The Grace
” THE GRACE ” THE VERY IMPORTANCE OF THE SIMPLE AND THE EASY
– Javier Pérez Pont
Today, with all the “Pilates” on the market, the madness of names and egos in the market, there has been a “giant competition” to see who can offer the most and convince the largest number of followers. Intentional confusion is the end result of today’s “anything goes” marketing.
Of course, because of all this and because we have forgotten the famous phrase that Joe Pilates loved so much, “less is more”, it has resulted in teaching, in the vast majority of cases, has been to the detriment of the philosophy, ethics and purposes of this spiritual discipline, in the form of physical and mental discipline.
We have spent the last few years at the mercy and pursuit of the choreographic part of the system versus the legitimate purpose of Contrology.
In contemporary times, also out of ignorance of Joe Pilates’ own life and personality, we have let Contrology, (and I am talking about the thousands and thousands of versions of the Pilates method), become nothing more and nothing less than a very famous “patch” in the marketing of body cultivation.
And hence the current situation, the vulgarization and simplification of Contrology and the real purposes of Joe Pilates.
There are an infinite number of methods and systems that promise to help human beings in general to improve their quality of life. A serious question then arises: What is supposed to make us different from other systems? And then an even more serious question arises: What really makes us different from other “Pilates”?
We have not been trained as teachers to deliver only exercises, nor exercises from the “archives”, nor modified, advanced or gifted exercises… we are here to teach EDUCATION and responsibility with ourselves, with our descendants and with the human being. And what to say about our professional obligation and example and guide for the others?
I would like to talk about EDUCATION, responsibility, discipline, protocol in general, of “the good”, of “the common good”, of improvement, of order, of not separating the body as a separate entity from the rest, mind, spirit, soul, etc,; of creativity, of strength, of talent, of constancy, of duty…….. ethical categories, that although confusing if thought in a general or generic way, become clear in their intentionality in our professional context, and that are very important and that should distinguish us from the rest of “the Pilates”. And apply it not only to our professional responsibility but also to our obligation to transmit it to the students/clients of our Studio.
And before we start, remember the words of our teacher Romana Kryzanowska, who used to advise this Trinity of Values to her students in the 1990s at the beginning of the Teachers’ Program:
Humility, Respect and Work.
And to remember them, because they are the pillars of an authentic and good teacher, heir to the legacy of Joe Pilates. And these pillars are the ones that make us remember our craft, to place ourselves in the place that corresponds to us in this legacy. And it is our obligation and duty, and with the confidence that what we have learned is correct, perfect and finished, to understand with practice and will this colossal inherited legacy.
All we have to do is sit in a public place, observe and meditate.
Let’s watch “the people”, as Joe Pilates himself used to do from one of the two windows of his Eighth Avenue Studio, always upset about it, or as Romana Kryzanowska herself advised us to do.
Observe how they move, walk, perform the simplest tasks that we can imagine, and the result is not more encouraging than the “disaster” that our teacher described in the interviews. The human being, unfortunately, due to ignorance, habits and tradition in the philosophy of laziness, continues on the path of physical, psychological and spiritual deterioration since time immemorial, (just read also his first book published in 1934 where he describes a society that is no different from the present).
And all this lack, is it only a lack at the physical physical level or also a non-existent basic and minimum education on the functioning and maintenance of Health?
After all, following the personal wishes and purposes of the creator of Contrology, it was to help improve the individual in all its aspects: the improvement of the human race and its social characteristic.
When analyzing a private Contrology session, it is made up of several parts: on the one hand, we must make a selection as technically correct as possible, depending on our knowledge and experience (I return to the previous Trinity of Respect, Work and Humility towards what has been learned) of a choreography or selection of continuous exercises and in a certain order; secondly, the intensity of the same also adapted to the subject in question, and thirdly, and most importantly the final “Intentionality” of the class, and of future classes with a particular individual.
In short, I am talking about the choreographic content in particular, the chosen Systems adapted to each case and the last part, in my opinion, what makes the difference, which is the final Intentionality of a work that should go beyond the hour of training. Let us dedicate ourselves to this last desirable aspect of our purposes.
We have the duty to deliver to our clients a work that brings welfare, improvement and quality of life, in order to develop the daily tasks of a human being, which are ultimately to move and develop in any task in which we strive. To recover or maintain the Dignity as an individual being and of our species.
To do this we need not only a body, but an attitude and a disposition to be proud of in our endeavor. Contrology was created for this, to help play a fundamental role in the preparation and prevention of our being to undertake this task.
Our job as educators, which means to educate others in “something”, and this something in our case is Contrology itself, is that with the help of the method and its ethical values, we bring the concepts, philosophy and values of the same in our teaching and that these ethical values and responsibility to oneself and to others (rule number one of the social protocol) transcend that hour of training for real and lasting change in the practitioner of the method.
And it is here, after this general analysis where the real need for a real “education” arises. We must use Contrology, not as a mere tool “to earn our bread”, but with a further purpose: to create responsibility in the practitioner and give him the weapons to achieve the objectives of Contrology. Namely: “Grace” and control of one’s own body, physical well-being and improve our personal and social responsibility.
And these “weapons” are not, as they are mistakenly believed to be in the choreography, they are in the concepts, in the “message”, in the ethical values of Contrology.
At the end of the day, and very briefly and generalizing, how does Joe Pilates himself define it? As “The grace to move, develop, prevent and perform the daily tasks of life with the dignity that would correspond to a human being”.
And, what is this “Grace”?
To quote Joe again, in his words: “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….”
And how is this final purpose achieved? With the inherited technical legacy and through what I call the Second Trinity: the Right, the Good and the Beautiful coincide at the same vertex.
The three concepts should not be separated, in fact one does not exist without the other and the result of their union is the Grace that Joe Pilates talks about.
“The right thing to do is nothing more or less than to follow the rules of the structure of your own body according to the laws of physics, biology and the particular anatomy of each practitioner. Most of these laws have been violated from the earliest childhood due to a deficient or null education in this respect added later to a lack of responsibility over oneself and discipline (I speak in a generalized way and not to particular aspects). The Right thing takes in some cases a long time to return to understand, to move and to control oneself one’s own human mechanism.
“The Good” coincides with the right because simply the body and mind, and why not “the spirit”, “appreciate” this return to the “normal” functionality of one’s being. Something that is “right” must be “good” by nature.
“The Beautiful” is the result of the two previous categories, but not only that. A teacher of Contrology must recognize the Beauty in the movement of the actions correctly executed in any daily task of the individual. For this reason, “the class” must go beyond the hour of training in a room or studio.
In the end, our purpose should be to teach our “student”, not client, to move through the basic activities of life efficiently and with “The Grace” that we all recognize and admire in each other.
Javier Pérez Pont
Barcelona, spring 2015