whatever. Call you. We set an appointment. And this was for. This is for one on one individual Pilates, which is one of the possibilities, right? People could do one on one Pilates with the instructor. And. And it was amazing to me because the thing I noticed right away from the first lesson with you, which is about what, 50 minutes. Although, remember, for many years, I. I couldn't even do 50 minutes. I would do. I found that for me, I needed to do maybe like 30 to 40 minutes and I would start to. It wasn't that I felt tired and it's not that I felt in pain, is that I picked up on signals from my body that it was saying, okay, that was enough. Like. Like, I might start to feel kind of woozy, right? Like, I would start to feel like kind of a dizzy feeling or like.

You know, weakness. Like, I was like, I don't. Vivian, I don't know if I could do more. And so I mentioned that because I want people to know, like, you always have to listen to your body, right? Like, even if you go into a Pilates class or any kind of exercise class for that matter, if you're half hour in and you're like, whoa, my body's giving me signals that I need to, like, take a break already. You got to listen to that. And this is one thing I love about you and my experience of Pilates is that you do really individualize it. You're always asking me, donni, how do you feel today? How does your body feel? How are you feeling during the. During the Pilates session? You know, do you feel like you need to take a break or stop for now, right? Like, it's. To me, that's a very perceptive Pilates instructor who's not just going through a regimental, but saying, hey, let's follow this routine, but let's also listen to your body and what it needs. Maybe you can speak to that a little bit. Is that something you recommend?

That's so cool that you said it that way. Because one of the things that. When you go through the training with Anelia Garcia, who was maybe my favorite teacher, she says the same. She says that all the time. She's like, we always have to, as teachers, be asking our clients, how are you feeling? How do you feel with this? Does this feel good? Because feeling your own body is the whole thing about Pilates, right, Is to kind of feel your body and connect your mind to your body. And that's how the body Will change and have a better sense of wellness. Not by forcing your body to do 25 of these and feel like, oh, I really. Next day my muscle. Really. I worked so hard.

In Pilates, you sometimes do get muscle soreness, but it shouldn't last long and it shouldn't be a lot. And you actually transform your body more than if you do something a lot, a lot, a lot, and just keep tearing those muscle fibers and then end up with a sore muscle and like, oh, you feel like you did something, you know?

Yeah. I'm always explaining with, like, you know, sometimes something we think is good, like, exercise is good, but if we overdo it, it becomes a stress. And so, you know, it's about, how do you find just the right amount of whatever exercise you're doing? In this case, Pilates, that tells your body, hey, I want something to be different and to change and transform, but I don't want to overdo it. And I think that's really important. I mean, the other thing I really noticed, and I still do all these years later, but from the very beginning, what I loved about Pilates was that it was like a meditation for me because I couldn't be thinking about all the other things on my to do list. When I went into Pilates, what, what you would do or what you still do is the Pilates instructor is paying attention to your, not just your posture. Like, when we think of posture, I think a lot of times we just think of our shoulders. But you're looking at my body position of every piece of my body, and is it in alignment while I'm doing these different exercises?

So it was like, it brought so much more awareness to where's my arm? Where's my elbow? Where's my wrist? Where's my hand? And so when we first started, of course, because I have this hypermobility, maybe some of you who are listening remember me talking about the joint hypermobility when I started. And I would lay down with my arms.

I couldn't even have my arms straight. My arm was in some awkward position. And Vivian would just very gently each time say, oh, move your arm to here, straight into here. Move this. And then. So it was. It took all of my attention to really focus on increasing my, I guess, proprioception, but awareness of my body positions. And my understanding is that that's so important because when you're exercising a muscle, you want to make sure it's in the right position to that you're going to get the right result from it. Right. Tell us more. Why Is body position so important in Pilates?

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's. You're so. You're just. You're such a good student. So if you have an imbalance in your body or, like, you know, a little hypermobile joint, or maybe you're stiff, so your body compensates for that. So during your life, you don't start out, you know, like, tight in one section, but it happens over time, right? So then your body adjusts and you're. And you end up moving your body in a. Not the optimal functional way. So sometimes that can then become worse and worse and worse, and then you can develop problems. So if you. If you want to. If you want to change balance the body, then you have to do things in a way that is not customary for you anymore because you've been, you know, somebody like this, like, or. Or somebody's shoulder is up or whatever it is, right? So if I don't pay attention to that when I'm working with you, then you're gonna keep having this shoulder stuck up here, right? And then you're still not gonna transform your body into a body that the connective tissue and the blood and everything's flowing because tight places or places that not sitting properly in the joint, it prohibits. Maybe you can speak to this more, the flow of the body energy, right? So you just end up working the same way and not actually improving the overall health and wellness of your body. Does that make sense?

It does. And it reminds me, like, if people say, well, what is the benefit of Pilates? I mean, we've talked about some. Which is this body awareness. But I just want to emphasize, you know, have you really emphasize, like, what. You know, we talk about this transforming your body. I mean, it's strength, right? Like, we can become stronger. We can. It can also be very beneficial to our bones. But tell us more, like, what are all the potential benefits of Pilates?

So I would say, in some ways, the bottom line with Pilates is that the goal of Pilates is to make you do everything in your life better. In the sense that, let's say you are a grandmother and you want to pick up your grandkids and you can't even bend down because, you know, that's what we want you to do better. Let's say you're a professional athlete and you need to run, turn, jump, throw, and everything without injuring yourself. We want you to do that better. So. So if the body is functioning well, you can do everything in your life at a better way, in a better way, at a better Place. And so, and, and also the body is always, I mean you, I mean you could say this more than I do, but the body is always kind of working to heal itself, right. You know, and, and we have to get out of the way. So if the body is aligned and the muscles are the right amount of tone and the joints are sitting in a nice way, then the body has a better chance of using its own healing powers.

And so many different conditions, right. It's like dropping inflammation and pain. And then as I mentioned, there's also, you know, you can. Because a lot of people, when we think of our bones, we think of weight bearing exercise. So people think I need to be walking or lifting weights in a standard standing vertical position. But the thing with Pilates too is now Joseph Pilates figured out how we can be doing weight bearing exercise laying down. And I think it's so brilliant because sometimes, especially for someone with hypermobile joints like me, sometimes standing is not the best position to be lifting weights. There's a lot of risk of injury. But when we can tell us more about what is called the reformer in a Cadillac, both of those pieces of equipment allow us to be in horizontal poses that are sometimes safer, prevents injury while still allowing us to be doing weight bearing exercise.

Yeah, I know. He was such a genius. So. Yes. So there's a couple of things to that. Number one is when you're standing up, gravity is pushing down on your body, right? So you have to work so hard to get yourself just to stand up. When you're lying down, gravity is pushing on your body this way and it's kind of like letting you straighten out. So that's one reason that lying down is very good in Pilates. And then.

The other thing is that when you lie down, you have a lot of surface of your body touching a support. Like when you're lying down in bed, you are very supportive. You know, your whole body is very supportive. When you're standing on your feet, you got two feet. And then everything else is a free for all, right? So by using the support, you can move and change your body.

In a way that's not stressful. The reformer. Let me talk a little bit about that. The reformer was called the universal reformer, meaning that any person in the universe who can use this machine will reform their body. That was Joseph Pilates. Yeah. So cool. So it has spring tension, not weights. Although way back in the day, day Joseph Pilates did toy with weight using weights, but he decided that wasn't as good. So he uses spring tension. It Has a platform that you lie on that slides back and forth with the spring tension. And you put your feet on part of the Reformer, and you can lie down and you go bow and in. And then you can do many different things with your feet and your hands sitting, lying down.

It's amazing. You still teach me new things I can do on the Reformer. I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's so many possibilities, right?

Yes, so many. And there's like thousands of exercises that he documented. And then within those exercises, sometimes one. I don't want to say part, but, like, some of that exercise would be good for you and some other part of that is good for someone else. So then what we do as experienced teachers is we know that, oh, this part of the exercise is perfect for this client. But let's leave out that one part where they do this, because that's not good for this client or maybe that client, then a year later can do all those parts of that exercise, and it's like another new exercise. So it just. It's never ending, even for us. We're always like, you know, doing. Working on new exercises, you know, but the exercise. But the reason for the exercise is.

For.

What the body needs. You would only do exercises. Even as a teacher who can be very proficient at all of the Pilates exercises, there are some things that we don't do. For example, when you get older, too much spinal extension is not really good. There's a lot of back bends and stuff like that in Pilates. A lot of teachers who don't understand Joseph Pilates has backbends in there. But that doesn't mean you're supposed to be doing them all the time. And then so they're, oh, look, I can do all these backbends. But over time, that's not really good for your spine. So that's another reason why you have to be trained. Well, you have to understand the system and you have to understand the body. Because some of the exercises, they're fun, but they're not for everybody, and they're not even for you, even though you're this teacher that's been doing it for a long time.

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When I first started you had like, it seemed like you were starting me, like, okay, this is beginner level exercises. And as I was able to do those well and confidently and you know, you're like, okay, she's got that now and understands how to keep my body in alignment while doing the exercise, then you're like, okay, now we can go to a little bit more advanced version of this and then we on from there. Or depending on how I feel when I walk in that day, you know, if I'm like, oh, I'm tired today or my neck hurts already, then you might choose different exercises in a different format. And I think that really takes a lot of experience to be able to modify what exercises we're doing each day based on what you see in my body and how I'm feeling that day.

Yeah.

So what I do and what people who are trained by Neely Garcia and Romana Spilatis is that we have an overarching plan. Like a client comes in, let's say they have a little hunchy back. So the overarching plan is we're going to organize the spine and try to get that person more upright. But within that overarching plan, every day the person's different. Maybe they just got off a plane or maybe they had a stressful week, or maybe they just won a prize. Different things, they come in with that. Then their body also has changes every day. Maybe they walked a long way one day or maybe they tripped and hurt their foot. So we've got the overarching plan, then we have the daily plan and then we have what the body's doing that day. So it's a lot to put together, but it's important and it's what you must do as a Pilates teacher if your clients are going to continually get better and as your clients. So as a teacher, you could have a client for like 40 years. Like you could have the same client. So what are you going to do with the person for 40 years, right? Well, the body's changing. Things are happening. You have a plan for that person, and you're always constantly making the workout work for them so that they feel great. And even 40 years later, it's still fun, right? And it still works and still good for you. And one thing that I think thought of before is a lot of people are afraid to come into Pilates because they say I'm not in shape. Which I think is the funniest thing. Because as a teacher, what we do is we meet you where you are, right? So if you are not in shape, I'm going to meet you at that point and we're going to bring you up from there. If you have an injury, I'm going to meet you at that point and we're going to come up from there. If you wait until you're in shape and you don't have any problems to try to come into Pilates, then you're never going to come in. And also, also, it's Pilates is there to serve you, not for you to serve Pilates, you know, So I hope. I have had a lot of people tell me, oh, I can't command my. I'm not. My abs are not strong. I'm like, okay, but that's what I'm here for, you know? And so don't be ever embarrassed to come into Pilates. Don't ever feel like your body's not good enough or strong enough. If you're a little heavy, if you're. If you have. As long as you finish your physical therapy, you can come in and start Pilates. If you have an injury, you just got out of surgery, you need to, you know, finish your PT and then. And then come to Pilates. But don't wait.

Like I was going to say, is there anyone who, like, should. You know, it's like, this is a contraindication, or they should wait. It would be like, right after, like a knee surgery or something, right? Yeah.

If you. We always. And also pregnancy. So if you have been doing Pilates for your whole life and you get pregnant, then you can continue doing Pilates. And if you have. Of course, your Pilates teacher has to be understanding pregnancy, and you also have to get cleared by your doctor and all those things, but you can continue on with your Pilates to whatever point that works out. I've had people that come all the way till they give birth and people that need to stop a little sooner.

If you have an injury or a surgery, you really need to go to the doctor and Number one, if you have an injury, you need to get an image. An image. A doctor's report. Is it okay to exercise? Some people come in and they're like, oh, you know, I don't want to go. I don't want to go to the doctor, because, you know, I understand that. But you need to really get what the doctor can provide for you, which is a diagnosis, and then imaging and if. That. If Pilates will be good for you, and it usually is. But if you're in the point where you're going to have back surgery, you need to wait until you finish your surgery, you're finished your physical therapy, and you're ready to come in. Yeah. So there is. Other than that, trying to think of if Pilates would not be good for someone.

And all ages. I mean, I know coming into your studio, I see you have men, you have women, you have all different ages of people who come from Pilates.

Yeah, all the ages, all different sizes. Small, tall, you know, skinny, heavy. Yeah. And it's. It. That's. That's the. That's one of the things that I just, like, can't get over. Like, I love Pilates so much because it really does speak to the human body, whatever human body that is. And it's about that body learning about itself, about that body working within the parameters of that body to become optimally functional and. And about that particular body being uplifted and feeling good about themselves. So it's. It's. I think for any fitness modality, Pilates is really. I mean, of course, I think it's the best because I'm a Pilates teacher.

But, you know, this is what makes you keep you. Like, I want to learn more. I want to offer this because you see so much of how it's helping people. I mean, it definitely has transformed my body. And I like the point you're making. A lot of times I say we live in these human bodies, and we can't go get another body. This is the body we have. So it's like, how do we ever really learn how to be in our body? And a lot of times when we're under stresses of various kinds, physical, emotional stress, we kind of. We get in our head, and we kind of are separate from our body, and we almost can even be angry at our bodies. Why is my body in pain? Or why is my body. Why am I not able to lose the weight I want to lose? Or why do I. Why am I getting bone loss? Like, it's. It's like we get frustrated with our own body and. And to just be able to take a minute and go, wait a minute. This is the body. This is my. This is my vessel that I exist in, in my lifetime. How can I shift this and become more loving to my body and supportive to my body and say, hey, what does my body need in order for it to feel its best and perform its best and support me to be able to do what I want to do with my life? Right? Like, how do we. Instead of just living in our head, how do we really live in our bodies? And actually, I wouldn't be supporting. Surprised if through Pilates, people might have almost, like, emotional stresses that were stored on a physical level come up. Like, because once you start addressing your posture and your movement, you might be like, oh, why do I have this grief or sadness coming up? Well, it might be because you've shifted things in your body and now that emotion is able to be processed. I don't know. Do you ever see that, that people have.

I do. I do. I have had that.

Several times where someone will just be in the middle of working out and suddenly, like, tears will come or something like that. It doesn't happen all the time. You know, don't. Don't feel like you're going to go to Pilates and start crying. But it does happen. It does bring up things. Because when the body shifts, things release and memories sometimes come up and different things. And sometimes just the feeling of when you move your body and the body feels pleasure, like an inner pleasure from moving, that. That kind of brings things up also, you know? So, yeah, that does happen.

And I actually think that sometimes when I would get that woozy feeling, I realized at one point I'm like, I think this is endorphins releasing. Because when you're. You're using your muscles at a deep level, like, sometimes you're identifying muscles I didn't even know I had. Like, when people work out normal, normally, we think of, like, bicep curls and triceps and quads and hamstrings. And I know because I know anatomy. I know when we're doing Pilates, there's times when we are working my biceps or my triceps or my quads or my glutes. I know we're working them in Pilates, it's kind of like, comes in different forms than what you would experience at the gym lifting weights. But I can tell that all those muscles are getting worked. But sometimes there's even muscles. I'm like, I forgot that muscle was even a Muscle, like, tiny little muscles in the body that are helping with alignment. And. And so, yeah, like, I think that when you're working muscles like that, like when someone goes on a run and they have an endorphin release. I've experienced endorphin release with Pilates, where I think then I feel this, like, you know, maybe kind of floaty, woozy feeling. And I'm like. And you'll be like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm just. Got those endorphins going. And I. And I. But not everybody expects experiences that I don't think. It's just. I finally realized that that's what I was feeling. And so if someone does feel that, like, if you start to go, whoa, what was that? Like a warm, floaty feeling. It's actually that the strength that this deep work on your muscles could be releasing endorphins, right?

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yes, absolutely. And then what you were saying about, you know, the biceps, triceps, and things like that, so. And people think of Pilates as a core conditioning method. So. Yeah, it's a core condition. So what does that mean? Right. So.

When you start working the deeper muscles, the layers of muscles, especially around the pelvis and in the lower abdominals, a lot of those muscles, they're involved in birthing and going to the bathroom and sexual experiences. So those muscles have a lot of stuff going on in there, too. Right. So all that stuff. And it's not that you're, you know, oh, my God, you're, you know, having. Having birth again, you know, but just like, reorganizing those muscles, getting those muscles to be. To be not. Not tight and not too flat flax, not too loose to have tone, to be able to move, all that kind of stuff. And so it's different than if you think of core as, like, working your abs. Like, these days on social media, there's a lot of people that show their abs, you know, they do their thing. And. And because Pilates does make you have a beautiful abdominal area, but not because you're trying to make your abs look good. It's because you're working all those deep muscles, things organize better. You become strong and flexible, and then the muscles just look good. The body just ends up looking good.

And hopefully also with the endorphins and all those kind of things that people will feel a sense of an uplifted sense and feel a sense of having more energy, you know, going anywhere for any class. It is kind of an effort, right? It's like you got to get there, and you got other things going on, and so it has to really be worth it, right, to get there. And so, like, as a Pilates teacher, I, I, I take every single hour with every person very, very seriously. Like, this person took time out of their day to come in here to do this work for themselves. They're paying money for it. You know, they drove, they left the kids home, whatever it is. And that hour at the end of that 50 minutes, that person has to be different than the person who walked in the door in some way. Right? That's what Pilates is. If you just go to a class and you do some things and you move your legs, and they do a lot of crazy things these days with these Pilates machines and these group classes, and again, they're fine. It's fun, it's fitness. But you come out and you feel like, oh, you know, I have a sore muscle, but. But.

I'm not sure it specifically helped change your life for the better, you know, and that's really what I try to do for people, is by, by them, beautiful intention.

I mean, really, like, they, yeah, I think you, and that's the thing. You hold yourself to a high, high standard, and I think, yeah, that it definitely makes a difference when you go in like that, saying, hey, I, hey, this person's showing up for me to really help them, I'm going to deliver. And it made me realize, too, as you're talking about the strengthening the core strength, as a practitioner, I'm also thinking of that as a way to prevent falls. We know that when people have more strength in their core and their pelvic area and their hips, they're a lot less likely to have a fall and an injury of any sort, Whether they're, whatever age and whatever you're, whether you're an athlete or you're just walking around your house, you're going to be a lot less likely to have an injury if you have this core strength. And so I think that, and not only that, but you're also preventing diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, all of these conditions that we're trying to prevent. You're preventing them. So you're essentially also increasing your longevity. You're increasing your quality of life and, and likely the length of your life by doing this. Now, when I first started, I think I was coming in like, twice a week. Now I usually do more like once a week. What's the right amount of Pilates? Is there too much? Is there too little?

Yeah, I think that that was very Good that you were coming in twice a week at the beginning. I think twice a week is a good amount of time to come when you first start again. If it's private lessons, you know, it's.

It's a cost. It's a cost. So if you can do twice a week, once a week is good, three times a week is great too. But if you come once a week, I always give homework to people. I think I've given you some homework here and there.

And so if you do in between the classes, if you do your little homework, five minutes a day or something, then to keep your body going, the once a week is fine. Or if you've been doing Pilates for a long time, once a week is good. If you just started, it is good to come in twice a week if you can, and again if you can't. You do the things in between.

Because the body remembers for a period of time and it is better to reinforce that memory more than once every seven days. At the beginning.

You mentioned group classes. And I know sometimes you teach maybe like, you know, sometimes it's two or five people at a time, or sometimes you do like a weekend event and you might have a whole big group of people. Tell us more about that. Like how do people choose? Should they do individual, should they do group, should they do an online class? Like, how do they decide where to begin?

So these days I'm doing online mat classes just with small props and then private lessons, mostly one on one, sometimes two. And for me that works the best because you can come to your private lesson and then in between you can take your group class online at home. So that's actually great.

If you take a group class, group classes are good. But I always feel like group classes are good if you do a private session. So even if you did one private session like every other week, and then in between did your group classes, I think that serves you better than to do just group classes because group classes are fun and they'll help you to a certain level. But in a group class, even though you have the best teacher who's looking at everybody and giving little cues.

You don't get the same thing for your body. It's not the same. It's not somebody really watching you and giving you the feedback. Even as a teacher.

I try to take two to three classes a week myself with a teacher because I need to have somebody looking at me even though I use the mirrors a lot. Mirrors are great. If you have mirrors, use them. Joseph Pilates used to say, when you walk down the street, go window shopping, looking at yourself, not looking at the stuff in the window. Look at your posture, see how you're doing, and fix it. So nothing wrong with Sarah. Looking at yourself in the mirror, you know, and fix your posture. But anyway, yeah, so it's good if you. If group classes are great. It's fun, you're with other people, it's social, it's even online. It's kind of fun because you see other people. But a private lesson is very important at least once in a while to get in for your body.

Okay, good to know. And you offer your online classes now.

Yeah.

So I have Chrissy and I. My other teacher, Chrissy, who is like my partner. She's amazing. She and I over Covid, by the way, COVID ruined everybody's body. So if your body's not doing well, blame it on Covid, because everybody was just sitting around for two years anyway, so. And really, all my clients, I don't. I don't know, it's like. It's like most of my clients are. Something happened. We're starting, you know, we're starting to come out of it now, but I don't know if it's psychological because of the stress and the fear and then the not exercising for a while, and it's really something. But anyway, so Christy and I, we saw a lot of these online programs, a lot of them. Oh, challenge. Online challenge and push these people and do these Pilates moves. And we thought the problem with that is in order to do all that stuff, you have to have a really strong base. You have to have a base. So we made this program, we call it the 15 day jumpstart because it kind of gets you started, but you can use it for many days. You can go back and repeat it. You can do one day for a lot of days. But it's super foundational, and it's for people who have never done Pilates before. But if you have, you'll still get something out of it. But it's really made for people who are afraid to come in. They want to work at home, they want to try Pilates, and they don't know where to go, and they want to get a good start. Really? What is the core? How do you work from your core? How do you develop a little flexibility? How do you think about your body? How do you connect your mind to your body? These things are not easy, like, for you, because you're more of a body person. Things came maybe faster, but some people, it's really really, really hard to get your mind and your body together, you know, for different reasons. And so this is. We designed that for this. So it's 15 days where you get a video every day fed to you through email. You have a library. You can always go back to it. And you can, again, stay with one video for a while if you want, rather than going every day. And at the end of that program, you'll have, like, a little solid foundation that then you can feel good to go into another program. So that's the idea.

Like, learn.

Yeah.

The Pilates basics. And then you start to get more confident and your body's getting. Already getting the results. So you can then go into the next level, whatever that next step is.

Right. Exactly.

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing all of this, Vivian. Oh, tell me.

No, no, I was gonna say. And it's safe for. I mean, of course, if you have an issue, ask your doctor, but it's pretty safe for most people. So that's.

And you can do it from. I mean, I've done Pilates online with you from my living room with my dog, playing fetch from hotel rooms. From. You even showed me. I say to you, hey, I'm going to be on an airplane. What should I be doing on the airplane? And you can give me, like, oh, do this, this, this on the airplane. You know, so it's like, you can. You know, I think it's so amazing how you can use these different exercises in different places. It's not just for. In the Pilates studio, which we were talking about, Joseph, Pilates. From that. From the beginning, I. For me, I found that it really was also helpful to understand.

What he was thinking when he developed these exercises. You know, I mean, and please correct me, but I understand that he was already athletic, and then he was in a.

Camp during the war. Right. So he was in a situation where he didn't. He couldn't. He didn't have access to do his usual exercise, and he kind of had to come up with exercises he could do in the setting he was in. And he was there living with other athletes. So they said they were probably like, well, we're stuck here, but we want to be able to maintain our fitness. What are we going to do? And he.

Had this vision and insight to go, hey, let's use what we have here to strengthen, you know, maintain our strength and our fitness and help them through a very stressful situation. And then it ended up, even when they were free, it was like, wow, this is actually something we want to keep doing in our day to day life because it was developed under a state of stress, but it ended up, hey, we can use this for the rest of our lives to help maintain our fitness and our relationship with stress ongoing. I don't know. Does that sound correct?

That's pretty correct. He had been, before he got interned, he had been already working on a fitness system. And then when he went in there, he was at the Isle of Man during World War I. He was interned because he was German. He happened to be in England at the time and they picked him up, threw him in the camp and. Yes, exactly. He was with all these people. And the other thing was that he also had the opportunity there to work in the infirmary, which is very interesting because he always, you know, he was very medical, but he was not educated in, in that way. He was self educated. So when he was there in the Isle of Man, you know, manpower is in short supply in these camps. Right. So I think that he volunteered to help out in the infirmary and then he was able to work with people who were injured or sick or maybe they came back with an injury from somewhere. And, and so he. So he worked with a lot of therapeutic exercises at that time. Yeah, he did a lot in that.

When he came to Manhattan, he, during his career in Manhattan, he was working with a lot of athletes and performers. Right. Who also were very intent on maintaining their performance and their flexibility and their strength. So then I'm assuming still developed from there because of who he was working with.

Yes, exactly. And there are stories of him going on the street and seeing someone who was in a wheelchair or whatever and saying, come upstairs and for free. I'm going to. When you get you out of this wheelchair. And so, yeah, things like that. He was very, he was very intent on helping people. And he did. When he came to New York, his, the studio that he opened up was right in the like the theater district. So we had a lot of actors, a lot of people in the theater business, but his first connections were through boxing. So he started out doing with people in the boxing world. So it was kind of all over the place, really. Yeah. And then, and then at some point all of the society people started coming in. So then he had all the actors and actresses in there and opera singers. There's just, there's, it's a list of who's who over there. Yeah. And then of course Balanchine and all the dancers came in, so Martha Graham. And then that started all the dancers into, into Pilates. So it has Its sort of waves and, but the, the use of Pilates is for everyone to use for their own way. So you don't have to be a dancer, you don't have to be an athlete, you don't have to be injured. You just, whatever it is you come in with, Pilates will, will help you with.

I always say, like, you know, we, we think like, oh, it makes sense that a marathon runner would have to train and make sure they have enough water and food and sleep. Like we expect that of a marathon runner or an athlete. But actually each of us is running our own marathon each day with our, you know, even if it's, I need to, you know, do the laundry and do the dishes and go to the grocery store and do, you know, get my work done or whatever, take care of the kids or whatever we're doing is essentially our own marathon each day. And to be able to do that, whatever it is that each person's doing, it does require that our bodies have this ability to keep up with us and to be able to kind of train our system and along with all the other things that we do, healthy eating and sleeping and hydration, you know, but this is part of, part of that. Again, thank you so much, Vivian for coming and having this conversation and sharing with us about your experience. I mean, again, I feel so lucky to have found you and worked with you and so thank you so much.

Well, same here. I'm very lucky to have found you as well. And I'm always taking my, taking my nutritional supplements and I know you have to keep up your nutrition as you know, it's part of Pilates.

Yeah, I love that. And I was going to say we're going to see if we can add a couple clips of showing some of what it looks like to be in the Pilates studio with Vivian to share with all of you so you can get a visual too in case if you're like, what does this actually look like? And I try to post that in my stories every so often too on social media so you can all can see, like, here's a glimpse of what this looks like and just go give it a try. If anything we've said here made you kind of go, hey, I've been looking for a new kind of exercise that's, you know, going to be good for my body but not over stressing me. You can also start with small increments of time. You can get Vivian's 15 day jump start and kind of just get yourself, you know, understanding it before you even go into potentially working with someone one on one, or you can even hire Vivian online. So there's many ways you can introduce yourself to this in small ways that helps you get comfortable and helps you start to experience the transformation of Pilates. So thanks again for joining us today. We're so glad you did.

Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Donnie.

You're welcome to watch the Pallides clips.

Mentioned at the end of this episode in their entirety.

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