A little bit of Pilates

Today mother and I had our second class of Method Putkisto Pilates.

"Method Putkisto Pilates is a body conditioning method that works in a different way to other fitness techniques. Targeting the deep postural muscles, Pilates works by building strength from the inside out and is especially good for those with back problems, chronic long term pain or even those just wanting to stay toned and keep fit." Method Putkisto

Since our previous lesson last week was mainly spent on theory and on the background of Method Putkisto, this time we were all excited to start with the movements. Last lesson we focussed on our bones and the biomechanics of our movements, with special focus on the hips and spine. It was a good starter introduction to the thinking in Pilates, of how more effort is put into not moving than into moving. For example, when you are lying down on your back, with your arms resting next to you and your knees bent, try moving one of your legs up into the air... With Pilates, one has to focus more on the other parts of the body staying still through stabilizing your core, whereas normally you would focus on just moving your leg up into the air.

During today's lesson, we concentrated more on the muscles. After a quick introduction to all of our stomach muscles (e.g. obliques, rectus abdominis and transverse abdominis) we then did several of the same movements as last time - note: this is intentional, it is good to do the same exercises each time because each time you will be concentrating on a new and different section - however this time we were trying to use more of our muscles.

After several intense set of movements, the hour had flown by! Luckily, the lessons continue next week when we will be learning more about breathing and how it will help us activate the muscles in our stomach, back and hips.

In the evening I walked Vallu for about 30 minutes in-hand because he was having a day off and it is good to get horses out of the stables twice a day (the first is going out to the paddocks everyday for 4-5 hours) When I was walking Vallu, the new horse that arrived yesterday came in to be lightly ridden by his owner, and Vallu then decided that this horse (named Champ) was his new best friend and he would not move away from him. If Champ stopped walking, then naturally Vallu had to stop too! It was very cute, and I managed to get a rather sweet photo of the boys.

Champ and Vallu