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LA GRAZIA ” LA REALE IMPORTANZA DEL “SEMPLICE E FACILE” ” LA GRAZIA ” LA REALE IMPORTANZA DEL “SEMPLICE E FACILE”.
– Javier Perez Pont

(This article is dedicated to the participants of the Pilates Stage in Paris – April 2015. I have to thank Philippe Taupin for the invitation)

Today, due to the numerous types of “Pilates” that the market offers, and to the folklore of the strangest and most egotistical names, a huge dispute has arisen as to which one is the most convincing and which one attracts the largest number of followers. This confusion is the result of today’s marketing, under which “everything is possible”!

All this has made Joe Pilates’ famous phrase: “less is more” become obsolete. For this reason, the training, in most cases, is based on the philosophy, ethics and proposals of this doctrine, whose benefits are visible both from the physical and mental point of view.

In recent years, a research has been conducted on the dualism between the choreographic aspect of the system and the main purpose of Contrology.

In our days, probably due to a lack of knowledge of the life and person of Joe Pilates, we have allowed Contrology (in all its forms) to become, in part, the marketing of the cult of the body. From here, the current situation, the simplification and the amplification of Contrology, and of the true intentions of Joe Pilates.

There are an infinite number of methods and systems that help human beings to improve the quality of their own lives. Here is an important question: why do we think we are different from others? And then another even more important question, what really differentiates us from other “Pilates”?

We have not been trained only to recite mere sequences of exercises, nor have we taught exercises from “files”, nor have we allowed ourselves to modify the exercises or to give advanced exercises to particularly gifted clients… The trainer must EDUCATE and teach responsibility towards ourselves first of all, and towards human beings in general.

What can we say about our professional obligation and the example we should be for others…?

Vorrei tanto parlare dell’ “EDUCAZIONE”, della responsabilità, della disciplina, del protocollo in generale, “del bene”, “del bene comune”,

of the improvement, of the order, of the indivisibility between body and spirit,

The “ethical categories” mentioned are dedicated to the common thought, they are very clear in their scopes and they should also be so in our professional context. They are important and distinguish us from other “Pilates”. Applying them is our professional responsibility, as it is our responsibility to transmit them to the students/clients of our studio.

Before starting, I would like to remind you of the three words (the Trinity) that our teacher Romana Kryzanowska loved to pronounce, in the 90’s, before starting any training: Honesty, Respect and Work.

It is good to remember these words (the heritage of Joe Pilates) because they are the pillars of a good teacher (the heritage of Joe Pilates). These pilasters are those who remind us that ours is an artisan work and these same pilasters place us, as teachers, in this great heritage.

Trusting in what we have taught as correct, perfect and complete, it is our obligation and duty to grasp this knowledge through practice and will.

For this we must only sit in a public place and observe and meditate.

We serve “the people”, as Joe Pilates also did from one of the windows of his studio on Ottawa Avenue, or as Romana Kryzanowska also advised us to do.

Observing the way in which people move, walk, perform their most simple actions, the result cannot but be different from the example that Joe Pilates saw from his own window. Unfortunately it has been a long time that the human being; either by ignorance, or by abitude or pigrisy; is degrading and destroying his own body from the physical and spiritual point of view. (It is enough to read the first book of Joe Pilates, to render an account, published in 1934, in which he describes a society practically the same as ours).

Una domanda: ma questo degrado è limitato all’aspetto fisico, o tocca la salute?

The primary goal of Joe Pilates is to help improve the individual from all points of view, thus an improvement of the human race at 360 degrees: from the psycho-physical characteristics, to its socio-cultural abtitudes.

By analyzing a Contrology session, the various parts of which it is composed can be evidenced.

Therefore, the trainee must know how to choose the right sequence of exercises, which respects a proper order, this depends on his own knowledge and his own experience. (And I return to the three key words, the Trinity: Respect, Work, Honesty in relation to what we have learned from the method).

Then theintensity of the exercises, which is adapted to the person in question.

Finally, the most important, theobjective of the lesson, and the objectives that we set for the following lessons, always considering the typology and problems of the body that we are training.

In summary we consider:
1- the exercises contained in the sequence, 2- the system chosen for each person, 3- the final objective of the work, which must go beyond the simple execution of the study training sequence.

We must deal with the beginning of the lesson, the last point or the final objective of the lesson.

We have a duty in the face of our allies, the duty is that of starting a path that brings them well-being, that improves the quality of their lives, and that makes the tasks of daily life simpler to perform. In a word: to restore and maintain the Dignity of the human being.

To have “Dignity” is not enough the body, but also an attitude that gives us confidence in the daily life, with this intention the bearing, the posture, the walk. Contrology was created for this: to help and prepare people in the understanding of daily actions.

Our work as teachers, in the sense of “teaching something to someone”, is, in our case, teaching the control itself, with the help of the method and its ethical values. This work consists in bringing the concepts and philosophies of our teaching to ourselves and to others (rule number one of the social protocol). It is in this precise moment that we pass from the training to the real and lasting change of the practitioner.

It is therefore, after this general analysis, that we testify the need of a real training. We must not use the Control as a

simple tool “to save our bread”, but to make the practitioner feel responsible, giving him/her the means to achieve the objective of Control: grace and control of his/her own body, physical well-being and improvement of personal and social responsibilities.

The weapons are not, as you might think, the exercises contained in the choreography, the weapons are the concepts, the message, the ethical values of Contrology.

As Joe Pilates said “grace is to move, grace is to compete the daily actions of life every day, with the dignity that a human being must have”.

What is this ” Grazia “?

Secondo Joe: ” Good posture can be successfully acquired only when the entire mechanism of the body is under perfect control. Graceful carriage follows as a matter of course. So too is the proper functioning of your own body the direct result of the assembled Contrology exercises that produce a harmonious structure… ” (“A good posture can be successfully acquired only when the body’s internal mechanics are under perfect control. Grace comes as a consequence. Just as the correct functioning of one’s own body is the direct result of the Control that produces a harmonic structure…”).

And how do we achieve this last objective? With the eredità and what I call the second Trinity: the right, the good and the beautiful.

These three concepts must never be separated and one cannot exist without the other, according to Joe Pilates, grace is born from the link between the right, the good and the beautiful.

The “Correct” is: to follow the rules of the structure of one’s own body according to the laws of physics, biology and especially of the anatomy of any practitioner. Most of these laws have been violated since childhood due to lack of information, responsibility and discipline. The “Correct” understood as control of movement and body, in almost certain cases, is difficult and requires different time to be understood.

“The Good”: it is similar to the Correct. The body and the spirit appreciate the return to the normal functioning of the being. The “right” must be good by nature.

“The beauty is the result of the two previous concepts, but not only. A Contrology teacher must recognize the beauty of the movement correctly followed in all the activities of life. It is for this reason that some time ago we said that the Contrology sequence goes beyond the training in the studio.

To conclude, our aim will be to teach all the people, all the people and not the clients, to move in an effective and graceful way also in daily actions.

Javier Pérez Pont Barcelona, spring 2015