What Pilates Really Is: An Interview with Kathi Ross-Nash

www.americanbodytech.com

Imagine a method of exercise that uses special equipment with strange springs and pulleys and look like beds, chairs or even a guillotine. Dancers swear by it and use it as their side training, and the creator of the method is very often found teaching in his boxer shorts half naked. Then it becomes slightly known and starts moving away from the especially created equipment, and suddenly it looks a bit like yoga, a bit like Feldenkrais, or physical therapy. Everyone thinks this form of exercise is some sort of slow stretching for women that focuses on the “pelvic floor”.

This was the situation when Pilates was not as widely known as it is today. Enter Kathi Ross-Nash. She is currently one of the most globally acknowledged instructors, she has worked with Joe Pilates’ disciples who gave her the original work in order to spread the word about this amazing method. She came out with a bang with her highly energetic and super strong workouts, combined with a vast knowledge that she has chosen to share. In my opinion she is one of the reasons why Pilates has become globally popular and loved, and recently she visited Greece for the first time in order to teach a workshop at “Kinaesthesis” (http://www.kinaesthesis.eu/) studio and I had the honor to meet her and find out more about this great figure in the world of Pilates.

Joe Pilates, the creator of the method, age 57

“I used to have a body like Jell-o! I was hypermobile, no control, no strength, and I couldn’t even do one push-up!”

Having seen her videos online I find this hard to believe, but Kathi started out as a dancer, which suited her naturally flexible body. She claims that if she had just stuck with dance she most probably would have been crippled by now. Pilates taught her how to contain her body, connect her graceful dancer’s arms to her back, and get a stronger core. Being flexible and hyper mobile might look good in Instagram photos, but it can be harmful and potentially dangerous, and Pilates has given her such strength and control that now her joints can’t go back to that range. “I see all these people doing high bridges, and swans, and backbends. These are not backbends, these are chest openers, front-body openers!” Kathi is a strong advocate of the original method, where all of the exercises aim at circulation rather than compression. All Pilates exercises aim at providing length and space in the body, and Kathi makes sure to emphasise this both in her teaching and her training. She has trained high school football players who all ended up playing college football without ever having to lift a weight. They hate and love Pilates at the same time because she has shown them a wider spectrum than what Pilates was first associated with. “Once I went in to train a high school wrestling team. The first thing I asked them, since they were doubtful about me being a woman, was to get in the push up position: wrong, wrong, wrong! [pointing and yelling] That’s not a push up! I had to earn their respect and get them moving and that’s what I did. You have to expose people to it in a right way. The Chicago Football team, they all love Pilates! They’re afraid of it, but they love it!”

Kathi in Greece, June 2016

Apart from showing us the “athletic”, more dynamic side of Pilates, Kathi has also worked in cases of serious injuries, and some of the recoveries she describes are hard to believe: “One of my clients came to me in her late 50’s, after being in a full-body cast for a year due to a car accident. She had a shattered pelvis, knee, shoulder, ankle, clavicle, and a deteriorated hip. She wanted to ride horses and now in her 70’s she can ride horses and do jumping jacks!” Kathi works around the injury, she sees what the body can do and starts from there. Pilates is not about fixing an injury, it’s about doing a safe and effective workout while nursing an injury. And then what also happens is that the injury heals itself.

Kathi and Theodora in Greece, 2016

“Pilates can challenge the most crazy of athletes, and increase the quality of life of the most delicate creatures”.

Her work proves this statement, and her stories are plenty. She recently put her knowledge of the method in an almost 400 page book called The Red Thread, the result of years of research and training. “Every exercise in the method connects with the other. The spine moves in all sorts of directions and Pilates has it all. Extension, rotation, flexion, and each exercise can be broken down so that the intention is not lost, and so everybody can do it”. She travels around the world to give workshops and training programs, and she most often is in heels even while teaching. “It’s best to wear different heel heights during the day” she advises “Your posture is more upwards and forward, and we avoid slouching and resting on a tilted pelvis”. Kathi manages to look fabulous while owning a vast knowledge of the method. Her grace, strength and energy make her the embodiment of all the principles that Pilates advocates. Her advice to anyone who hasn’t come to contact with Pilates yet “Just do it!”.

Kathi’s studio American Body Tech is located in New Jersey. www.americanbodytech.com

This post was originally published in Greek for the Huffington Post Greece on June 15th 2016 http://www.huffingtonpost.gr/theodora-magkou/-_6066_b_10455420.html?utm_hp_ref=greece

Theodora Magkou has been a Pilates Instructor since 2003. She started off as a Psychology major and she is a proud London School of Economics alumnus with an MSc in Social Psychology. Her mission is to debunk false Pilates stereotypes and spread the word that Pilates Works! Currently working in Athens, Greece at Nicki Petroulaki’s Power House Project.