FEET x 2

Last weekeknd when everyone else was posting photos of their Halloween outfits I was spending my mine in a not-so-ghoulish way at pilates training, doin (and passing!) my advanced matwork assessments. But because of the time of year here’s a shot some posing skeleton feet next to mine in pilates stance.

I still have work to do before my I will finish what is needed to get the actual Advanced Mat Certificate,  (I already have a Basic and Intermediate certificate). It has been a lot of work during the year that was and in January, a year since I started, I should have the full certificate ready. But when it comes to pilates one is never really "ready", there is always more to learn, things to develop and work on,  new things to discover within yourself.  A pilates exercise is so multi levelled that you can keep on finding new challenges to it over and over again as you learn to work more deep within your body towards the ideal. Saying so may for those that don’t practice pilates (or some other kind of excercise where one actually “deepens into oneself”) that may sound rather abstract or even annoying, but at some point(s) of practicing one really will experience this as an “Ah! This is what it can/should feel like!”.

Pilates is very interesting and rewarding and it will take time to master  - I still know there is so much more development in my own training that I can do! A certification requires frequent updates (attending workshops etc) and I am looking to deepen my pilates education as well, working also with apparatus, as soon as I have the time (and funding) for it. There are different approaches to pilates and the classical one is definitely the one I prefer (thus I have studied it), and I would recommend anyone to try classical pilates at least for a while to notice the benefits (and then it will be hard to let go).

It is strange how things go in life, looking back. A year and a half ago I would not have known that I would be doing this right now. As I probably have said before, becoming a pilates teacher had been on my mind for years, a constant point on the five-years-or-more-list. It's status changed into a now-or-never after having had the miscarriages last year. I suppose it's something of a lemons and lemonade thing, or, rather; if life hands you lemons fuck that and get some ice cream instead. Give me limes and let's make mojitos!

On another note, funny remembering a thing I read many years ago, in my mid twenties. I think I’ve mentioned it here before, but it was a young blogger, 19-20-ish or so, posting about and commenting on red carpet pics of some celebrity that “it is amazing that she looks that good at 34!”, (there were probably a few omg's!! thrown in there after that as well)  which of course sparked a bunch of amused comments from "older" readers. I too laughed at that, because, although I know that for someone barely twenty 34 years can seem rather old, (maybe it even seemed a bit older ten -eight years ago than it does today when 40 is nothing. It's sort of not even the "new thirty" anymore. Well, in my post-30 world at least ;) I at a 20-something age still always saw my future self as more fit when past thirty - when I would not be going out partying every night of the week anymore and hopefully would get more sleep as well. I was in good shape back then too, frequenting the gym as well as doing savate, but I pictured myself as someone doing a bunch of yoga and healthier stuff and just being over all super fit at.  And that was perhaps one of the things that past me got rather accurate. Because now I am there, 34. Because of time being at least a bit unmerciful to each and every one of us, in one way or another, and as pregnancy and childbirth (read: breastfeeding) do leave their marks, my body may not look that much “better” now that it did then at twenty-something. But I iknow t is stronger in a more balanced way now than before! Seriously folks, pilates.

The sleep part though. That I could work on. When I have the time. And you know what would be truly awesome? An eight day per week. Plus some extra hours for the day. Those could be added nighttime. Mmmyes.