And Now For Something Completely Different

“Everyone is always complaining that their body won't do what you tell it to do. In fact, your body is always doing exactly what you tell it to do.” – Walter Carrington, Teaching Aphorism.*

In Osaka last week, I finally got a question!

A man was interested in a comment I published early on in this series of a woman who used PILANDES to arrive into the V-shaped Teaser position and then declared:

“I could stay here for a week!”

He was keen to know more about that, as he was having trouble with Teaser…

I surprised him by suggesting we start Teaser together now. He lay down flat on the mat and started by doing a Roll Up: hands extended in front as he raised his chest. But he got stuck in the middle, then struggled to finally make it up to sitting for the next stage of Teaser.

However, I stopped him. In PILANDES, we don't push on with an exercise while there are obstacles at the start of it…

“Let's try the Roll Up again shall we?”

He agreed. I decided to engage his thinking in two ways.

Firstly – and try this for your Self – I wanted him to talk differently to his postural movement system. When you have trouble with Roll Up – going from lying flat to a sitting up position with the arms extended forward – there is a transition halfway up. People get stuck there and end up being unable to complete the sit-up, or having to push really hard to get there.

This can become an obsession – it may have been happening with this man, I don't know. You start to worry: Will I make it past this middle section this time? Therefore, your focus shifts away from where you want to go, and starts facing where you always stop. It's almost like you are cuing your Self to stop in the middle, by asking:

Will I stop in the middle?

In PILANDES we call this a No Plan. You are cueing yourself to do what you don't want to do! To think constructively, you replace a No Plan with a Yes Plan like this:

Think clearly where you want to end up, I instructed him. See yourself arriving in the sitting position.

This is saying yes to what you want to do, instead of thinking about stopping in the middle! Simple, but effective. Your postural system listens and acts upon these yes messages. Read Walter's quote above again.

Secondly, I repeated the bodymapping of his first postural joint – the AO Joint or Top Joint – where your head and spine interact together. Of all the postural joints, this one is the most powerful. I wanted him to start with a delicate tilt forward of his head at the AO Joint.

This time I used my touch. I've written about this before – when I work on Pilates exercises, I use my touch to communicate postural movements directly to you. They are nothing like voluntary movements: they are extremely subtle, yet powerful and are beyond your deliberate reach.

PILANDES is all about these almost mysterious automatic postural movements.

After our preparation – and with my hands cuing his head to tilt first – he then effortlessly sat up. All the way. He had no expected bump in the middle – just a little slowing – as he continued right on through to the end.

“Oh, I've never done that before,” he remarked.

He seemed almost puzzled – how could Roll-Up be so easy? I thought, let him sit with the experience for a while. Although we didn't finish Teaser, he had his answer about how ease can be created by true postural support. So I stopped our lesson there.

This is the way of PILANDES. One step at a time – into something new and often miraculous. The miracle is your postural movement system. In both London and New York, you have a chance to explore this with me.

NEXT: Turnarounds

Stay tuned.

*Walter Carrington (1915–2005) carried on Alexander's teacher training school in London after FM's death in 1955, and taught there for over fifty years. He took a personal interest in BodyChance in Japan before he passed away in 2005.

2026 LONDON:
August 8 – PILANDES
August 23 – Trauma-Informed AT

2026 NEW YORK:
October 24 – PILANDES
October 25 – Trauma-Informed AT

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