Community Pilates Classes?
I market my classes as “Community Pilates Classes” - but what does that mean?
Last year I did some career coaching and as part of that process I had to try and identify my ‘core values’ - the things that drive me and that are most important to me in my work. Some of the suggested words are everything from ‘honesty’ to ‘stability…autonomy…happiness’. One that I put in my top three was ‘community’. I think it’s a word a lot of us have lost touch with and it wasn’t until I moved to Walthamstow that I encountered neighbours who actually would stop in the street for a chat, people who would check-in, feed the cat, take in a parcel left on the doorstep… Perhaps these things aren’t unusual outside of London, but they certainly were new to me!
Around the same time as I was doing this coaching, I went to a talk on mycology (yes, I’m that kind of nerd!) by best-selling writer and mycologist, Merlin Sheldrake. He spoke about how many fungi rely on a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria. The fungi in turn has a symbiotic relationship with a tree, the forest needs the tree, and the world needs the forest. The metaphor felt pretty obvious to me and since then I’ve been trying to think of myself as a tiny bacteria - not important in itself (barely visible, even!) but essential to that fungi for its life, which in turn is essential to its tree partner for the sharing of nutrients and information, and so on into the world. This really helped me feel a sense of connection and importance in a world where I had often felt like just a marble in a pin-ball machine bouncing erratically from place to place and using huge amounts of energy to try and ‘win’ (or survive for the longest possible time before falling through the hole at the bottom).
Me with some mushrooms!
But what does Community mean in the context of a Pilates class?
It means that I choose local venues to host my classes in, that are unintimidating spaces for people who are new to Pilates or don’t feel super confident in traditional gym environments.
If clients miss a class, or I haven’t seen a regular for a little while, I will personally email them to check in and make sure that they are ok.
It means that there are low income spaces available for all of the classes that I sell through my own website, just email me and pay what you can afford with a minimum of £5.
And it means that I have worked hard (and been super lucky!) to attract clients that want to be part of a community - not just show up, do class, and go home. My clients chat before and after class, get to know each other and really help me to create a welcoming and supportive environment for everyone.
One of my core motivations for teaching Pilates is to help you move freely and give your body whatever it needs for you to feel empowered to move through your day confidently and without pain. I believe that this is something that should be available to everyone no matter their background, and I want my classes to be somewhere people not only feel safe, but find friends and get to know their neighbours. This is what I mean by Community.