It is easy to get out into the Pilates teaching world and fall into the routine of going into a studio, training clients, leaving the studio and back again. Trying to build your clientele or having those back to back days of a full schedule. It can almost feel like “Groundhog Day”  as you feel like your repeating the day over and over each week. How do you as a Teacher stay in touch with the work?

If you are new to teaching you probably feel like you don’t know enough about Pilates. If you have been teaching a while you probably feel like you are on automatic pilot, you have the same cues and the same tactile touch. How can you stay in touch with the work?

You know the saying the grass is always greener on the other side? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if New Teachers and Experienced Teachers could borrow from each other? It reminds me of those of us with curly hair wanting that shiny straight hair and those with straight hair saying they want those curls!

I remember as a new Teacher watching my friend who was a dancer and had been teaching for years do her beautiful extensions on the Ladder or Cadillac and so wanting to be able to do that while she said she wanted to do the Pull-ups in Hanging Spread Eagle. We both wanted something the other had or could do. So, we worked together and helped each other to find it for ourselves.

New Teachers have this excitement for the work and for the opportunities that await them. They are hungry to teach, take any clients they can but they are also nervous, feeling overwhelmed and maybe not as confident in the work or experiences as they want to be. More experienced Teachers have a full schedule, constantly busy and know the workings of a studio and teaching clients but, they can feel a little like that Groundhog Day of same old in and out routine, clients getting a bit in the routine and only wanting to do certain things.

Wouldn’t it be great if the New Teacher and the more Experienced teacher can borrow from each other? That curly hair could go straighter or straighter a bit of curl?  In other words to borrow from the Reformer of another?

Here are some Tips for New and Experienced Teachers to share and give the best of each other:

1. Take Workshops! New Teachers take workshops whenever you can on whatever you can. Experience Teachers go take a workshop on a topic you never would have thought of or that may scare you a bit or maybe isn’t a Pilates workshop but, something that will open your mind in a new way and you can apply to your practice!

2. Create a Community! New Teachers create a community to learn from more Experienced teachers, take one out for coffee and get to know them and ask them questions. They will be happy to share their years of knowledge on all things from different teaching environments to issues with clients. Experienced Teachers share your knowledge with new teachers it will bring it back to you as well. You will be reminded of all that you do know and do have to offer.

3. Trade sessions with each other- New Teachers you will learn new verbiage, tactile cues, get more details in the work or how it applies to your body. Experienced teachers you will be able to be a body for a new Teacher and probably get your booty kicked as they will want to work you hard. It will also reconnect you back to the work in a way that maybe you forgot!

Wouldn’t it be great to be energized, confident and feeling new to the work again? To keep discovering and growing? For more on making this happen click here