The “Fix Me” Problem and Pilates
Jeremy: So, this conversation is about this what you're calling the “fix me” problem. Can you say a little bit about what that means?
Cara: I think of it as a two-way dynamic that happens between the client and the Pilates teacher. It might start with the client, or it might start with the teacher. But it's this thing that begins very early on in the session, where you ask, “How are you? How's your body?” Or maybe you don't even ask, but the client comes in and starts to tell you about all the things they believe or have been told are wrong with their body. And when it comes from the client end, there's this immediate anxiety for the Pilates teacher of: Okay, I now need to be trying to solve this problem.
But it also comes from us, right? Perhaps there was an expectation in our teacher training program that we're supposed to assess somebody's posture, somebody's patterns. And the client receives from the teacher the message that there is something wrong with them.
Jeremy: It’s also true in physical therapy—there’s this implicit notion that if you're in pain, you could get out of pain by, like, fixing some imbalance. There’s this idea that you're going to get all your parts aligned and everything's going to be taken care of. Which is not really where the benefits of things like physical therapy or Pilates lie.
Cara: By no means am I saying that people in the Pilates industry shouldn't know how to make good choices for clients with, you know, a hip replacement or shoulder arthritis. But are you trying to fix those things? Or are you giving this person a good experience so they have more confidence in movement and more strength and more flexibility and all those things? And the question is, then: What is really happening in a Pilates session for the client? What makes people feel so good? Is it that they learn that their pelvis is crooked? Probably not.
Jeremy: Pilates is exercise, for starters, which we know is good for people. And with painful conditions, there can be sort of a downward spiral of pain and inactivity or pain and fear around activity that makes everything worse. So, if people find their way into the Pilates studio and that becomes their way back into moving and feeling like their body is capable, then that could be a path back to wellness.
So, if we return to that moment of, you know, the client comes in and they have a list of things that are “wrong” with them—that's a tough moment. I find that, if people are bringing things to me that I think are probably not relevant, there’s a little bit of a needle you have to thread where you have to make space for the things they're saying and still maintain your own perspective to move forward. I teach the worst Pilates sessions when I get sucked into that very narrow focus. Where I'm like, “Okay, well, you said your pelvis is uneven.” It's not even that I would try to fix it, but I might spend a lot of time working on that that area of concern or the area of discomfort. I have to stop myself and say, “Don't fall for that.” Right? Take a wider view because that’s more likely to be successful, is what I've learned.
Cara: 100%. When we get sucked into people's narrative—and we know this from the pain science research—we start spotlighting all their issues and they are a lot less likely to feel better. We are going to do much better by drawing them into attending to things that they can control, manage, and discover as opposed to poking away at these “fix me” issues.
I would argue that the reason people feel better after their Pilates session is not because they did some magical movement. Yes, they moved, and exercise makes you feel better. They also maybe did something they didn't think they could do. That's a real win. They stopped obsessing on everything else that was on their mind that was causing them anxiety and grief. That attentional training is massively important. I feel like teachers sometimes miss the opportunity to cultivate the things that we're really good at, which is supporting people in discovery and in finding more agency over their body, more self-efficacy.
Jeremy: You and I have talked a lot about how unsustainable it is as a Pilates teacher to be put in this position of having to “fix” people. And one of the advantages of our clients starting to feel less broken, let's say, but also less dependent on us for constant feedback is that they develop more self-efficacy, as you just said. And that’s also more sustainable for the teacher, right? Not having to fix things, but also not having to constantly comment on everything or to constantly correct.
Cara: Yeah. I can guarantee you that every single teacher is more exhausted and has less success when they're stuck in that that “fix me” pattern with somebody. Because we don't know why that person's outer shin is hurting or they feel a little bit of something over on their left shoulder. We don't know, and we're searching around and creating this sort of neurotic thing for ourselves and for the client.
That, and the sense that you have to constantly be correcting people, constantly talking, I think, is why the burnout level is so high. It's so hard to teach six clients a day like that. It’s really curious to me how early on, in my classical teacher training, I was taught to just correct people immediately alongside teaching them the choreography. Like, here's what you do. No. Don't do it that way. Put this here, do this; oh, but don't do it that way.
And what we know is that if you want somebody to actually learn, that's not a very good approach. You need to give people space and time. They need to flail. And this is where Kathy Grant was a very different teacher than what goes on today.
She sat on a stool, and we all had our program, and we came into the room and we practiced. And she would come around and give you feedback and give you new exercises, but it was never the case that she was talking to you the whole time. And I think we could use Kathy's way as a model and give ourselves more space, give our clients more space to find things, to ask questions. But I think there's a lot of pressure to constantly give feedback.
Jeremy: It can be very hard to tolerate that flailing because as Pilates teachers I think we’re conditioned to rate our own success based on how well the client is performing the exercise. I think the constant correcting is also reflective of an attitude in Pilates that if you don't do a movement just so, you're more likely to get hurt.
Cara: This is a huge problem. The whole danger messaging around, like: No. No. No. Your foot has to be aligned with your knee or whatever. The way we end up teaching creates a feeling that something is going to go wrong. And people feel more fragile, and they already feel so fragile in this world.
So, the question is, what else could you do if you're not trying to be an expert about all these things, or you're not trying to fix people, or you don't feel like you have to correct them all the time? What else would you do?
Jeremy: One thing that you and I have talked about is can we change the conversation by not starting with questions like “How's your body?” all the time. Maybe, instead, “What do you want to work on today?” Questions that can help steer us away from the sort of corrective mindset.
Cara: So beyond just listening to the client tell you about their crookedness or whatever, the question back to them is, “Is there something you'd like to be better at, or you'd like to do more confidently?” There's something we can work on. Our expertise is really about paving the way for people to take ownership. But we also have to let people find their way. It's like being, what what'd you call it? A cruise director?
Jeremy: I think I was calling it, like, a tour guide. Like, if you're taking somebody on a hike that you've been on before, you can't do the hike for them, but you can say, “Oh, here it’s really steep. If you need to rest, we could stop and rest.” Or “Oh, there's this really great view here. Let’s make sure to check that out.” Or “Hey, as we’re coming down, you might find it easier to come down sideways and not straight down.” Right? Because you’ve had the experience before, with lots of other people. So, you have an idea of what is helpful.
Cara: That is exactly why people come to you. That is exactly why people send you the notes they send you, the texts they send you—the gratitude they give you is because you were a great tour guide. But if you get caught in the “fix me” with someone, that client you will eventually want to get rid of. Because you never get out on the trail. You’re in the parking lot the whole time.
Cara Reeser is based in New York City and has been a Pilates Teacher for 30 years. In 2014, She and Jeremy Laverdure founded Movement Science Made Simple, a continuing education program for Pilates teachers.
Jeremy Laverdure is a physical therapist based in New York City and has been teaching Pilates since 2002. In 2014, he and Cara Reeser founded Movement Science Made Simple, a continuing education program for Pilates teachers.