Breathe
Every Pilates breath you take helps every Pilates move you make.
Breathing – we do this every second of every day and never really think about it, our body just does it automatically. Did you know the average person takes over 23 000 breaths in a day?
Breath is also huge part of Pilates. Joseph Pilates was really passionate about breath. In his book, Return to Life, he refers to breath many times. He says “to breathe correctly you must completely exhale and inhale”. He then goes on to say, “breathing is the first act of life, and the last. Our very life depends on it”. “Above all, learn how to breathe correctly.” I think that these concepts are very thought provoking and are still relevant today.
Joseph Pilates invented the pinwheel/breathacizer, a tool that could assist his clients and demonstrate the importance of breath and how to breathe. This tool teaches us how to focus on our exhale. We can replicate this piece of equipment with a simple toy pinwheel. In Pilates, we utilize it to develop deeper lung expansion and contraction awareness with breath patterns.
Everyone needs breath and without it, we cannot survive. We often spend a great deal of time working on strengthening our muscles trying to make them bigger or more flexible but have you ever thought about doing that for your lungs? Maybe it is time to show our lungs a little love.
In a Pilates lesson, I often queue the inhale and exhale. I really just want you to breath and perhaps create a different awareness or intention to your breath. In my own practice, I have found that when I bring my awareness to my breath it can really assist me in achieving movements that are challenging in my own body.
I think we all just need to breathe!
Making my ARC!
-Amy
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