Teaching students to become effective teachers
At BASI Pilates, our goal is to create teachers that are competent at teaching BASI Pilates exercises following the BASI Block System. This enables students who have completed the BASI Comprehensive program (CTTC) to slot straight into a BASI affiliate studio or general Pilates teaching.
When students have enrolled in the BASI CTTC, like most comprehensive teaching organisations, students are required to fulfil a number of student hours. In the BASI approach, we have student teaching, student observation hours and self-practice. Student teaching, allows the BASI student to bring a non-paying client to the BASI host studio (a studio where the CTTC is held) to teach the client. Usually, the BASI host studio has allocated hours for students to use the studio. Self-practice hours are logged by physically practising the exercises that are taught in the course. This can also be done at the host studio or anywhere you have access to a mat space or Pilates studio equipment. Doing private sessions with a BASI instructor also counts towards these hours.
Out of all the components of learning, I personally feel observation hours are the most important, albeit often the least favoured part of the learning process. I can only assume that if you have chosen Pilates as a possible career path, you are not someone who likes to sit still for long periods of time. This is the part of the learning process where you as the teacher trainer has the most profound impact on your students. Your every interaction with the client is being scrutinised. It is quite possible that the session you as the teacher trainer teaches to your client, is the same session that your student will teach in their practice teaching the next day. It is going to give the new student teachers the chance to start developing a good Pilates ‘eye’. Students will slowly start to ‘truly see Pilates’ and not just look at it. As we all know it is all in the details.
What I try to make clear from the beginning when I am teaching a client is that I mean business. Every time I step onto the studio floor, I am giving the performance of my life. I am not there to make small talk or get distracted by the client. Teaching Pilates is like conducting an orchestra; if there is one member (client or teacher) out of tune, then the whole performance will suffer.
The BASI Block system is a structured program that is built around an hour session (although can be adapted) and leaves very little room for anything apart from transitioning between exercises and equipment. Just like any exercise program, structure is necessary to track progress and to make sure that we have moved the body as a whole. Taking the body through all the various planes of movement and challenging the muscles in both isometric and isotonic contractions.
The longer that I have been involved in student development the more I have realised that in order for the students to get the most value from observation, I need to take the most simplistic approach possible. This means that I put a lot of emphasis on the set-up of each exercise. My mentor and teacher, Rael Isacowitz is famous for saying that the set-up is 90 percent of the success of the exercise. It is very difficult to get someone moving and then to correct them in motion. Especially when you are working with groups. If you take the time to position the client before they start moving, you will have a much higher success rate with execution and as a result muscle recruitment. I believe there have been studies that show moving in a mechanically correct manner has superior results to any type of ‘shaped’ breath or muscle focus. Before we actually start moving the client in the chosen exercise, I would advise that you take a couple of seconds to communicate the muscles focus and the objective of each exercise is. To put it simply, the muscle focus is WHAT the client should be, or is trying to feel. We know that in Pilates it might take a couple of sessions to develop muscle focus if you are not someone who has good body awareness.
The objective is, WHY are doing this particular exercise? Often the muscle focus and objective could be similar. An example could be when performing the Scooter on the Reformer, the muscle focus is the spinal flexors and spinal extensors, and the objectives are trunk stabilisation (same as the muscle focus), scapular stabilisation , knee extensor control and hip extensor control. Once the client knows the WHAT and the WHY they have some direction. It is just another aspect of teaching that is going to play to the student teachers' advantage.
With regards to the student actually practicing the Pilates repertoire themselves, I advise students to set aside at least 3-4 weekly sessions as a minimum to get the exercises in their body. We are fortunate enough to live in a time where we have so many great practice resources available. There are multiple online platforms available if you do not have immediate access to a studio. One of the most common pitfalls I come across are students not practicing under a watchful eye. There is no substitution for doing one-on-one sessions. If cost is an issue then I recommend doing a fortnightly one-on-one session rather than any group or duo session. The feedback from a one-on-one session is priceless. I believe that a regular mat class is a fantastic way to maintain Pilates fitness. My feeling is that if you are mat strong it translates very easily to the studio apparatus, but not necessarily in the reverse. Mat work has a good continuous flow that focuses heavily on muscular endurance. Studio apparatus sessions can be a bit more broken in structure as we possibly move from one apparatus to the other, as well as making time to change resistance. When you are doing self-practice you should be able to randomly pick an exercise and try to perform it using the correct set-up and breath pattern effortlessly. Learning the name of the exercises is the first step to mastery. You cannot perform an exercise in your evaluation if you do not know the name, regardless of how well you can perform the particular movement. The Pilates repertoire names can often be very confusing, for example double leg stretch, double leg kick, balance control back and control balance.
A combination of a solid self-practice and some observation hours under the belt is going to make the student teaching much more efficient. Until you have felt something in your own body it is going to be difficult to explain to someone else. Imagine trying to tell someone what chocolate tastes like if you have never had it yourself! I would try to start teaching someone I feel comfortable with. Preferably bringing someone to the studio and not an existing client. I feel that might be a bit intimidating off the bat. An initial good teaching exercise is to read straight from the book to your client/friend. You will soon get used to using Pilates terminology and not talking too much. I believe that most Pilates course material is presented in a simplified manner. Ultimately time and experience are what will make students into great teachers but adopting the attitude of a ‘forever student’ and continuing to immerse oneself into the learning process is pivotal for keeping the passion and motivation to teach Pilates alive.
Eduard is a BASI Pilates Instructor with 15 years of Pilates teaching experience. Ed has a keen interest in human movement, which started initially with the practice of martial arts. Ed has worked with a range of clients from top-tier athletes to being widely known for his expertise in BASI Pilates and is a highly accredited member of the BASI Pilates faculty.
He's travelled the world teaching Pilates courses and workshops and is Sydney’s BASI Lead Instructor. He currently teaches at Dynamic Pilates in Manly, Australia.