I sit here writing this in Starbucks (free wifi!) near the financial district which I’m going to wander around and take photos. A SF blog to follow.
For now Sacramento and the Summit.
I decided to go to it to be in the presence of other educators, a shared passion for passing on our knowledge and experience and to find out where Balanced Body was taking us all. BB are a great education platform to work for - they keep moving forward while also keeping true to Joe’s original work but realising that the body needs more too. They are humble and appreciate and take on board feedback and understand our frustrations with systems and procedures. Innovative and inspirational…
I generally don’t like networking - the “Hi I’m Lisa, who are you blah blah blah” - I’d rather do a group activity thing that got people getting to know each other but that’s me… During the course of the 4 days, I met some great people (even with the distance I tend to keep) and have been to their studios since too - great to experience different trainers in a different country and see some of the great ideas they have.
One of the highlights of the Summit was a talk by Shawna Korgan about how her and her husband, Grant carried on to get him 'well' again after an accident left him temporarily paralysed belly button down. It was amazing to meet them both and hear their story first hand and how Pilates got him moving again and helped him reclaim himself.
Pilates - it works on many levels. It’s not the be all and end all of how to move but (as biased as I might be) it certainly teaches you how to move efficiently and brings you awareness to your body inside and out.
As well as talks and updates, we did classes - so great to be a student as opposed to teacher and wow to be in a group of over 100 teacher trainers all moving in one space and at times all moving at the same time - the energy was powerful.
I’ve taught pilates/movement for 13 years and at times have lost my way and forgotten the power of it - how you feel when you’ve done a good session and finish feeling as if your body has been put together ‘right’.
The mind body connection is powerful - it is a deeply moving experience and carries over into life in general. I write about awareness of how we behave, how we ‘are’ as people and adding on the awareness of body and how we 'hold' ourselves really brings it all together.
We are not separate mind - body - spirit - soul etc, within us it is all connected and that connection extends outside of ourselves and into the world and others around us.
A big thank you to all at Balanced Body for putting together the summit…