Streched To The Limit

The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER   |  Thu, 02/26/2009 7:04 PM  |  Health

Despite its popularity in the West, here Pilates remains one of the least familiar concepts of physical fitness – although aerobic-crazed and yoga-loving health buffs are beginning to give it another look. What is it, exactly? Maggie Tiojakin joins the bend and stretch.

“It’s hard to explain over the phone,” says Lucy Gunawan, the co-owner of re:formation studio in Plaza Senayan Arcadia. Founded in 2007, the studio offers private and small Pilates classes led by instructors specifically recruited from the United States and Canada (where Pilates thrives).

“I think it’s best for you to come see it for yourself.”

Having lived most of my adult life on the passive and unsporty side, the invitation naturally makes me feel a bit uneasy. The first thing I do is gather bits and pieces of information through some lazy research which involves, over coffee and snack bites, summoning those contacts of mine who may know a thing or two about Pilates. Perhaps because it’s lazy research that requires no amount of active searching on my part, the results are less than satisfactory.

“Good luck,” says source #1, whose current visit to a fitness center in town has given her a quick glimpse of a Pilates class in progress. “It looks painful.”

“You better take some pills before you do it,” says source #2, whose friend has reported back to her with some horrific accounts of the exercises. “She told me that after taking the class, her whole body hurt as if she had been run over with a 40-foot container.”

On the eve before my appointment at re:formation studio, I Google everything I need to know about Pilates, leapfrogging from site to site, video to video, photo to photo. Yet I discover nothing that gives me a clear idea of what it is, save for theoretical explanation of it – which I have summarized here:

Pilates is an exercise system based partially on yoga and aerobics postures, developed by Joseph H. Pilates in the early 1900s as a way to rehabilitate wounded war veterans in Germany. The central principle of Pilates is control, with a concentration point along the spine, an area in our body that governs almost everything in our system. Breathing and stretching are two things that the exercises rely most heavily upon – the only similarity it has with yoga – but the eventual goal for Pilates practitioners to reach a mind-over-body control is what sets it apart from other types of exercises.

“You have to experience it,” says Lucy, the next morning, when I arrive at the studio. “That’s the only way you can understand it.”

I marvel at the interior design, which boasts the atmosphere of a five-star resort somewhere in the countryside, the walls constructed almost entirely of wooden panels and the large windows looking out on a grassy lot. For a minute, I forget that across from the studio is a shopping mall where city-dwellers go in search of entertainment.

Then I spot something else: A room full of pieces of equipment that look medieval in size and function, complete with giant springs, straps and pulleys. Everything about it looks painful, unnatural, intimidating. Uh oh.

Lucy calls out to a lean, blue-eyed man wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He introduces himself as Collin Reynolds, my instructor for the day. He asks me what I want to try first, and I point to the mat. That seems safe, right?

Collin gives me a sharp, inquisitive look. “Are you ready for the mat?”

As it turns out, the medieval torture equipment offers the most basic Pilates exercises. One needs to “graduate” from them first before moving on to the mat, or exercising “without help”. Collin challenges me to try out “The Cadillac”.

Mind you, there’s nothing Cadillac-looking about “The Cadillac.” Significantly more pronounced than other apparatus in the studio, it is shaped like a hospital bed with a four-poster frame where different types of bars, levers, springs and straps are fixed.

Collin probably sees the trepidation with which I approach the apparatus, one reluctant step at a time as I climb onto the bed and lie on my back. Instead of a ceiling, I find myself staring at what looks like a very complex mechanical system above me.

“Hold on to this with both hands,” he says, handing over a roll-down bar attached to the frame by a very large spring. “Now, pull and release slowly until you feel your spine rotating in order.”

I don’t even know what that means, but it’s too late to say “No”, although the temptation is there.

I pull and release as instructed, the bottom of my feet pressing flat against the frames, my body contorting in the sit-up position. I do this for a few times, each time slower than the other, until I am able to feel the movement of my spine, which is a lot like the movement of small hinges bending in a singular motion. According to my research, this particular type of exercise is beneficial to health because it lets air infiltrate the bone structure, thus helping avoid osteoporosis and any other bone diseases.

Next comes the appropriately named “The Chair”, which resembles an ordinary stool. Collin warns me to not be fooled by its simplicity. “The chair is very versatile,” he says. “You can do more than 70 kinds of exercises with it.”

With his help (mostly in getting my balance) I do about three or four kinds, each one providing a new revelation about the things my body responds to, such as its own weight and the strength of a small chair (which I was certain I would crush by standing on it). Every exercise incorporates a breathing technique that sounds complicated in theory, but very simple in practice.

“There’s nothing complex about breathing,” says Collin. “You just inhale and exhale. The trick is to inhale as much as you can, and exhale every ounce of air you’ve got in you.”

Collin, who has been practicing and instructing Pilates for years, believes in the power of the mind over the body. “You’ll be surprised to know just how much your mind can control your body,” he says.

I raise my eyebrows in challenge.

Collin smiles, flexes his muscles and begins to contort his body in a motion I don’t think is possible for a human being. The fluidity of his movements astounds me, so much I almost suspect him of being the contortionist star in Cirque Du Soleil.

“Does it hurt?” I ask him when he’s back on both feet.

“Not at all.”

After a few more exercises on The Cadillac, The Chair, and “The Reformer” – a piece of equipment where you lie down and pull on a bar until you are sliding back and forth on your back – the session ends. I have a strange feeling in my body.

“How is it?” asks Lucy, offering me a cup of specially brewed tea. “Do you feel any different from when you came in?”

“Actually, yes,” I say, surprised. First, at the fact that none of the exercises is painful; and, second, that I actually enjoyed them. “My back feels great.”

It’s true. I don’t know why, or how – but it does.

re:formation studio
Plaza Senayan Arcadia Unit X203
021 5790 1261

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