YOU WILL DO THE SAME PILATES EXERCISES THAT YOU KNOW AND LOVE!
YOU WILL ENJOY LEARNING ABOUT YOU – BONES – MUSCLES- ORGANS!
YOU WILL BE TAUGHT WITH IMAGERY THAT IS FUNCTIONAL – HOW THE BODY REALLY WORKS!
Pat Guyton and Rende Brockwell are both teachers of Pilates. Between us we have over 40 years of experience teaching Pilates. In 2008, Eric Franklin, author of many books including Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery and the author and originator of the Franklin Method Teacher Training visited our studio to do a series of workshops. We both enjoyed the experience and saw the obvious applications of the Franklin Method within our practice. Eric’s visit evolved into Pat Guyton Pilates becoming a host studio for the Franklin Method Pilates Teacher Training. And both Pat and Rende are students and teachers of the Franklin Method.
What is the Franklin Method? It is not a lineage of Pilates based on one of the First Generation Pilates Teachers.
It is an anatomical education that uses imagery, drawings, toys, and bone models to assistant student knowledge about how the body really works. The information is presented in a student centered environment. We want our students to know enough information to practice Pilates with greater understanding. We do not provide written tests at the end of an hour! Although our students do accumulate a great deal anatomical information, they want Pilates and they and they want to do it better. The exercise list looks just like a traditional Pilates class. The exercises do not change, the information provided increases performance, motivation, and healthy function that can be applied to daily life.
How does this help you?
Our experience with the Franklin Method is that our clients are excited to be given information about the body in simple language that they can understand. An example is the basic Franklin Method Pelvic Power class that has become a fundamental part of every student introductory class. Pilates teachers talk about the core in movement but this can be vague unless there is a mutual understanding between teacher and student about the exact communication of the anatomy focus of the day. One of my elite athletes told me that her prior experience with Pilates education was “abdominals, abdominals and more abdominals”. When asked where her hip joints were located, she pointed to her greater trochanter. I asked her if it might be helpful to understand where hip joints were located for running and how they mediated between the core and the legs. She looked at me with that “Are you kidding?” look and was hooked. People with low back pain are often told they have SI joint problems, but they do not know where the sacral iliac joint is and they do not know why certain exercises might be good and others might be done with more care.
Helping these students mentioned above and many others is why the Franklin Method and Pilates work with harmony in the studio. The only difficulty that may be encountered is when the entire staff has not made the commitment to functional movement education and student centered teaching, the students are frustrated. It is hard to reflect back to former cues that were taught to us by our teachers. Some of these cues are not true and they sound like chalk on a blackboard. Now that is an image that we all know and do not want in our bodies.