(This is written in reflection)
The First Weekend
Day 1: Pilates Foundations and Mat Part 1
Day 2: Mat Part 2
Day 1: Pilates Foundations and Mat Part 1
So I failed, I did not successfully finish the advance preparatory assignments, which include a few quizzes, assignments (written) and then watching the videos online. Club Pilates uses Canvas, an online education platform that is used by like more well-known education institutes like Stanford Business School, Juilliard School of Music, and University of California Irvine (UCI). Plus 8 of the top 20 online education programs, such as those offered by Penn State, Ohio State, Oregon State, U of F (Florida).
Side note: One of the ways UCI used Canvas: a free research/education project around The Walking Dead (the show). https://www.canvaslms.com/news/press-releases/twd-mooc-results
As a result, Canvas can be pretty overwhelming for some people. It is super capable. Fortunately, I am not one of them. I have always been pretty tech savvy. As a result, my position as Education Coordinator has been adjusted to be primarily related to getting folks set up on Canvas for Teacher Training, as well as owners, our Master Trainers, and other collaborators. I also helped oversee our v2 launch of the Teacher Training courses in early December (2017). This is the current version of the online training materials (as of Feb 2018). As a result, I “know” Canvas really well.
However, it was interesting to go into Canvas with my personal email address to complete the assignments. My only other experience with “student” accounts utilize my fake student accounts: using Harry Potter and Arnold Schwarzenegger personas or the Canvas “view as student” setting. My fake instructor account is named after Hermione Granger.
Side Bar: When I was testing a few aspects of Canvas early on, I was using the fake Arnold Schwarzenegger account. There are a few emails that triggered by students’ activities that are automatically sent by Canvas to the instructors of the course. As a result, our Master Trainers got an email that basically said “Arnold Schwarzenegger completed the History of Pilates quiz.” This erupted laughter and excitement. I had to revise my test accounts to be Fake Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fake Harry Potter, and Fake Hermione Granger as a result. Sad. =(
I finished 2 assignments (the super short and easy ones) and then watched about 8-10 videos before I had to eat and then leave for the Club Pilates Laguna Niguel studio.
I thought my drive was long, but one of my fellow Teacher Training Participants (TTP or TTPs) is commuting from Calabasas because the timing and “semi-location” of the Laguna Niguel training works best for her. (In the map below, Calabasas city center is red, Club Pilates corporate office is in yellow (I live within 3 miles from the office), Laguna Niguel city center is green.)
The folks in our Education Department have extensive Pilates background and one of my team mates/members asked how this weekend went and we talked about how she had to drive hours to get to her Pilates training sessions like my fellow TTP. It was not that long ago that there were only a few major Pilates instruction programs and they were not necessarily easy accessible (cost, travel costs, opportunity costs, etc).
Honestly, I am not sure I would have embarked on this Pilates Teacher Training program if I had to drive more than an hour one-way to get the training and either then pay for a nearby hotel or drive all the way back. I’m just that spoiled by being in southern CA.
But my Master Trainer(s) live(s) in San Diego and she commutes about 2 hours on the way up and 90 minutes on the way home because she has a young child and husband at home. However, I would imagine it’s easier to drive the distance when you’re getting paid to do so, versus paying and driving far. (How do people from northern CA drive down for Disneyland?)
Anyhoo, switching back to the day, while unprepared for the first day (according to the email I got from my Master Trainer and Canvas), I was fortunately able to “keep up” in my learning. (I was able to learn how to teach the exercises covered, but I was not able to do all of the movements/exercises fully. More on that later.)
So, I watch Grey’s Anatomy and the way they depict how medical students/doctors learn at teaching hospitals during internship and residency is: read/research, see one, do one, teach one. So a intern would read or research about a procedure or condition in textbooks, journals, online, etc, then see the procedure performed, then perform the procedure at the next opportunity, then be able to teach a peer or newer intern how to perform the procedure. (Although, I imagine the order is more “read or research about a procedure or condition in textbooks, journals, online, etc, then see the procedure performed, >>assist in the procedure, << then perform the procedure at the next opportunity, then be able to teach a peer or newer intern how to perform the procedure.” But either way, it’s a very “throw you into the water and you better start swimming” type of teaching style.
Pilates instructor/Teacher Training is similar. If the in-studio training sessions continue in this manner, the Club Pilates Teacher Training is intended for the TTP/trainee to read the material online on Canvas, then watch the videos – taking notes in advance of the in-studio training session. Then in person, the Master Trainer (MT) will demonstrate or lead the group through the exercise(s). Footnote 1. Then the MT will either lead the group through the exercise(s) again, but slower or faster Footnote 2 so that the TTPs can take notes on the cueing (verbal directions). Then TTPs pair up and teach each other (learning from how each other cues and help when something is forgotten or misspoken).
The first time, me and my fellow trainees were paired up to teach one another, it was terrifying for a split second. Side note, I think I am more nervous and terrified to snowboard for the first time each season than I was to teach the Pilates exercises/movements. But everyone in the room was nervous at the same time at least.
Unfortunately but also fortunately, I am by far the least capable Pilates do-er in the room, other than our lead Master Trainer who is currently pregnant. By the way, when you are pregnant, once you are past a certain point, you cannot do Mat Pilates as you cannot be supine or on your back (that’s a word I learned to get familiar with over the weekend, supine). When we move onto the Reformer, I would imagine, she may be able to participate in the mini-training spurts with modifications. But overall, I am definitely the least flexible and the most out of shape.
I had a CPA job (doing corporate taxes) for 6 years on and off. So that was a lot of hours sitting behind a desk. My role as Education Coordinator is also a desk job. Then on a typical day, I go home and veg aka couch potato it. I have hunger based impulse control. Once I crave something, I have to have it. I’ve been taste buds-wise, pregnant since I was 22 basically and I have been pregnant with a pizza/fried chicken/thai food/peruvian food/Chick-Fil-A/mexican food….mmmmm street tacos/shrimp/yummy bread and etc food baby for the last 9, going on 10 years. This has led to about 40 pounds gained. I am not sure if this next part is a good or bad thing, but when I gain weight, 85% of it goes to my stomach/spare tire area, the remaining 15% is spread semi-evenly with the rest of my body. As a result, from the back and if I’m holding something that blocks my stomach for the most part, folks will be all “no, you’re not fat!”. But in silhouette or if I wear clothes that are now too small for me but I refuse to buy bigger clothes (except for a few staples out of necessity), then you can see what looks like a “baby bump”. As a result, lots of people think I’m pregnant. I want to get a cartoon of a taco or pizza slice in a diaper with a rattle that I can get printed on a piece of fabric that I can just safety pin to my top. [[Idea jinx: I said it first, so if you do it, I better get a bunch of these for free.]]
When we learned about pelvic rocks, a tactical and visual cue is to take your fingers, position them into a triangle and put your hands on your pelvic bone. When your spine is in neutral position, your thumbs and index fingers should be in the same plane (straight up and down) if you look down. <<THAT IS IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A BELLY IN THE WAY>> So for all of my lovely friends that like to tell me I’m not fat, you’re lying! To set the record straight, my definition of fat is “fatter than I honestly should be based on my past due to bad decisions”. If that does not fit your situation and someone calls you fat or you think you are fat, then you are not fat. You are something else. Most of y’all, are self-under-assessors. Basically, you do not think highly enough of yourself. Stop it. The rest have a medical problem, go get it checked out.
Getting back to me, I could not see my thumbs or my index fingers in that lesson about pelvic rocks. What are pelvic rocks? It is when you tilt your pelvic bone which helps elongate your spine (forces your spine to spread itself longer, which provides space and by movement, nutrients and food to your vertebrae = this is one great way for me to fight my scoliosis and for others to combat future possible osteoporosis (I think, I am assuming). The motion of pelvic rocks is used a lot throughout Pilates. Pelvic rocks are when you do just the tilting intentionally and isolated.
But my lazy cumulative state of health is bad for me, but good for my fellow trainees because I am a lot closer to the average Pilates client (at least in the beginning) than they are. Many are former athletes (like real athletes, not like my “have enough people to not forfeit” athleticism) and much more experienced Pilates practitioners. So they were able to do many of the Pilates movements/exercises we were learning which was great for me to see in person, but that makes it harder to relate to their potential and hypothetical client when they are training to become instructors.
Part of my blog will include a log of my transformation. I hope to get myself back into a healthier and leaner state. I should have taken the videos and photos for the before last week, but I forgot slash procrastinated. I’ll try to get this done within the next day or two.
But after finishing the first day of in-studio training, which is essentially 4 hours of working out spread out over 6ish hours aka 400% more than I usually do in a week perhaps month, I was exhausted and famished. I drove back home, picked up z h Footnote 3 and we went to go get Pho Footnote 4, because that is what my food baby wanted. I then had food coma and crashed/fell asleep.
Footnote 1: I assume, Master Trainers when not pregnant may demonstrate the move first. Our Master Trainer could not so we were led through the exercises in class format. We will have a different Master Trainer this weekend and I am pretty sure she is not pregnant, so we will see if the in-studio training format changes.
Footnote 2: Sometimes it is better to be led or see a movement/exercise being taught slower to get the components of the cueing separated enough for understanding; sometimes, it is better to go faster so you can see the movement/exercise in aggregate/big picture for understanding.
Footnote 3: z h is how I refer to my husband. I am married. z h = the husband. I also may refer to him or other people as boogers in the future. Boogers or booger is both a term of endearment as well as term of reduction/negative emotional label.
Footnote 4: Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup that is super awesome. High in salt though, the places with really good Pho tend to use MSG. So take that with a grain of itself. (Pho is pronounced fə or the first syllable of phonetic. See this syllabic breakdown of the word: pho·net·ic) Pho typically induces major food coma for me. I watched a youtube video where a sleep research doctor/scientist at Stanford says food coma is not a thing, that you are just overall tired when you experience food coma. I disagree due to my anecdotal evidence aka my life. I have had days where I woke up after sleeping 10+ hours naturally, then ate and then had food coma thus ending up taking a nap. Sleep apparently does not take days when you sleep in and credit that toward past sleep loss or future sleep loss. Apparently, to combat a sleepless night, a short nap and/or just sleeping what is sufficient number hours of sleep the next night is best. Oversleeping is not advised.
Nonetheless, I bid thee farewell with my recap of the first day of in-studio training. Day 2 will likely come tomorrow.
TTFN (ta ta for now – Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh)
– moPilates, moshin, meatworld