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verb (without object)

to inhale.

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it means a lot of things but that’s the meat of it.

i love that the word for breath (inspiration and expiration or inhalation and exhalation as you wish) and the word for illumination are the same word.  one meaning involves divine inspiration and has a religious connotation to it but that is certainly not the only one or the most important to me.

i think about the moments in a class or a private, on a mat or a machine, in mid conversation or exercise when the client and i have a moment of perfect understanding.  when their face lights up because finally i have allowed them to grasp a difficult concept or? even better?  i get that weird niggling thing they’ve been trying to explain to me.

there’s this almost audible *click* and moment of perfect understanding as another layer of the onion reveals itself.  every session with someone reveals another piece of the crazy puzzle that is their unique body, their particular pain matrix or balance problem.

i see this onion in myself every time i work with myself or another teacher works on me.  there is always a moment of understanding, a little click of  “oh! that’s how it works” and then a deepened understanding of the crazy rhythms of my own body.

i’ve never seen two bodies that are the same you know?  not once.  i’ve seen bodies that remind me of my own, of other clients, of joe pilates himself;  bodies that want so much to be well and aren’t, bodies that wish their owners would pay more attention, bodies that try *so* hard, bodies with eyes so wounded by pain that i want to weep.

all i can do is try my very best and learn as much as i can.

it’s a terrifying responsibility.  to try to take a body that hurts and rebalance it such that it can support it’s injuries and hold it’s head up.  bodies that are in pain are usually so frightened and tight that you first have to teach them to trust you before you can teach them to let go.

i am so grateful that i was as injured as i was, without that i don’t believe i could do this.  of course i wouldn’t have found this without that accident but nonetheless, there it is.  the act of choosing this path by my third ever pilates lesson has had an enormous effect on my teaching style and focus.  i don’t do it quite like anyone else that i know.

so, somehow i found myself in a place where people look to me for guidance.  for help on the path as it were.  so i try to shine a little on the road for them and help them own their bodies.  your body might fail you but if you learn to hear it you will own it for as long as you can.

a lady once told me that pilates class felt like an oil change and thus transformed me.  your body is the most beautiful machine you will ever own and it is amazing how few people choose to maintain them!  suddenly my perspective was changed.  it is amazing how often that happens.

somehow, somehow i have become a light in some people’s lives.  not all of my clients, not only my clients.  just somehow, somehow people are finding inspiration in my journey.  somehow my path through pain and crawling up the stairs to go to the bathroom has cause other folk to change their lives.

one of my oldest friends watched pilates transform me from an overweight (235) and shuffling body that took about thity five minutes to walk from yonge and bloor to yonge and wellesley (about twelve minutes) to one that steadily improved and stood taller every day. he knew who i had been before the accident and he saw me start to return to her self.

so, a year later, when i started to teach (too fast too fast, oh the hubris!) he was my first ever guinea pig.  i made him promise to show up and he said that watching me had made that into a no brainer.  over the years more of my friends have become clients and some of my clients have become friends.  each of them makes me feel so honoured whenever they choose to walk through my door and allow me to express my craft.

i started inspiring people with pilates before i even started to teach it.  i’m not sure how it happened, how i became this assured and confident teacher with a ridiculous amount of passion for her craft.  i’m not sure how it happened…

but i like it.