Getting back to basics with Pilates is kind of the point of Pilates. When we show up to our sessions, we want to check back into our bodies, to connect the body and mind more consciously (pro tip: they’re always connected; it’s our awareness that shifts).
Personally, the part of Pilates that triggers that most directly and easily is the breath.
I’ve had more than one person tell me that they were bad at breathing. That is not a thing. Anybody who is not dead is doing a perfectly adequate job of breathing. So we’re all starting from a place of success.
There are two exercises that, for me, facilitate connection to the breath most and they’re both really simple and accessible. One is the pelvic clock. To do it, we lie on our backs (hooray!) with our knees bent and our heels lined up with our sit bones. As we exhale, we tilt the pelvis gently toward our belly buttons. Then, when we inhale, we tilt toward our pubic bones. There are further progressions of the exercise (tilting side to side and making circles), but this basic movement takes the natural motion of the spine as we breathe and slightly exaggerates it. What I mean by that is that our spines naturally flex a little as we exhale and extend as we inhale. We make conscious what happens without our even knowing it.
In a similar way, arm arcs do the same thing in a different part of the spine. To do them, we start in the same position as for pelvic clock with our arms down at our sides. As we inhale, we raise our arms overhead. Then we lower them as we exhale. This exaggerates what is called the “pump handle” motion of breathing. As we inhale, the spine extends and the sternum rises like an old fashioned pump handle. The exhale lowers the sternum, pumping out the breath.
Bringing attention to the way our breath moves our bodies and our bodies move our breath is a quick route to mindful movement.
