The Pilates Journey

Knew about Pilates for over 40 years but discovered i-Pilates from a local friend.

I had a friend and she was doing Pilates and she said it was fantastic and she's a very broken person in terms of her body. And she highly recommended it, so it just worked.

I moved into this area five years ago, which is when I started with i-Pilates. I started with i-Pilates about four years ago, I think. I tried the classes at the gym. Pilates classes. They were fine. I did a couple, they were okay. I spoke to lots of people. I think practically everyone I spoke to 'round here knew of Jen, and i-Pilates. Very positive from everybody that I spoke to about the class.

A friend of mine does Pilates and she said that Jen was doing a workshop so we went along to the workshop and I started doing a bit of Pilates. I trusted the friend, she's a good Pilates teacher in this area and I'd been to a few of her classes and I'd been to sort of a few other classes and she just spoke very highly of Jen.

I Googled “Pilates in Wheathampstead.”

A Google search. I wanted something really local as I can be easily persuaded (by myself!) not to drive out once I am home from work, particularly on dark evenings!

It was on the Web. I think it was mainly on the Web, really, that I looked. I didn't pick up a book or anything like that. And I didn't talk to anyone who'd done it. It was just doing a bit of research on my own.

I Googled Pilates and Hampstead, which is the village we live in, and I think it might have been one of the first ones to come up on my Google search. Bodyfit wasn't... what made me inquire with them is that it's seriously local to me, so it's on the golf course on which I live. The website looked funky, it looked young and funky and cool, so that probably is what attracted me to it.

YOU! It's still the reason. Even now that i live much further away and can no longer walk there. I love a small class too. It feels special and magical and personal.

As above, the friendliness of the instructor, the location of the class, the class sizes in particular as I had been to a pilates class years ago where there were about 25 women and the instructor just did the class at the front and didn't walk round to make sure everyone was doing it correctly.

I instantly liked Jen and could see she was passionate about her craft and I felt so good after each taking each class.

The quality of the classes and the individual care and attention. The fact that you registered my knee issue and remained aware of it felt very professional. The consistently high quality of the classes and the fact that you both look as if you are enjoying teaching rather than 'going through the motions'.

I felt confident that I was being taught by someone who was not only knowledgeable but cared and someone who could explain / articulate clearly 'how to do pilates'.

So, Jen always has nuggets of information. I've been surprised at how much other stuff I've learned. For example, about nutrition, and about life balance, that has surprised me how much I've learned outside of the actual Pilates. Just living in a more balanced and healthy and nutritional way. I do seem to learn lots there, and she just has a lovely approach to live. I feel like it's more like lifestyle coaching as well as Pilates.

Just as soon as I stepped into the class I could see that she just takes it very seriously. She shares with us that she's gone through other courses. I tell you the biggest thing I think for me, is that every single week she's worked out a new lesson plan. So, in the previous Pilates I've done it pretty much been the same thing week in and week out. Where as Jen has really thought through, she explains about the muscle groups that we're using and she gives the feedback about when we're doing well, or what we're doing wrong. Yeah, so she's obviously inspired by Pilates herself and she kind of is infectious in passing it on I guess.

I've been there with a particular ache or a pain, and come away without it. That's quite a thing. Hamstring problems, or whatever. If you tell Jen at the beginning of the class, she can generally guide you in the right direction. That's probably it, really. Just literally feeling stiff or whatever, and coming away feeling better.

Every time I walk out of a class, I feel that I have learned something new and my mind and energy levels are on a high - I feel like a better person.

I understood the analogies used, to know I was making the right moves and felt a benefit almost immediately.

I am doing a lot of walking and jogging and I felt it was strengthening my core and it was a completely different type of exercise that complimented my other exercises and made me stronger.

I had a private lesson which really made me feel that I would be able to cope with the classes without feeling embarrassed or out of my depth. I find Jen to be an excellent teacher and I really enjoy the class. I now no longer have any hip pain, walk without pain, and no more pain killers. Really wish the doctor would have suggested Pilates instead of painkillers!

I think for me it was about having time for myself and doing something that would help me in the future stay a bit younger, stay flexible, stay active for as long as I could. And Pilates, as far as I could see from having read about it a bit before I spotted the flyer and whatnot, was one of those things that you can do way into old age. And that will help you stay young, stay flexible, stay stable. Stay mobile, really.

More flexibility. Less visits to the chiropractor. Just general well-being as well, because I just think anything that works on the spine just gives you the real feeling of clarity and well-being. Just because I feel my clearer headed when I've been, because I feel like I've stretched everything out, and everything's moving properly.

Rolling like a ball and what else ... I mean it's just ... I think it's my stamina, my stamina is much better, my ... I want to say flexibility but my ability to do positions moves that I wasn't able to do, and that again is a challenge. The other day I did the spine stretch forward and I did it really well and I was so proud of myself but you can take that into your everyday life, can't you. So when you bend down to pick something up you don't collapse through your center, you're aware that you need to sort of come up and over and so in everyday life and you know, you can apply it but also just more challenging things I can start to do now.

The classes were welcoming, pitched at about the right level for me whilst also enabling me to improve.

The environment was welcoming, Jen reassured me that I could do it from the get go. The classes were focussed but not scary. It became my thing, time to focus on me, time to get better all helped by the fact that I didn't know anyone else there.

Once I'd had a couple of sessions in Jen's class, that was for me, and as I say, I didn't have that much spare time, if you like. Once I'd found something that really suited me I never really wanted to go anywhere else. I guess the way it made me feel. I ached afterwards, a day or two afterwards. But I was seeing some benefits.

You got a few times, obviously, you're not gonna make a decision on one session, and I think we just felt that she was... we liked her, hugely, as a person and that we just got confident over a few weeks that she was a really good teacher.

I don't get bored of it considering that I've been going for so long. I'd never think of trying a different teacher or going somewhere else. And I think that's potentially surprising to a few people that ... I think you'd find it hard to find anybody who goes regularly to Jen's classes that would want to go anywhere else and it's all down to her.

That was very simple. Attention to detail, attention to the integrity of the exercise, a very keen eye watching you do it. So that one-to-one told me a lot about the way Jen worked. And the fact that she keeps her classes relatively small as it maintains the integrity of Pilates really. I say integrity a lot because it means a lot to me.

My core has strengthened but I am also much more flexible in my upper body/ thus has come in very handy for dealing with recent surgeries.

I now have confidence in my my core (including my pelvic floor which was weak after 3 pregnancies!).

I could certainly feel the benefits myself. And it certainly helped me in my running and looking after me generally. I felt more stable, I could do things like press-ups. I could do plank, I could do various exercises. And they became easier the more we practiced them.

It is things like just being aware that you are more stable. You've got more strength to do various things like just some of the exercise Jen takes us through now, I can now do fairly, not easily. I wouldn't say it was easy. None of it ever is. But certainly with more confidence. And it certainly made me feel a lot more confident about taking on other exercises or going out more by myself, running et cetera. Because I feel fairly secure and fairly stable. For me it's more about opening up other things in life as well.

Well I'm pretty certain I'm more flexible, I'm stronger. Being flexible I think will help me in my old age, I think it will help me to keep access for longer, I think it will help to stop any, niggles that might come along the way and it will help me to continue to be stronger, or strong and avert injury doing the other sports that I like to do, namely tennis and golf. I think core strength and I think building muscle is really important now ... we now understand how important it is when we get older is that our bone density and our muscle capacity just ... you know ... I mean I'm in my early fifties now and that's why it's important to me. Just ... and the more flexible you are, you don't want to become hunched or not able to run for a bus or whatever. Yeah, I think to keep ... you know I see how inflexible my mother is for example, there's no way she could touch her toes. That's important to me, to think that when I'm seventy, or even eighty, I'm still going to be able to do a roll-down and touch my toes and have a reasonable amount of strength around my upper body and in my core.

I feel [Pilates] just holds me all together.

I think it makes you on the whole it makes you stronger. I would say it's more kind of maintenance. It's maintaining where otherwise I would be losing. It is important to maintain strength and flexibility because without it I would really struggle with more activities of daily living I think even. I wouldn't, I think it would effect my health. It's really important.

[I can now] run around my crazy life at breakneck speed with no niggles, aches and pains. I feel strong (well unless Jen has made me stand on one leg for an hour!) and getting stronger.

Over the last few years, Pilates has become harder for me due to knee and arthritis issues but I seem to be better at the single and double leg stretches.

I've not had a recurrence of back spasms as yet. Living in a pub with low ceilings and ducking 25 times a day. I feel more flexible most of the time.

I do feel that I've had less back pain since I've been doing Pilates every week. Pilates generally has definitely made me less stiff, and feel better.

Just generally, the knee pain, I haven't had anything for two or three years. My lower back is great. I don't have any issues with that. I just know that it's the right thing for me, Pilates.

Touch my toes and press up on my knees. It’s a positive start.

Get out of bed without feeling stiff in the morning!

I am much more aware of my own body, am better able to address the weak points and am appreciative of how important core strength is to my daily living/movement. It’s enabled me to avoid frequent visits to my osteopath!

I'm absolutely certain it has prevented me injury. Like, pulling calf muscles and things like that because you're stretching and working those muscles and I think it's only when you don't do that that you are more prone to hurting yourself when you're doing other activities.

Well, let's just say that my body is deteriorating over time and I can still do quite a few things. What I can't do is more what I'm concerned with, for instance, I can't do a lunge. But I can do most other things. And I maintain being able to do that much, which is really important to me.

I got really annoying arthritis in the bottom of my spine, L5, S1 area. I started to get, oh God what's that thing again? I get double sided sciatica sometimes. That's for like twelve to fourteen weeks. And the only thing that relieves it is Pilates. When I come out of Pilates, for two days it's fine. I can go to a physio or an osteo and I'm fine for a day or two and then it starts up again, but I'd much rather go to Pilates 'cause that's what to do anyway.

Why it's important to you to be more mobile? Well, because I'm getting older and the last thing I want to be is not able to live an active life. That's, you know, that's the reason. I want to- You wake up- Well, getting older is no joke, it's not very pleasant in some ways, particularly if you've been sort of quite active and doing this and doing that over the years and your body is sort of like going against you a bit. So I think that it's really important to be able to maintain the fluidity of my body as much as I can, even though I have cranky joints.

I don't feel stiff when I get out of bed in the morning. I was beginning to feel a bit old. When you hit your 50's you suddenly realize your body's just not working as well as it did. And I've found that since I started with Jen I just feel like I'm, I'm still definitely getting older but, actually I just feel like it keeps that stiffness and sort of old age feeling at bay.

Well, it makes me feel more positive about myself. It makes me feel like I'm looking after myself and particularly with my bit of arthritis, that I'm keeping myself flexible which is a really positive thing about managing getting older really. And just maintaining some flexibility.