Pilates method: Fluidness and isolation

Two mechanic principles of body movement, oppose but complementary, give the body its immense gesture range, from the finest mobility until strength and agility: Joint mobilization and stabilization.

The body is a nerve-muscular-bone system: The first two adjectives refer to muscle contraction and gesture control; and the third one, to the complex articulation and mobilization of the skeleton, the structure that would really allow movement. Without bones and joints, our gesture would seem like the shake of a Jelly.

An action of precision like writing or painting has to be considered in three dimensions: Apparently you only move one part of your body (in this case the hand). But actually, it is the total coordination of this set: The whole body is active, from the ground support until the other extremity in movement. Even though, some parts do not seem to move, they have the essential role of supporters of the movement of other parts. Abets example of this are golfer players.

A prepared body is the one that has developed a perfect adequacy with the need of the actions to perform, a high control of its capacity to deform itself (mobility) and to resist deformation (stabilization). This particularly concerns to the spinal cord, this important piece of the skeleton that involves many joints and possibilities.

The Pilates method integrates all this in two principles that are found in each exercise:

- Movement fluidness: The movements are performed while moving; they are not positions like in Yoga.

- Joint isolation: this do not necessarily means loosing the holistic focus, since we can emphasize the mobility of just one joint or more when the rest of the body is actively stabilized, keeping a true relationship of all the parts. In Pilates technique, the parts of the body that have no movement in space, have the same and even more consideration than the ones that move.

The strength and originality of the method, is among other things, having conceived a numerous series of exercise that focus simultaneously or successively these two principles, making us to reorganize our body in all the dimensions we have seen lines above.
Its project is literally building a harmonic body, developing its balance, consciousness, coordination excellence, adaptation capacity, flexibility and strength; which make it a really complete method.

In addition to this, the step-by-step and conscious performance of these exercises allows learning economy of the gesture for the numerous repetitions. The method avoids joint stress and turns out to be more effective and safer. In a nutshell: a perfect body education, from the gestures of daily life until the most complex and demanding gesture of a professional sportsperson and an artist.