*******NEW PILATES COURSE February 16th 2016

[R. Devane]

We're delighted to be able to have the first ever PILATES Course at M.A.I. and we're even more delighted that future brown belt Laura Dolan is running it. Sure to be great for core work = all over body strength & flexibility.

Check it out here:


www.martialartsinc.com/2016/maiPILATES2016.pdf

[Deleted]

She's mega eager and mega excited.. And that's when she's training in a group class! Laura is a master of positivity(just add her on Facebook:)). She's qualified and knows what she's doing. Her plan and preparation is great and she's eager to get results. We've had plenty of our members signed up for it and it will be worth their wile! Roll on Tuesday!

[dkidd]

Good luck with the course Laura and enjoy guys.

[R. Devane]

Heard it started great - any blogs going?

[Shelly]

You know when your buddy suggests something to you and you think, yeah, sure g'wan so I'll do that. How hard can it be right? Type Pilates into google images search and you will lots and lots of women, smiling whilst holding what look like simple positions like below

Look at that happy fecker! I can barely tie me shoelace and she's got her hands around her feet. Not touching them, but around them. That's just showing off. I can tell you now, they are not smiling. They are grimacing. Those positions are anything but simple.

Also for some reason I keep rearranging the letters and expected to rock into the dojo and find everyone looking like this

A 6 weeks pilates course with Laura kicked off on Tuesday. A nice crowd of fellow victims lined up with me. I brought my running buddy with me. I had convinced him that Pilates was great for the core which is necessary for running.. He still isn't talking to me. I assume when he gets the feeling back in his abdomen he will.

We started off with some warm up stuff, easy enough right. She told us how to breath which is important. So important I had to remind myself of this half way through the class when I forgot to exhale.

Belly in, bum down, push your bum into the ground is all I can hear. I'm not quite sure how that is supposed to work.

So far so good, no planks. Did I mention how I hate the planks. Laura is loving the fact that we are all crying inside and cracks a few jokes. I throw a dirty look her way which she does not appreciate and moves onto something that was used in Guantanamo Bay after waterboarding didn't work out. The 100s. No its now binge watching a season of the 100, its some sort of horrific ab workout. You roll yourself up like some sort of bendy thing and then pump the arms. That's the offical description of it.

Engage the core, bum down, naval in is all I can hear from our lovely instructor. She mentioned something about ice cream but I can't remember it because my brain was trying to engage the core. All I was doing was enraging the core as opposed to engaging.

Right that's over with, surely it will easier now, a glance at the clock indicated we were half way through. Hurray!

She added in some sits up. That is supposed to look like this

But I was a complete different letter of the alphabet. And it looked nothing like above. Its really hard!

Then she said plank

But wait, I was in the whole spirit of, okay so its a plank, we do them in other classes, its grand. THEN she said move your leg up and down. Whilst planking? Like WHAT? Remind me to unfriend her after this class. If I can still move.

Push-ups with a difference, what's the difference I hear you ask? Well you need to come down and do the course. Your abs will thank you for it, honestly

We finished with 894372323 rounds of abs. Because you know we hadn't worked that area of the body. At all. Thanks Laura, see ya next week.

[laura]

Now my abs are in bits - from laughing at this!!!

[MadsJ]

10/10 memes and write up. Would read again

But yeah, It was a great class, and was genuinely surprised by it. Personally, I have the habit of forgetting my lower back when doing my workouts. Pilates seems like a really great way to strengthen your whole core in general, really. Also, I liked Laura, she seemed really energetic, knowledgeable and very outgoing. Good traits for an instructor

[R. Devane]

ha ha it sounds great. Sounds super beneficial to all martial artists. I'm going to be glued to this thread - keep it up everyone

[Shelly]

An example of the conversation I had with my pilates buddy who happens to be a boy. And yes before you ask I love to wear a batman suit to class.

Second class! Totally motivated for this, weather is nice, mood improved. Let's do this! The nervous energy of the first class seems to have been replaced by a Cheers like atmosphere where we all stop short of calling Laura Norm

She makes my day by saying instead of abs we are going to work our ankles. I was interested to see how exactly this was going to pan out but hey if we left the abs alone I am all for it. Turns out she was trolling us.

She decides to pander to our egos by telling us how we're all making progress, at least that's what I heard. From the ice cream statement of last week, I'm not so sure I am hearing things correctly. Off we go. Pilate pushups. I remember these, these I can do. Oh wait, she said what now? Three of them? Instead of one? Progression me ass.

Then she went off and did this

Me

Superman! I can do Superman, I LOVE Superman. There was this

Point toes

More belly button pushing in, engaging the ass, engaging the core, going to my happy place.

This is my happy place, a very different kind of Superman

Next we work the hamstrings. Leg up in the air and swing back. I look up at Laura to see what she's doing.

We attempt to stand up

It can't get any more difficult, can it? But wait, what about the legs. Let's work them and off she goes again.

Me not really getting the pose

Finally it was nearly the end of the class and Laura decided to do a move that made my die of mortification. Seriously, I can't google image it for fear I'll get fired but to sum it up. You sit on the ground, knees bent and you push your hips up towards the ceiling. Wait for it, engage the ass. THEN she tells us to pulse. Like my face must have been like a beacon it was so red. I refused to look at anyone. I felt like I needed to buy everyone dinner by the end of it.

We finished with ankle work. Oh I'm joking. Abs of course, ABS

Me today. Thanks Laura!

[dkidd]

Hehe brilliant as usual Shelly.

[clickhere]

Ah, the mysterious world of pilates.

I was lucky enough to be able to recover from the first couple of installments of the new pilates course by fecking off on holidays. So, when I got back, I was all set to be a graceful, strong and supple pilates student.

Here, my return is illustrated mostly by pandas.

Starting with some focused, gentle sit-ups.

Wait, you want us to do what??!

Like this, surely:

Nailed it.

Totally got this.

What do we call this manoeuvre..?

Thankfully, it was soon time for leg-raises. Which means time for a little lie-down.

Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack.

And lift. ... Maybe.

Strangely, what should look like this:

Somehow always ends up looking more like this:

Still, though, if the abs-olute agony of the next day is anything to go by, progress is definitely being made!

Annnnnnd... stretch.

[Shelly]

It doesn't get any easier. I was full of the joys heading into the dojo

Apparently today's lesson involved things that go well together. Ben and Jerry's. Wine and cheese, a pint and a cigerette or so she's been told. Laura wasn't fooling us. She was trying to distract us from the pain that was about to follow. What else goes really well together. Cardio and pilates. Did you miss them heading into the Ark?

Two sets. TWO sets of stuff. I was too busy sulking and pouting to really follow but this was one of the moves.

then this

Meanwhile at the back of the class there's me.

Laura persevered.

Pushups! I can do these. Wait, how many? TWICE

Finally Laura assumed to what I now refer to as the Hoff pose.

Me at the end of class.

My kind of pilates

I won't make the last class next week to holidays. I have to say I really enjoyed the course. I'm not a pilates person, you can probably tell from the pics. I like to punch and kick things. But this was a great workout for the core we keep hearing so much about. The course had a great balance of easy and hard and plain crazy. Laura kept us entertained with jokes whilst we tried to get our legs into positions only a gymnast could get away with. She was also very patient as we huffed and puffed our way through every 45 minutes.