Pink Star Pilates
HELEN MURPHY & NICK PELLING investigate the P word
We should admit something: we thought Pilates was just another variant of yoga, probably a branch of transcendental PE first inscribed on palm leaves by a flexible Brahman eleven thousand years ago. We were so wrong. In fact, Pilates was created by a twentieth-century German ex-boxer – Joseph Pilates – who became a prisoner of war in a British camp during the Great War. Whilst interned he developed a system of exercise that kept him in incredible shape. Inspired by this, and the fact that we are feeling a bit decrepit – knees not working and weird foot-swelling issue – we decided to give it a go and so we enrolled in an introductory class.
TRAINING WITH THE QUEEN
To be honest, we struck lucky. Our teacher was Claire Mason, from Pink Star Pilates in St Leonards, and she proved to be a brilliant tutor. We spoke to her after our last class to see how she got into the highly toned world of Pilates. She said that it all started when she fell over about fifteen years ago and broke her arm. The rehabilitation programme involved Pilates and she was smitten. She then undertook training in London under the guidance of a woman that The Times has called “the Queen of Pilates”, Lynne Robinson.
As a teacher, Claire manages to be both quite precise but also sensitive to individual weaknesses or health issues. She took us through all the basics, carefully explaining that posture and breathing come first but also that the exercises gradually develop core strength. It’s not really about feeling the burn, more about getting your spine and your muscular system to mesh together. The key is not masochistic agony but listening to your body. Turns out bodies have a lot to say.
ROLLING AND UNROLLING
You don’t need a lot of equipment: a mat is enough, and Claire provides them if you don’t have one of your own. She is very good at demonstrating each move, many of which have memorable names like ‘the Cobra’, and then she will offer you little bits of advice as you attempt to become a human reptile. Actually, ‘the Cobra’ and ‘the Cat’ are extremely good at rolling and unrolling your vertebrae, and after class you can genuinely feel your body in a different sort of way. Bits of you that you don’t normally use are brought into the moves.
Claire is keen to point out that Pilates is not about losing weight: it is not a fat-burning sort of exercise. And it’s not about spiritual enlightenment. It doesn’t come with all that mystical baggage. It’s much more focused on the body as a piece of complex engineering that needs regular attention – little and often.
A WHOLE NEW BODY?
She does admit that you can become a little obsessed with it. Her partner says she sometimes becomes the “posture police” – keen to critique anyone and everyone’s bodily composure. It’s certainly easy to see how you can become obsessed with Pilates. Joseph Pilates claimed that “in ten sessions you will feel the difference, in twenty you will see the difference and in thirty you will have a whole new body.” We don’t seem to have whole new bodies just yet, but it is certainly true that it boosts your mood, and to be honest we have only done four classes so far – so maybe we just need to be patient.
What we can say is that Claire is a wonderful teacher, mixing good humour with a sharp focus on the overall aim. Perhaps the biggest compliment we can give is that we have signed up for more sessions, en route to bodily perfection.
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