When I decided to do the Move in Movember 30 Moves in 30 Days challenge I thought it would something fun to do, to help support men’s health. I didn’t realise it would have such an impact on me.
I got started and decided that I’d do one Pilates session every day for the 30 days. I live and breathe Pilates since I run The Movement Movement Pilates studio and teach clients six days a week. When I was training to be a Pilates Instructor I did Pilates everyday, sometimes for hours (all that practice, practice, practice!)
Nowadays I’ll be lucky if I get in one Pilates session and a couple of Barre classes a week. Most of my Pilates practice is limited to trying a few moves when I’m planning classes and demonstrating in class – I can do one repetition of anything and make it look amazing…
I knew doing more Pilates would be good for me, my body loves it, it’s what got me started in the first place – the doing! What I didn’t realise was just how good.
Here’s what I discovered this month:
- Pilates is good for me – really, really good. My body loves it and I feel a million times better… more mobile, more stable, stronger, freer. I have less aches and pains.
- Pilates centres me – I’m less stressed, more focused and feel able to cope better with the ups and downs of life.
- I love what I do. I knew this already but actually doing as opposed to teaching this month just reinforced why I ditched my corporate career for Pilates.
- Movement excites me. I bring a lot of influences into my Pilates and love exploring new ways to move better. Doing Pilates everyday for a month has reignited my creativity and it’s showing in my classes.
- I look better for it. I’ve never been one for the dreaded before and after photos but I took a few pics at the beginning of November just to give myself a reference point. I’ve definitely noticed my shape changing, clothes becoming looser & more tone in the right places.
- Me time is vital. I need to take time everyday for myself, not for my clients, not for my business, not for my husband but just for me.
- Posting photos of myself is ok. I hate myself in photos, I can probably count on one hand the number of photos of me that I think are ok. But after a week of posting photos of my feet for my Movember updates a friend told me to suck it up and just do it! So I did and the world is still spinning.
So, Movember is over but I plan to keep going – Pilates & moving everyday! I know I’ll feel better for it & my future self with thank me.
