Just because it is easy doesn’t mean they're doing it wrong

As many Pilates lovers do, I frequent the r/pilates subreddit.  I love it more than any other online Pilates community because it tends to have more students in it than instructors, which is refreshing and real.  Pilates instructor forums tend to get really snobbish really fast (I get that we all love to study the minutiae of movement and cueing, but the things we care about are not the same things a Pilates student cares about.) Reading and interacting with real people shows me a little about what actual Pilates students are thinking, doing, and experiencing outside my own bubble.  I love it.

However, the occasional Pilates instructor snobbery rears its head. One of my biggest pet peeves is this typical response to someone saying their first Pilates session was too easy.

Y’all.  This response is not just unhelpful, but actually harmful to the Pilates community.

First, it completely invalidates someone's experience.  What a shame!  Instead of responding with curiosity, Pilates snobs respond with, well, snobbery.  Let’s not unnecessarily turn someone off our amazing fitness method.

Secondly, absolutely someone could feel their Pilates class was too easy!  And no, it doesn’t mean they were doing it wrong.

Think about it.  If Pilates was all about the student “doing it right” no matter their goals or ability, there wouldn’t be different springs, different variations of difficulty, or different levels of classes within a studio.  The existence of these “levels” proves that we recognize students have different abilities and these levels help the instructor tailor the experience to individuals.

Building on that, it is the responsibility of a Pilates instructor to meet the student where they’re at.  Yes, students need to care and to try, but much of an instructor’s value is the ability to scale the workout to fit the particular student.  This is hard.  It’s the difference between a decent instructor and a great instructor, and has almost nothing to do with knowledge of the method and everything to do with the actual process of teaching.

If we are going to blame anyone for a Pilates class being too easy, it’s the instructor’s fault!

But, I’m not advocating for blaming anyone here.

Setting expectations for the first session and beyond it is critical for new student success.  When I work with a newbie, whether in a group or one-on-one, I always tell them to give us a few sessions together to hit our stride.  As an instructor I want to see how they respond to my cues, what they think after class, and how they feel the day after.  Then I can adjust what I’m asking them to do next time.  (Notice how important the feedback loop is here?  Giving and receiving input is so so valuable.)

If you’re an instructor and someone tells you their session was too easy, instead of jumping to the conclusion they didn’t do it right, get curious.  Ask some questions.  What are their goals? What did they expect to feel?  What were they hoping to experience?  Then, thank them and offer some feedback in return.  

You might say something like: “Thanks for sharing that! I definitely want you to get a good workout in.  While you were working out I did notice this.  Next time I’ll make some adjustments, but I also suggest you try X Y Z to make those same moves even harder.”

Sometimes a student does need feedback to pay more attention to form cues.  That’s just not where we should start or the only conclusion to come to from an innocuous comment.

If you’re a Pilates student you should absolutely share your feedback with the instructor in the form of a question.  “Hey, I was expecting it to be harder.  Can you help me get a harder workout next time?”  In most cases, this is exactly what folks in r/pilates are asking, just not in so many words.

Give yourself a couple of sessions with the same instructor to see if things change.  And if they don’t, find a different instructor.

If you see this kind of snobbish behavior from someone else, don’t be afraid to speak up.  Pilates is amazing and I want more people to do it.  Bullies on the internet keep good people out and certainly don’t represent the majority of us within the community. 

Finally, I want to be clear that I think Pilates should be hard and the way someone does an exercise drastically impacts their experience of it.  But just because someone says it isn’t hard doesn’t automatically mean they are doing it wrong.