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I've often been asked if I am a master teacher.
I respond by saying that if a master teacher
is a teacher who teaches other teachers,
then yes, I am a master teacher.
I'm starting to see that a true quality of a master teacher
is the clarity of their point of view. Are they a master
of their material? And to that extent, they influence the clarity
in others.
If not paranoia, then what? Projection? And how does that ever come out? Can you tell? Or is it just easier when you are looking into the spotlight. I can see why it would be hard to give up the stage in regards to giving up looking into lights, but I can see how it is even harder to perform when there are no bright lights to look into.
the more you are challenged in the physical world, the less you get to start out with, the loss of what you once had...when it's not so easy to actually do the mat, that's when you most need to understand pilates in your mind. The more you understand pilates in your mind the better it comes out of the body. The spirit listening to what you sense when you apply what you know, gives you greater control.
It's all about me, I am the center of (my) the universe.
If it's all about me, and every body is that way, how does all about me, end up mattering to all about you? (sartre deja vous)
There's a lot of competition in the world of it's all about me.
How can I get all about me to matter to you? I guess if all about me is really only all about you, so what about the all about me matters to the all about me in you? (why vanity, of course!)
Pilates comes from a man's name, Joseph Hubertus Pilates. What we call Pilates, he called Contrology, and defined Contrology as the complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit. The historical film, photos, and writings of Joseph Pilates document a specific sequence of exercises. Joseph Pilates writes that Contrology develops the body uniformly. According to Michael Miller, to get uniform development requires uniform usage. So, uniform usage, or fluorescence, becomes the target of the method. The reason why we want uniform usage is because of gravity. When we have uniform usage we swim like a fish in an ocean of air. To get uniform usage requires alignment. Alignment is perceptable via tension. It takes two endpoints to create tension and trigger fluorescence.
Joseph Pilates taught more than a tradition; he taught an idea. The idea can be understood by these three things, directly from Joseph Pilates--the sequence, the definition, and the promise.
Michael Miller defines the idea as: uniform eccentric loading flowing through progressive patterns of movement. Uniform means whole body, eccentric means moving out from center, loading means weight bearing, and the progressive patterns of movement are flexion, extension, side bending, rotation, and torsion.
The value of understanding the idea is two fold: it explains the tradition, and it frees you to creatively intrepret the tradition and still be teaching Pilates.
"I believe in your stance that Pilates is now an Idea. Once, it was one particular man's passion for movement and control. Now, Pilates is everyone's interpretation of that man's work. It drives me crazy that people will create exercises and call it Pilates when it has nothing to do with Contrology or Joe, except for the fact that they are exploiting the equipment he designed.
What I like about your approach is that you've dug up as much history as possible to understand how Joe thought and worked. Then you added some scientific terminology to explain the work. It is very empowering to look at Pilates through "The Idea." It really does make sense.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me. I look forward to doing more work with you.
Fluorescently Yours~ "
