Julie Troost - Kane School Pilates Intensive - Day 6

After finishing the 6th day of teacher training, I’m feeling pretty confident about learning the skills to be a great instructor. The Intensive training option is physically strenuous, as we’re each running through the full classic Pilates workout sequences for each of the levels on each piece of equipment over the course of the training. So we’re working out every day of the course. I seem to have picked up a cold over the last couple days which is probably from overdoing it with my schedule; I’m still working while studying this. A couple of the other students quit their jobs before beginning these intensive 2 weeks, which sounds like it might be a good idea if you can afford to do that. The training manual we’re given says that we don’t physically have to do anything we don’t want to during the course, but it’s obvious how beneficial it is to learn by ingraining the movement into our bodies and our brains. Since I was under the weather yesterday, I chose to sit out and watch, which wasn’t a problem with Kelly, but I know I’m going to have to be sure to closely re-visit the sequence we were working on that day when I take private equipment lessons from the Kane School teachers (which is another requirement of the training and included in the cost.) I’m realizing that at the root of it, the Pilates teacher certification is really about getting to know the exercises in your own body (what they feel like) as well as knowing what it will look like when watching someone else do them. To do this, we’re learning how to apply the 5 or 6 Pilates core principles to every exercise. It’s theoretically rather simple. But, practically, because of the complexity and variety of people’s bodies, it takes more understanding than you’d think. When I get frustrated with all the knowledge I have yet to learn about the body, I try to remember that anything in life worth doing often has no end in sight. I’d be bored teaching something that I could master in a few classes. For something to hold my interest for hopefully many years, it will have to be something that will take a lifetime of learning.