A Pilates Story 2

The stand off continued like that, each taking up their own space, until the young girl moved to a nearby mat, assumed a Pilates "V" stance, and re-collected herself.  Smoothly she curled her head down, creased at the sternum with arms hanging freely from her sides, until her spine flexed over and her fingers touched the floor. As she leaned forward, head tucked under, her shoulders made contact with the floor and gracefully her back rolled onto the floor until her back was flat, head up, hands were behind her head, elbows wide, with heels together and knees also wide, feet flexed as though she was still standing on the floor in her Pilates "V" position.

Her inhale came smoothly and with it the extension of her legs until her inner thighs looked as though they had been zipped together.  As her exhale began her legs unzipped back to their original position. Inhale out, exhale in, breathing leading the movement of the feet.  Her breath was almost inaudible, smooth and unencumbered by lips, mouth or throat. And so she began the beginning of her mat work, where her focus grew and her control deepened.

The old man hadn't really watched, his gaze unchanged out the window, but he felt her movement, sensed her ease of breath, and found his calm was increasing as she progressed.  Her transition from the 100 beats to the Roll up was seamless, not letting go of all the built up engagement, but taking the engagement developed in her 100's directly into her Roll up. Arms started back over her head, while the rib cage stayed connected to her hips, her inhale let the way of the arms, then the rotation of the head before it even left the mat, exhaling patiently until the crease in the sternum came naturally and effortlessly.  From the beginning she had ankles in rotation, toes pulled back, pressing out through her heels, with knees soft and inner thighs squeezing together. The lift of her back off the floor seemed more like a floating off, and the exhaling reach of arms made parallel lines with her legs.

Maybe it was the parallel lines that caught the old man's enough attention from the corner of his eye, maybe it was the breathing, it could have been the black hole of focus the young girl seemed to be falling through, but whatever it was, the old man's attention was taken out of his reverie, away from the view out the window, to gaze at the movement that was unfolding before him.

Again, the transition was seamless between exercises, on a roll back her arms came to her sides, without losing the endpoints of tension in her ankles or her metatarsals, her heels drew towards her bottom as her knees bent to take her legs in, up, and out to a level that appeared under control, but definitely heavy enough to challenge her core.

As the old man watched, he wondered where the young girl had come from, how she had learned, and who from, and naturally if it had been someone he had trained in his earlier years.  She moved well, in the classical style, making him envy her youth and the passion in her expression. 

When he turned and walked away she seemed not to notice, continuing on with expression, her breath a billows of pressure driving the movement on, just as the blacksmith's arm works the billows that brings metal to the right temperature for molding. The timing of her leg circles was flawless, each inhale engaging core first, then reaching the leg across the middle of her body to create eccentric tension, before the exhale led the way of the leg swinging around to complete the circle, with the depth of the exhale matching the load of the leg as it traveled on it's ideal path.

But this went unnoticed by the old man, who was now on his way towards the front door. Martha had been seated at the front desk, pretending to busy herself with the schedule, but eavesdropping on the interaction between the two.  She didn't even look up as the old man walked toward her, and all he said as he walked out the door was, "If she performs the entire mat, give her an appointment for next week."