Great question! Expect to:

• Feel muscles you didn’t know you had

• Use your brain

• Change the way you used to think about what defines a ‘workout’

• To see changes in your body, but not overnight

• To think differently about animals such as the Elephant, Crab, Seal and Swan.

Joseph Pilates famously said, “In 10 sessions you will feel better, in 20 you will look better, and in 30 you will have a whole new body.”

The results you get in practicing Pilates is immeasurable, however, it also takes awhile with commitment and consistency. Like any worthwhile endeavor, it does not come with instant gratification. At the end of the day, it comes down to the your goals, other activities, and how much you’re willing to invest in your health.

Sometimes YES, sometime NO. Sometimes the day after class, sometimes TWO days after class.

When I first started Pilates, I was a gym and cardio fanatic. I ran, lifted weights, did some spin, some TRX, some rowing, a little bit of orange theory, SO - I was used to sweating and pumping my heart rate up to max capacity. Pilates was the OPPOSITE but Pilates was also the ONLY workout that gave me true abdominal strength and made me sore in places that I needed to be sore.

Jospeh Pilates wanted all his clients to walk away from his classes feeling better than when they walked in. That was his measure of success. Legs burning so much that you can not sit down on the toilet was not a goal of his, nor mine these days actually. See ya later 150 lunges at the gym.

When you can walk out of an exercise class with more freedom of movement, feeling lighter, feeling toned, feeling taller and carry on with everyday life, sometimes even better than ‘everyday standards’ eg, you can pick up the grandkids with ease, you can bend down to do the gardening without back pain or you can work a day at your job without the shoulder aching, then shouldn’t those be a true measure of a successful physical fitness program?

In Pilates the emphasis is on quality over quantity, often you will only have 3-5, sometimes up to 10 opportunities to challenge the whole body in one exercise. Especially when you are on the Mat, this is ample opportunity to throw your body weight around in space to build strength and stamina. Pilates is a challenge at the beginning, Pilates is also a challenge when you have been doing it a while. When you know how to work deeply to the centre, all the juice can be squeezed out of the moment and no muscle is neglected.

Pilates can challenge the most athletic person and care for the most injured. It’s inception was, in fact, a form of physical therapy. The machines were originated from hospital beds with springs attached…to rehabilitate the injured and ill. It then became the famous ‘go to’ form of fitness for New York dancers. It has now become an integral part of every serious athletes training as well as being a ‘go to’ prescription for people after injury, surgery etc.

Wear regular workout clothes that you can easily move in. Try to avoid baggy clothing for the first three sessions so your instructor can find movement compensations.

We do not train with sneakers. Barefoot or non-skid (sticky) socks are recommended. See a link below for samples on Amazon:

Pilates Socks - Unisex