Keeping Focus

Alright so Halloween has passed but that means Thanksgiving is around the corner and what will you cook? Hmm. And then you have to start shopping for holiday gifts, and there is a friend's kid's school play you must attend, plus laundry, bills, the market, and so on! This time of year can feel stressful and pull you in countless directions. Perhaps even creeping into your thoughts while teaching. To revamp your teaching style and keep you present in the moment, try recording one of your teaching sessions. When you play it back, listen for the cues you might say too often. Then try to find a new way of expressing that cue: brainstorm with fellow teachers, pay attention in your self-workouts to how your muscles feel or to how you think of activating them and find new words to say that to your clients. And it is no surprise that clients walk into their session distracted too. Your new cueing may help them forget their outside life for those 55 minutes. If that doesn't work, I always love asking them to pick one of the 6 principals of Pilates and to focus on that element through that session and I gently remind them from time to time to return to that principal in their minds.