Menopause is a team event

Any person born with ovaries will experience a menopause transition. It’s a biological event when the ovaries stop producing eggs. Menopause is a physiological necessity for people with ovaries, however suffering is not. Recognising the symptoms of menopause, understanding variations and how to refer our clients for support can transform our teaching experience.

WE’RE ALL IN THE MENOPAUSE TEAM

Despite the absence of menopause awareness education in our initial training as a Pilates teacher there’s a chance that all of us will be teaching someone within the menopause demographic as soon as we graduate. If you don’t happen to teach anyone you’ll definitely come into contact with someone, be it the barista, your Mum, work colleague or neighbour. Let’s see if we can get an embodied sense of this subject. It’s important that we all have a sense of what we’re talking about when we discuss the menopause, whatever your gender identification or age.

Consider how much we take our ‘norm’ for granted. Our body temperature, sleep, breathing, heartbeat, our ability to walk. Imagine a sudden change to that state of being which upturns every aspect of our life, and makes us question our body, mind and emotions. If that’s a challenge try the following exercise for yourself, and notice how it makes you feel.

Choose one of your most loved, comfortable habits and upturn it - completely. Try drinking out of a DIFFERENT mug in the morning. Or maybe try sleeping on what one teacher described to me as ‘THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED’!! Reverse your walking route, take a bus to work, go backwards around your regular supermarket shop and sit somewhere else at the breakfast bar or kitchen table. Or, drastic as it might sound, teach a class wearing extra clothes which stop you from moving!!!

Choose how you are going to instigate a change in your daily life and experience the feeling. If you have joined me for Menopause Awareness training online or in person then you will know that this is the preparation I ask teachers to make, for one week. It elicits a diverse response as you may imagine. CHANGE and how we react and respond and how it feels. ‘Feeling’ is our realm as movement teachers. The menopause transition has for many years been termed ‘The Change.’ For some people it is a tumultuous and tricky rite of passage, whilst for many others it’s something they don’t seem to notice - or so they say. ‘I sailed through menopause’ is an expression I’ve heard countless times over the past 25 years. Or ‘I’ve done all that’ is another one. Have you ever considered how menopause FEELS? Whatever your personal experience working with clients in the menopause demographic demands empathy from us, the teacher. Perhaps if you are in this transition yourself you are becoming aware, or maybe you have researched this hormonal shift as we are riding a wave of new and growing interest in women’s health around the globe.

The initial map of our training which gives us our guiding principles doesn’t necessarily fit the territory we see before us once we begin our career. The outcome is continued education to know how to work with conditions and pathologies, because we are passionate about our craft and care about our work. So why has menopause not been in the mix?? How do you signpost and refer your clients who are suffering in their perimenopause? Do their issues flag up hormonal fluctuations for you? They may be in pain, confused, lacking support and not knowing what to do to ameliorate their menopause suffering, and that change of their norm can feel scary, isolating and in some cases desperate. Teachers have been in the same position, often teaching classes and hiding their hot flushes and exhaustion, or finding their own connective tissue issues are getting progressively worse despite all their movement ability. The inability to sleep, anxiety, pain, brain fog and loss of confidence can mean many teachers close up shop and decide they’re not up to the job any longer. I know I almost did, after over 20 years of running my own studio, self-employed, single Mum - Menopause almost wiped me out.

Yet this is truly a phase in life for potential growth, transformation and positive change - out of the confusion new understanding emerges. My experience is that we can work with our Menopausal clients in very creative ways, both for them and for us as teachers. During the Covid lockdowns, I began to work online in collaboration with a Menopause Dietician. Weight issues in Menopause are a genuine concern for a lot of women. Many of them are oblivious to the fact that with the menopausal loss of Estradial (Type 2 Oestrogen which is the biggest source of this hormone pre- menopause) their metabolism changes and this is why fat starts to be stored around the midsection of the body. Their muscle mass is reducing and they may develop the characteristic menopausal flat bottom and midsection tyre. Often our clients will want to do ‘tummy’ exercises in the hope that they can impact their belly fat - which as we know is a more complex issue. The fat does serve a purpose for the body in that a type of oestrogen, ‘Estrone’ (Type 3) can be made in it, but the evidence shows the potential knock risk of Type 2 Diabetes with weight gain which is an increased factor for women in the post menopause needs to be addressed. I had not considered how beneficial Pilates in conjunction with the advice of a Menopause specialist Dietician or Nutritionist could be for menopausal women struggling with weight loss. Often the women had injuries, sometimes menopause related (think muscle and joint pain) or longstanding conditions which were exacerbated by hormonal depletion. Initial consultations led to me devising appropriate exercise sequences sometimes for remedial exercise to start, and then progressing on to recordings each client could use regularly to start their exercise practice. The collaboration gave the expert input from the Dietician, and the movement protocols required to start building muscle mass and helping metabolism. This work was creative, collaborative and hugely rewarding. Connecting with Menopause specialists in your community can offer a whole new range of work for teachers which truly serves our clients and also nurtures our creative teaching possibilities. Many Menopausal women lack the confidence to go to a class or a gym but with support and guidance they can thrive. Working in this way gives an opportunity for progression and creativity in our teaching and builds more community for all.

Dinah Siman, Pilates teacher and educator lives and works in the Cotswolds, United Kingdom.  She has more than 25 years of experience working with the Menopause demographic and is passionate about raising awareness and improving education for clients and teachers. Dinah has published a book called Pilates-Based Movement for Menopause that provides evidence-based information, teaching tools, and expert insights to help Pilates instructors better understand and support clients through the diverse and often challenging stages of menopause. You can find out more here.