Discover – Explore – Awaken – Part 2

The Pilates Center Teacher Training Programs –

Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, we discussed the difference between knowledge and wisdom and how easy it is to confuse one for the other.  Now, in Part 2, we ask you to consider the following questions that build on these distinctions:

  • Are you a Pilates instructor or a Pilates teacher?
  • What’s the difference and what’s the value of understanding this difference?
  • And which one do you really want to be?

By definition, instructing is a more task-oriented job dealing primarily with facts – the black-and-white information, the basic rules and practical “how-to” of a subject. The Pilates method is complicated and large, as we all know, and it can take a while until a client simply knows how to perform the standard choreography of the many exercises. Therefore, instructing on the “how-to” is a necessary element to the job. But many Pilates professionals never progress beyond this. Instructors often continue to expand their repertoire of material to provide their clients with more exercises to do, but they still mainly continue to focus only on the “how-to” of Pilates. Offering corrections, creating basic modifications and variations (and even “new” exercises), maintaining safety, developing a class structure, etc., all fall into this category of “instruction.” And it’s a big category! And an essential one. Teachers much know their tool box!

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