Physical Fitness Is The First Requisite Of Happiness - Joseph Pilates

I don't usually do regrets. They are futile but having completed my pilates instructor training (it's a lifelong journey so I'll never be complete but you know what I mean!) my biggest regret is that I didn't do it years ago.  Today as my feet were on the ground beside my ears, I realised how far I've come. In 2006 I had back surgery, to remove a damaged disc. I've never known how I damaged it, I just know that I've never known pain like it. I couldn't walk. I was having numbness and nerve damage and the fear was that, without surgery, that damage would be permanent.   I was 26. There was talk of incontinence and wheelchairs and before long, I was in the operating theatre in Cappagh Orthopaedic hospital. I remember taking comfort from knowing my Grandmother had lain there before me, during one of many surgeries for her rheumatoid arthritis.

I rarely think of those days now. The weeks that followed surgery were some of the darkest in my life. I spent the best part of six weeks in bed, often lying flat, trying to drink through a straw and eat Weetabix because it was easy to swallow in that position.  I couldn’t work.  I couldn’t stay in my own home and was dependent on my mother to care for me.  I was encouraged to walk one kilometre every day and I remember the challenge of just putting one foot in front of the other. I was signed off from my surgeons care and advised to do intensive physio and to investigate pilates.   A few months of physio later, I started a new job and was completing my Masters by night. Then I was busy getting married and having babies.  Pilates was far from my mind.  Pain wasn’t and due to degenerative disc disease, I’ve pretty much had back pain since, managed with various combinations of drugs. 

Chronic pain is exhausting, emotionally and physically.  Over time the brain changes in such a way as to be on constant high alert, waiting to fire into emergency protective mode.  The great thing about the brain though is that it can be trained.  Cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness exercises can be used to reduce the experience of pain.  For me, it works. That and finally getting into a pilates class, there’s some really great ones around (Power Physio for Clinical Pilates and Pilates by Ciara for a great up-tempo session).  I don’t know why I didn’t listen before but I’m listening now and my body is moving in ways it never has. Devised by Joseph Pilates, it’s an exercise system that aims to develop optimal strength, flexibility, endurance and posture by strengthening the deep stabilising muscles of the spine, the pelvic floor and abdominals.  But it’s so much more. Pilates himself believed that his methods “develop the body uniformly, corrects posture, restores vitality, invigorates the mind and elevates the spirit”.

I’ve completed mat training and additional pre and postnatal training with Pilates Performance Ireland and am delighted to now offer pregnancy, mum and baby and beginners pilates classes.  I'm so excited by this next chapter and continuing to learn about how to develop my own strength and flexibility through the use of the wonderful apparatus devised by Joseph Pilates.  Exciting times. 

Check out www.thebabyroom.ie for more info