Pilates principles. Concentration.

Concentration

“Study carefully and do slowly the foundation work,” Joe wrote once, in his characteristic Pilatean diction. “Follow directions exactly, with respect to every detail given.”

You have to concentrate on what you’re doing. All the time. And you must concentrate on your entire body.

This is not something you’ll be able to do when you start, because it’s harder than you think. Once you begin really to pay attention to your body, you will find that a movement which may have seemed simple is actually quite complex.

Here’s an experiment you can do now:

Put your right hand at your side, straight out from the shoulder, with your fingers pointed. Bend your elbow and touch the tip of your forefinger to your nose.

Now, do it again, concentrating on what is happening to your arm. Does your elbow drop or rise as you move your hand? Do you turn your wrist? At what point? When you’re touching your nose with your forefinger, what is the position of your other fingers?

What about your head? Was it straight or tilted? Chin up, down, or level? Did you turn it as you moved your hand and arm? What were you looking at?

Now do it with both arms at once. Ask yourself the same questions. Do it again, paying enough attention to be able to answer all the questions as you do the movement.

That’s a lot to think about, and we haven’t even begun to talk about the position of your chest and back and stomach and legs and how they’re affected by what you’ve been doing.

The first thing you’ll learn, doing the Pilates method, is that the position and movement of every part of your body is interrelated and important. When you’re walking, how you place your foot both influences and is affected by the way you hold your head.

Concentrating on your whole body at once as it performs complicated movements is a formidable challenge, but it is a skill that will come to you, a step at a time, as you pursue the Pilates Method. And once you have it, you will find that it’s a remarkably valuable resource: an aid to both work and relaxation, and they key to an effortless fusion of mind and body.