as originally posted on matt mernagh‘s blog but it bears reposting: [incidentally matt is a marijuana activist who has found cannabis to be the only useful pain reliever for his fibromyalgia.  i believe it also makes it easier for him to move at all but i’m not a doctor and my opinion is just that, an opinion]

The best Christmas gift I received last year was an Ugly Duckling Pilates session. With my Rosedale pilates instructor Angela Barsotti’s assistance I’m feeling mostly fantastic. Sans fibromyalgia flare ups, scoliolsis pain and recovered shattered shoulder grief. Tonight (Thursday, Dec. 2) on Sex Matters, Angela will be discussing Sex, Breath and the Pelvic Floor. A topic she recently taught at Come As You Are.

Pilates for sexual health!

Our friendly and encouraging Toronto pilates classes opened me to new fibromyalgia insight this week. It wasn’t even something I did. Watching Angela teach a classmate to adjust her muscle instincts had a light bulb go off in my head many days later. My classmate really had to think about the pilates routine because her muscles were instinctively doing something different. She even made the squirrely face when the muscles did it wrong, but she was working hard trying to do it right.

My classmates face was exactly what it’s like having fibromyalgia – sending the instructor’s signal to the muscle only to get the trained response or worst no response at all. Hello muscles, this the operator, ‘Yah, we’d like you to do something other than send out pain signals.’ There are days when I really have to think about what is asked of me. The last few weeks it’s been a real challenge to do pilates, but I’m doing my routines to the best of my ability.

Is it that difficult to breathe out my back? Apparently so! With Angela’s pilates coaching we have developed a half dozen routines of just breathing out my back. They seem simple, but the key is to really have a specific muscle flex. It’s her knowledge and dedication to bad spines that has greatly improved mine, but Angela’s knows so much more. She’s also asked me to breathe out my testicles. Let’s just say Angela’s pilates coaching is unique to everyone. And I highly recommend it.

She’s suitable for broken bodies and finessed ones too.

Look at my results. Slowing developing abs to help hold me upright, improved spine flexibility (better posture) and an ability to rip the Volcano Vaporizer something fierce. Learning to breathe was probably the best thing I did this year. Makes performing nightly meditations very easy. These were all goals we set at our first meeting. And I have to say we’ve accomplished them all. That’s because I do the homework. Even on days when my body is not responding at all from fibromyalgia, I still do 10 – 20 minutes of easy pilates moves…even it is just breath focus.

Seeing how pilates has improved my volcano vaporizer hits, I’m going to use Ugly Duckling Pilates instruction in 2011 to amp up my sexual health to pay-per-view levels.

[matt and clients like him inspire me every single day.  every single day.]