Useful image for Pilates

One thing that I (and, apparently, many Pilates novices) struggle with is that when I am exerting effort with my body I tend to focus my movements and efforts in my upper body: throwing back my head, raising my shoulders, throwing out my ribs. That response is not merely unhelpful, it’s counterproductive: in most of the exercises in which I do this, I should be keeping my spine flat, not arched backward, and the upper body should be more relaxes, being carried along.

Yesterday I was listening to my instructor conducting a class for two other students—I had arrived early—and she was talking about focusing one’s weight and effort away from the upper body, and suddenly I had an image of a bowling ball nested in my pelvis. The image alone immediately made me consciously of my lower-body weight and musculature, the wrappings of muscle that constitute the core.

When my own session started, I kept this image in mind and returned to it repeatedly when my attention drifted and I started to arch my upper body: I would focus again on the bowling ball weight in my pelvis and use that as the anchor and center of my effort and movement.

It seemed to work. The instructor repeatedly said I was doing the exercises with the best form I have shown so far. I did tell her at the end of the lesson the image I was using, which she liked—indeed, she said she’d be using that one. So I offer it for your own consideration.