Pilates with Love

By Mika Midolo 

It’s the month of love, Valentine’s is upon us, show love to your partner, your family and friends. But most importantly you need to show love to yourself, your heart, your health and your mentality. We’re in the midst of the pandemic and we’re staying home and away from the people we love. It’s important that we stay physically and mentally fit.

I was sent an article from one of our Pure Energy Fitness fam, and it was about Joseph Pilates helping others out during the Spanish Flu. It was so interesting and I wanted to share it with you. It was 1918, and the Spanish Flu was sweeping the world, killing as many as 50 million people. Joseph Pilates was interned in a camp during World War 1. He was trying to relieve boredom and keep his fellow inmates fit by prescribing a sequence of exercises. His comrades and he noticed that even as the Spanish flu took over Europe, his comrades, using his routine, stayed healthy. He took this knowledge claim when he immigrated to the US and applied it to those he taught. Here is what Pilates really is, it’s a system of exercises designed to improve physical, muscular strength, flexibility and posture and enhance mental awareness. It’s a mind, body core connection exercise, where you have to practice concentration, centering, control, breathing and precision.   

​As you know I teach Pilates and have been a Pilates lover for almost 20 years… it’s helped me through my surgeries, my births, my mentality and overall physical health especially with my lungs. Pilates is complete coordination of body, mind and spirit connection and breathing is so important in Pilates and in every form of exercise. Breathing is so important because it increases oxygen levels in the blood. To quote Joseph Pilates “Breathing is the first act of life and the last. Our very life depends on it.” You must breathe in deeply filling your lungs to capacity, and exhale deeply, wringing all the air out of your lungs. And at the same time as you’re breathing and performing the movements, really connect and think about them. The rule of thumb for breathing in Pilates is exhale during bending and inhale during stretching, straightening of the torso and coming back to center.
 
Stay safe my friends, stay healthy, and let’s move together with love. And in the words of Joseph Pilates “Change happens through movement and movement heals”