Please watch the video below for some prep work that you can do to be ready to walk into your Test Out with confidence. Also, read the article below for some tips on how to transition from being a student to being an instructor.
BECOMING A TEACHER INSTEAD OF A TECHNICIAN
by Casey Marie Herdt
You are at a point in the work where it is time to step out of the student role a bit and dive into the rewarding job of being a teacher. Not that the learning ever really stops, but it is essential to go through a change in dynamics not only to have a successful test out, but also to be a successful teacher.
When you were a new student, there was a lot of information to sort through. You were memorizing sequences, breath cycles, and repetitions—not to mention all of the body fundamentals that it takes to perform these exercises with proficiency. You were looking to your manual to answer your questions, and you relied heavily on your observations with us and elsewhere to get a sense of the landscape. In experimenting with the work in your own body, and in bringing your friends and family through the repertoire, you were laying the groundwork on which you have built a foundation of education. Bravo and well done! But now, to truly excel, you not only need to know the technical aspect of the work, but more importantly, it is vital to understand how this translates and changes when it is being digested by an actual client.
A new body with no prior experience in this type of movement, and with abounding pain and compensatory patterns, is a much different dynamic than teaching the peers with whom you’ve gone through certification. Even the exercises in your beginner sequence may be too much for such a client. The Hundreds, even when they are broken down into Fifties or Thirties, can be inappropriate. And at this moment you have a choice. You can either stay a technician and move to the next exercise in the book, or you can become a teacher in the truest sense of the word and begin to explore the “how and why” of the movement.
Pilates is a highly specialized, dynamic, and adaptive platform with which to move. And teaching it well takes a very dedicated, focused person: one who truly wants to change and affect lives, who must step outside the paradigm of the written word, and who can start really looking at the bodies in front of them. Here—in these moments of “Why doesn’t this exercise work for this person?”—is a golden opportunity for expansion. And it is your job as a facilitator to guide your client to their true movement. And it really might not look like your own movement or the pictures in the book, and that is perfectly acceptable and encouraged. Bodies and psyches are as diverse as the number of people on this planet.
The trick of teaching is to resist shoving every body into the same box. It doesn’t work. As a teacher, you are in charge of helping your clients find new potential within themselves, and speaking to them as the individual they are. The cues that you give will be direct, and will speak to exactly what their body needs from moment to moment. Who cares if it’s the 6-8 reps that the books say to do? That isn’t the point. The conversation should be unique to your client’s set of circumstances. Within the same exercise, you will notice that in each different person you teach, you will learn something new and the skills built will be different for each one. The true mark of a great teacher and leader is to have all of the technical smarts and capabilities at the ready, and the wise discernment of how and when to use them.
Teaching in this way takes more skill, empathy, and stick-to-itiveness. It takes an exploring mind, a creative personality, and an expansive heart. The choice is there to be more than a technician. The rewards are bountiful to those who rise to that challenge. This isn’t just about fitness. This is about sharing the tools for wellness.