Sticky Notes
Ever wondered what it's actually like to build a fitness business from the ground up? Meet Rosie and Leila, two Pilates instructors who crossed paths at a London studio and discovered a shared vision that was too powerful to ignore.
This podcast—Sticky Notes—is our real-time chronicle of building something from nothing. We're relatively new teachers stepping into entrepreneurship, balancing Rosie's big-picture dreaming with Leila's pragmatic planning. We're challenging fitness industry norms, particularly the narrow concept of a "Pilates body," and creating spaces where everyone feels welcome regardless of how they look.
Join us weekly as we document every decision, meeting, and milestone. Whether you're interested in Pilates, entrepreneurship, or simply enjoy witnessing the unfiltered journey of two women betting on themselves and their vision—we're glad you're here for the ride.
Sticky Notes
What's That Thing Called? Breaking Down Pilates Equipment for Beginners (Ep. 11)
Ever looked at a Pilates studio and wondered what all those strange contraptions are called? You're not alone! In this comprehensive equipment guide, we demystify the classical Pilates apparatus that intimidates newcomers and even confuses some regular practitioners.
The reformer typically gets all the Instagram glory, but there's so much more to explore. We explain why the reformer dominates social media (it looks cool in photos!) and what distinguishes a classical reformer from contemporary versions. But the real magic happens when you venture beyond this familiar territory. The Cadillac—nicknamed after the luxury car brand because it was considered the finest piece of equipment—offers incredible versatility with its trapeze, bars, and springs. Meanwhile, the tower provides many of the same benefits in a more space-efficient package.
We share personal experiences with each apparatus, from Rose's revelation on the ladder barrel that solved her back pain to Leila's challenges staying squared on the high chair. The Wunda Chair and High Chair might be small, but they pack a serious punch by forcing you to support your full body weight rather than reclining on a comfortable carriage. And don't overlook the smaller accessories—the Foot Corrector that gives Leila "a spring in her step" after running, or the Baby Chair that provides gentle rehabilitation for spinal issues.
What makes classical Pilates truly special is how these pieces work together as a system. Struggling with teaser on the reformer? Work on other apparatus might unexpectedly help you master it. Each piece provides different feedback that strengthens your understanding of the movements and your body's capabilities. Whether you're a dedicated reformer enthusiast looking to branch out or completely new to Pilates, this guide will help you navigate the equipment landscape with confidence. Ready to explore beyond your comfort zone and discover what these magical machines can do for your practice?
Episode 11. Woo Yay.
Speaker 2:That's like a lucky number for a lot of people, like an angel number almost.
Speaker 1:I know angel number is 111, but yeah 11. Yeah, 11 feels cool, Very excited. We're talking about classical equipment terminology, not in a super, super in-depth way, more layman's terms for people who might be listening, who don't know much about Pilates or maybe you do Pilates, but it's not classical, or maybe you do I feel like people come into pie for reformer and they'll look over and be like what's that? Yeah, A series of other things. So we just wanted to go over some of the terms.
Speaker 2:A request and you set up at pie as well is even more. Things are even more so on display for people. Now. I feel like everyone is even more confused, so I'm excited for when you come back and you're able to see it in person. How is the new setup? I had my first sort of like issue with it, or my only problem I had, which was so our reformers, because we've also gained a new reformer. Four of them are where they used to be, like in line with the studio. Yeah, reformer, four of them are where they used to be like in line with the studio. Yeah, um, and two have moved to where the high chair used to be like, sort of between the studio and then where the like wall used to be. Okay, do you know how? There was, like the high chair, baby chair, little area. Yeah, so there's two reformers there, um, and I had my first sort of problem with one of those reformers where I had to move from the side of the four to the side of two, because Keelan had a class and I was teaching a private and I wanted to do side splits and my client stood on the reformer and her head hit the roof so she also then couldn't do front splits because or like she could do the first layer of front split but then she couldn't come up because she would
Speaker 2:hit. She's also not the tallest client she's my height, yeah. So I would be curious. I was gonna ask someone when I go in tomorrow. I wanted to see if anyone else had had that issue and or just raise it or flag it, because it is a if you have a full class and you want to teach something, that's not the most convenient and those aren't like crazy exercises like those are pretty normal. You would consider sort of like an intermediate level exercise, that's good to know Like those are pretty normal.
Speaker 1:Those are, you would consider sort of like an intermediate level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good to know. Yeah, that's sort of we wanted to talk you all through some of the main equipments, that is in use.
Speaker 1:I didn't actually write down a list, but I could start to write one as we go, so you can see what we have.
Speaker 2:I have one.
Speaker 1:I pulled up a website that, but it has the main ones it also has a couple of lesser known ones, and there's to be clear on it too. There's definitely historical context and rationale behind these things, which would be a different episode. We plan to have an episode which is sort of really talking about the history of classical Pilates and how it evolved from its origins, and that is not this episode. So I know that there's history behind all of the things, but we're just going to define them for someone who was walking into a studio and just wanted to know for the purposes of your average client.
Speaker 2:Yes, we want to say we're also not Historical experts. Yes, and we are not going to dive in to archival equipment. We are going to focus in on classical equipment that is used currently in the modern day not in the modern day, but archival equipment goes into a bit more of, like you were saying, that sort of classical not classical because it's all classical but it's a bit more historic so that would be its own and that stuff will probably come up more in oral histories because it came up in our first episode with Matt shout out oral
Speaker 1:histories and that's kind of the purpose, right like oral histories, is more of a historically based. That's sort of in alignment with the thinking behind oral histories is to have more of a connection to that where everything came from. Sticky Notes is obviously still about Pilates and our lives as Pilates teachers, so we do feel a need to explain some of the things. I also think it's great if you're someone who listens to this and you do reformer Pilates all the time, because that's the thing that shows up on Instagram, which, fair enough. The reformer is awesome. There's so many other things and tools that you can try to get involved with.
Speaker 2:And maybe you're a significant other of someone who does a lot of Pilates or a family member and you're like what on earth is all this equipment they're talking about? Here you go, you can send this video or episodes to your friends and family and show them what you get up to. I'm hoping, fingers crossed, I'm going to try to, in the video episode, insert photos of the equipment so that you can visualize it.
Speaker 1:That is fancy stuff, Layla.
Speaker 2:If the episode just never comes out. I love that. It's a different conversation, but I think it would be cool to have photos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great idea, and when we post on Instagram, we can post maybe a photo of each of the things.
Speaker 2:I meant to say I keep forgetting to do the dumps as well on Instagram. I'm going to try.
Speaker 1:I've started doing them on my personal Instagram once a week. I saw you do that, yeah, and I'm trying to be consistent about that in part to yeah, like get people viewing, like it sounds so silly, but then I can start to advertise like I want to rope you know it's into that and honeycomb studios into that eventually.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm starting, you know what I meant to tell you that I forgot to do. But then I was like you. When you posted, um, get the spotify link, it was on your account and I wanted to tell you to put it on the sticky notes one as well. But then I was going to account and I wanted to tell you to put it on the Sticky Notes one as well. I thought you did. Is that why? You did it. No, I put the Apple one, but I never get the Spotify one.
Speaker 1:I will put. I'll just put it up later. I forgot Sorry.
Speaker 2:You can just put it next. I was going to reshare your story. That's all I was going to do To make it easier.
Speaker 1:That's a good reminder. The Spotify versus the.
Speaker 2:Apple. I'll always do the Apple, and then if you do the Spotify, that sounds good. I love that. You love whenever I put the picture of me with the eyes and the Spotify. Yeah, that sounds good. Also, I love that you love whenever I put the picture of me with the eyes and the face.
Speaker 1:I think I'm doing it for you. The first time I saw it, I just like loved it so much I was hoping it wasn't a one-time thing, so to learn that it's sort of a constant in my life now it's pretty good. I'm glad that I can bring you that constant sort of a constant in my life now.
Speaker 2:It's pretty good. I'm glad that I can bring you that constant. I enjoy.
Speaker 1:Okay, should we dive into the list? Should we do reformers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do reformers. The list is sort of a bit out of order, but I figure if we start, reformer is probably the best way we can start with the bigger ones and go smaller.
Speaker 2:I think also reformer is most people's introduction to equipment. I guess we could preface it with saying you can just have a mat and there are sort of like raised mats and mats that have the poles that come out of it. Oh God, I should have checked the name of it. But what would you call that Matt handles? Yeah, I'm going to scroll this website really quickly.
Speaker 1:God she's describing. You have like a plain mat which is pretty, the ones that we have in pie. We have a combination of just your regular, like a mat that you might buy anywhere that rolls up and you can use that and actually some teachers and clients prefer those, myself included because they are just a little more firm on the ground so it feels a bit easier to be connected to that space. But there's also these sturdy I don't know how to describe it, they're always so.
Speaker 2:I just yeah, so it was called um. There's one. It's the thing you refer to it as the pilates mat by contrology. So if you search that in or type that in it will, what will come up is what rose is describing now, which is that sort of like stiff. It's like almost a stiff wooden plank with a mat on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and handles. With the handles and the handles go by your head for the most part, and mat pilates is very much pilates. If you're doing mat, you're doing pilates. You don't need, yes, fancy stuff.
Speaker 2:So no, I think that could be a common misconception, but if you're doing the mat, you're doing pilates, you could just lay on your floor and do the pilates mat and that would count as pilates equipment. So you know, we see a lot of videos whenever I love it. Whenever it's summertime, um, and pilates instructors go on vacation, everyone will always do the sort of like poolside mat Pilates and everyone comes out in their little bikinis and they do it. Yeah, they do it on a towel, so yeah, you can do Pilates anywhere you go, which is one of the best parts.
Speaker 2:One of the best parts.
Speaker 1:But then Reformer would probably be the most, reformer would probably be the most.
Speaker 2:That is like the instagram thing is the reformer and I don't quite know why. Former, yeah, I imagine it must just be because it's probably classes are easier on a reformer and then I think it's a thing where you can make it quite a dynamic class. So I it's easier for that contemporary world to build and, as that has taken on a greater life, reformer classes do and then reformer program, teacher trainings exist, so then people it just has almost like fed into itself, maybe that sort of itself, maybe that sort of hype around reformer.
Speaker 1:I feel like the reformer can as a. As far as social media goes, it's pretty easy to make it look cool. Yeah, like if you're doing the tower, you can make it look cool, but most people aren't doing their first tower class and doing like airplane or something where they're like levitating. So I feel like if you're doing not even short spine but like leg circles or there's just some things where if you're on the box, it just looks kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:So I think also as Legree and other forms of like bed, like beds reform, like bed style equipment have become more popular as well, it all just feeds into itself. So because legree is popular and people want to be doing that and like solid core which exists, like in the states, it's like people look for that type of workout, and then you've got so many people asking to just do reformer.
Speaker 2:They don't even call it reformer Pilates, it is just the verb is now, or the noun even, is just reformer. Um, yeah, so that builds its popularity. So you are reformer machines or classical reformer machines. Um will either be made sort of out of a metal frame or wooden frame, and then the biggest difference between our machines and others are classicals have four springs, all weighted evenly, and then you'll have a leather strap. But, most importantly, that strap, or the back of the strap, does not come up on a riser, so it comes down from the back of the machine or the back of the frame. Um, which is key as to the way the angle changes in the body. Um, yeah, but it is almost a bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a bed so you're lying down to start with, and that bed moves with the. It moves along the frame, so the frame is still the bed moves.
Speaker 2:There's series of the carriage, I guess, if you want to carry it and it has other straps behind it that you can put your.
Speaker 1:It has handles that you can put your hands into. It has straps that you can put your feet into. It has a foot bar, which is sometimes used sometimes not, but it is. Yeah, I would say my dogs are going to start barking for like 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:Oh, they're not happy. Is it too loud for you?
Speaker 1:to hear me. They're very excited because everyone's coming home, but it is a bed. That is like the way that it, I think, is most simply described. If you were to see a bunch of different equipment, the one where someone's laying down to start is a reformer.
Speaker 2:Sorry, the dogs are fine. I'm wondering if we're going to be one's laying down to start as a reformer. Sorry, the dogs are fine. I'm wondering if we're going to be. Yeah, I'm wondering if we're going to be able to hopefully we can like edit it out or mute them, because when they're, it's fine. It's just that when you speak, it is also will cut into you speaking.
Speaker 1:I put on my um I don't know. Let's see Worst case. We can just cut that piece out because they seem to have quietened a little. Yeah, I think they should be okay. They should be fine now. Yeah, that's Reformer. It's pretty simple. I feel like it gets made out to be a very complicated thing, but it's pretty simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It's also quite nice because you can just bring someone and like, do they just lay down and it? It feels less um, scary. I guess the main difference. I guess we won't. So I don't think we have to say this when we talk about every piece of equipment, but what you'll see with a lot of more contemporary um reformer machines in case you're wondering, am I on a classical machine or a contemporary machine if your springs are colored, or if your straps are made of like a different fabric or like a rubber um, or if at the back of your strap there's a riser or like a little, yeah, a rise right at the end of the machine, then you're an off on a classical um reformer. Those are the main things I would say to look out for if you're wondering.
Speaker 1:Definitely the colored thing, for sure, because in places that aren't classical there will be a lot of one red, one blue whatever, Whereas in classical it's just one, spring two, spring three, four. Yeah, call it yeah.
Speaker 2:Call it yeah, should we do, cadillac next Cadillac, yeah, yeah. Yeah, do you know why it's called the Cadillac?
Speaker 1:I don't, do you know.
Speaker 2:I know the anecdotal story that we were told in our, our teacher training and I will fact check it before this episode goes live. But basically so, the cadillac, which we'll go on to explain, is sort of the biggest piece of equipment. It's like a table with, you know, poles that extend it kind of looks like.
Speaker 1:You know what? It kind of looks like a if just said the reformer is the bed, but a tower kind of, or a Cadillac kind of, looks like a four-poster one-person bed.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes exactly that.
Speaker 1:It's got poles on every corner.
Speaker 2:And basically it has a lot of extra things that can be done on it and it was seen, as you know, that the most magical or everyone wants to get on the Cadillac. Basically it's like the, the A-star, first class piece of equipment. And so someone went into the studio once or a client of Joe's um and said, you know, asked about what it was, and Joe was explaining and he said, oh, so it's like it's your Cadillac, referring to it as the car brand or like in reference to the car brand, because at the time Cadillac was like the top of the line car brand in the states, which is it's still obviously but it was like the it car brand, like the it girl car brand, and so the Cadillac to them was like the it girl piece of apparatus. So then it got given, it got called the Cadillac after that is so interesting.
Speaker 1:If that's true, I love that. I hope that that's the story you want to start explaining it slightly.
Speaker 2:go ahead, and I'm going to just quickly double check where the name came from, because that is what we were told in our teacher training. If I've been sold a lie, I'll be from, because that is what we were told in our teacher training. If I've been sold a lie, I'll be very sad because it is such and I cause. I say this to all my clients, so I may have been spreading a rumor about the Cadillac.
Speaker 1:No, that is so interesting and it makes me wonder why the reformer is called the reformer, Like what it? I just want to know the origins of every single one. I also, now that I'm thinking about it, a Cadillac. A Cadillac versus a tower is a tower is in many ways, a part of the Cadillac. Is that accurate to say, or is it? Yeah, so the the Cadillac is the Cadillac is the tower.
Speaker 2:It's basically everything on the Cadillac taken onto one side. So the Cadillac because it is almost like a four poster bed where the poles go up and then join, you have the ability to hang from the top of the frame. With the tower it is like rooted to a wall, so you have the wall and then a mat below it. Yeah, and so it is the tower. Is the Cadillac just a bit more space, efficient? And I will say also the story is true the Apparathus was considered the finest, most luxurious, versatile piece of equipment like the Cadillac car. So some people say, oh, sources would suggest a specific student remarked hey, Jo, is that your new Cadillac? Like asking, is that your new car? When referring to it, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And the Cadillac. I mean I guess we can go through all the different pieces of it, but as Layla said, it has the parts of the tower sort of split up. I've only ever used pies so I don't know if it's different in other places. But one end has the push through bar and the other end has or I guess pies has the push through bar and the. Is it the leg springs on that side or the arm springs and then leg springs and the rollback bar on the other side?
Speaker 2:And then the trapeze, which can be moved. So the trapeze is what is unique to the Cadillac, because the trapeze is obviously connected to the top, and that is what allows you to have.
Speaker 1:There's the four poles, and then those are also connected at the top by a rectangle, and the trapeze goes across the long parallel poles.
Speaker 2:Check them back in math class talking about all those parallel lines and trapeze.
Speaker 1:And maybe the thing when you were talking about that story about the Cadillac the thing to me about the Cadillac is you can do things like the full traditional ending on the Cadillac, which is I personally love the full traditional ending. I think it feels so nice in my body to just be opened up like that and do the hanging, because the Cadillac also has the fluffies, and maybe that's what I picture as the crazy, cool, amazing thing that you can do on the Cadillac.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think a lot of the cool imagery like, the cool visuals if you want to go back to it that a lot of people see from the contemporary world I think you see on the reformers A lot of the cool visuals that I see from classical instructors tend to be on the Cadillac. Everyone loves to show off as they should. You know all the sort of hanging tricks that they can do and candlesticks, which is almost hanging yourself upside down, basically. So I think that is starting to become a little bit more popular in classical and contemporary alike.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing people jump on the Cadillac and, you know, do a lot of cool. We're going into a pistol squat because they had their foot in a leg spring and then they were coming back up. It was just yeah. So people are almost just like, are playing around with it, um, but yeah. So if you've ever seen like a bed with or like a flat surface, oh, that's the biggest thing, I guess, to say. So the Cadillac doesn't has no moving parts in the sense that it's a flat mat, and then, yeah, the pole and the mat is a god. I don't know if we're explaining this. Well, the mat is like above, it is like off the ground it's lifted elevated yeah, it's lifted, and that serves a great purpose in that.
Speaker 1:if you want, you can also just use it as a mat. You can put barrels on it, you can use it as a way as a teacher to be potentially a bit closer to, like, a first time client that you have or maybe an elderly client who you are going to need to be adjusting and supporting a lot, instead of being on a mat on the ground where you have to kind of get down to their level. So a lot of benefits to the Cadillac.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking I will aim to get photos on this because I think that to visualize will help our explanations sound a lot better. So if you are listening to this on audio and you're like, these girls have confused me, I understand. Please come over to YouTube, which is also a great time to plug our YouTube. We have a YouTube under the name. Let me just check what our YouTube sticky notes dot podcast. Or if you just search sticky notes, I'm sure we will come up Sticky notes podcast. Search sticky notes, I'm sure we will come up sticky notes podcast. Um yeah, so come say hi to the youtube and you can observe these lovely pieces of apparatus and our lovely faces I think cadillac might be the most complicated one, so hopefully the other ones are easier to explain.
Speaker 1:Like tower, super simple. You have a mat horizontal. You have two poles that are vertical. Attached to those poles you have leg springs, arm springs, rollback bar, push-through bar.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Easy. It's all on one thing they're at designated heights, which that varies from studio to studio or not really a bit.
Speaker 2:I mean there's only there's a only thing that really varies arm springs are almost always done on that lowest setting. If you want to match your leg springs on the tower to be at the same level on the cadillac, you would skip one and then go for the leg springs. However, at Equinox we always had our leg springs directly above the arm springs, which makes it a little bit lighter. And I suggest to new clients at Pi to do their leg springs on one spring setting below because I just think that it's much more achievable and just manageable that first time Because it is quite tough on that step up like of the spring setting and I think it can send you flying around with your legs. But for the most part, yeah, it's always arm springs. Skip one leg springs wherever you go.
Speaker 1:And so there's these little hooks on the vertical poles and all these springs have a what is that called clip clip that goes into the hooks. So when you do a class you can use them and then unclip them or move them and then unclip them.
Speaker 2:Some places will like store the springs differently. That's the only main thing. Like some places, you know how now at Pi we hang the leg springs up at the top of the tower. Some places will do that for their arm and leg springs. Just depends on, like, how much storage space you have in your studio as well, and you know what types of classes you're teaching more than anything yes.
Speaker 1:So if you're brand new to pilates and you go in and you see a cattle, or you see a tower and the leg springs and all the springs are already on the tower, that might be one way of doing it. Or, as leila said, which my studio in ann arbor does this they hang everything up behind the tower and then as you go you pull them off. Pi started doing that. So there's all different variations of storage of the equipment which is all accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess it's just user preference. So the tower-.
Speaker 2:The tower might be my favorite thing. I love a tower. I love tower is my favorite thing. I love a tower. I love a cat's black. I love a tower. Um, the reformer is like sometimes I never think, oh, I want to do reformer, but I always love it when I'm doing it. Whenever I come in a private session and I get taken over to reformer, I'm like all right down, like because it's also I think you can do a lot of the base or I find I'm it's a lot of basic, repetitive in the best way to like really nail down, getting all those like more advanced stuff. So sometimes I I always forget how much I love the reformer up until I'm on it. But whenever I'm taking over to the cadillac, I'm like all right, what wild thing are you going to try to teach me today?
Speaker 1:And the reformer is very supportive, and also the order of the reformer. From a teaching perspective, the order of the reformer is consistent. You can pull things out and there's modifications and things, but the order is the same every time. So I think it just depends kind of what you're into.
Speaker 2:But you could go to a tower class and have literally no idea what the same principle there's a different sort of vibe to it, I think like as a client, you can you have a more consistent and or like you know what you're getting into by signing up for a reformer class, for the most part at a classical studio, whereas for a tower, because even I, just depending on my mood, mine change quite often, or quite frequently, and then, instructor to instructor, everyone has their sort of own style, um with tower, which is a nice sort of like sort of comment to make. Actually, that's very true. Yeah, um, but yeah those are your two main.
Speaker 1:Those are your apparatus and then the other one that I love, that I'm just thinking of. I know it is arranged differently now, but I'm spatially thinking about the studio, the ladder barrel. Oh yes, I love the ladder barrel because soph Sophia basically solved my back pain with a ladder barrel doing backbends over it. It's the best.
Speaker 2:As the name suggests, the ladder barrel is a ladder connected to a barrel, which I think Max was saying in a workshop that it was literally like a barrel. It's the original measurements come from, like an actual barrel that was cut in half. It was like a beer barrel that was like tall and then was used. And that is pretty big of the barrel.
Speaker 1:It's a pretty big sturdy barrel, very cool piece of and you can do all kinds of stuff that you can do on the box. Maybe we should say that about the reformer. Going back to the reformer, there are two pieces of equipment that get used with the reformer. There's a box and there is a bar, and the box can either be long ways like hot dog style or 90 degrees. From that short ways across the perpendicular to the bed You're really coming out with all these math terms.
Speaker 2:I'm loving it. The math skills.
Speaker 1:And you can do a lot of those similar things on the ladder barrel. So sometimes this happened to me before I actually was aware that it was a thing that clients knew they could do is, I was teaching a reformer class and we went to do short box and this client just walked herself over to the ladder barrel and started doing it over there. I was like, oh, fair enough, okay, you like doing it over there, sounds good. So some crossover, there's crossover in all of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the short box is quite nice. You can also do like a ballet series ending on the ladder barrel, which is one I often take my clients to. It's a nice stretch. Yeah, for the hamstrings, the legs. You can do like you were saying, back bends and like reverse stretches over that barrel, which are quite nice. Um, a nice move that you can do.
Speaker 2:Uh, and this is what shows you what this episode will hopefully highlight is how much of a system everything is. You do exercises across the apparatus and the feedback you get from different apparatus feeds each other and feeds your, um, your body basically almost, and just gives you that different feedback. Um, yeah, a nice one is, you know, training horseback on the ladder barrel before you do it on the reformer, because you get that support of the shape of the barrel, of the lift that you can then take across. So it is, finding a classical studio or a place where you can use the different equipment is great, and this is why you know a lot of us believe in this classical world as a system, because of these exact reasons and how much it all supports each one another and it's cool because if this happened to me when I did my, when I did the full comp weekends, on the final weekend we were going over like the advanced mat and I think it was.
Speaker 1:I think we were doing like crab or something and I volunteered to be the body Cause I was kind of like this is a weird exercise I don't like totally get it, I feel like I'm never in the right position.
Speaker 1:Let me be the body. And then I did it and it felt so different and much better and it was just much better form. And Holly said to me this is a great example of you haven't been doing crab every day, but you've been in here doing other Pilates and that's the cool thing. If there's an exercise that you're struggling with and you're like I'm not strong enough for this, I'm not flexible enough for this, or like I just don't have the understanding kinesthetically of how to do this exercise, If you go and do the rest of the system to the best of your ability, you will eventually be able to do that exercise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was literally just thinking about this the other evening because I've been really building up my teaser now, just like on the long box, but we had been skipping, or I'd been just really trying to, because you can do an exercise and then you can do it well, and I think there's like you can just move from the joints and then there's like really finding that connection in that lift.
Speaker 2:But I haven't been doing it on the reformer for quite a while. Um, just as we've been like working on it, not even just doing the teaser on different apparatus and privates, but just different exercises and strengthening that seat connection or whatever it may be. And we started to now bring it back into when I do it on the reformer and, like you're saying, I have so much more lift and connection and it came from doing different exercises across the system and finding those connections and strength points rather than just doing the same thing, because a lot of the time doing the same exercise over and over is not going to get you where you want to be, because unless you're correcting and working on those weaknesses, you're not going to actually necessarily improve. Yeah, which is why it's a system.
Speaker 1:A whole system designed to work together.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, you pick the next one.
Speaker 2:I was going to say shall we do the duo of the chairs, the one the chair and the high chair? That's why I thought you were going with it when you said that. I was like we went a little swirl around the studio in my head the high chair is a really weird one in terms of description, also referred to as the electric chair, which gives you a suggestion as to what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it literally think of a chair with a tall back and very upright back. Yeah, with handles on either side that you can hold on to in a few different ways, but with a pedal. How do we describe what a pedal is? I guess people know what a pedal means yeah, I was gonna say you can also.
Speaker 2:So the high chair, if you is, basically, or the wonder chair I would say is what rose just explained. But you've chopped the top off so you have the pedal which is comes out of the side of the chair almost, and then just the top of the chair is that matte surface and that is it. It's a very small little cube, yeah, and you can. Actually the chair was designed. You can flip it on its side and it can be used as an actual chair in your house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the story that we were told in my teacher training was that the idea behind it was look, you can have this chair in your home and in your living room, and how cool.
Speaker 1:And then also you can flip it over and do Pilates with it and really benefit your body, and for that reason I do think it's one to me like one of the most interesting ones. It's also the one that I'm probably the least like fluent with. I'm actually going to a chair workshop in September because I just would like to be a bit more confident with it, and it is a really cool little thing.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I know they are.
Speaker 2:They're super tough because I mean, especially with the Wanda chair, where you have such a little surface area, that is almost what it's designed for is to really challenge the body. At all points, or in almost all the exercises, your full weight is supported onto your hands or feet or your hands and or feet. Your full weight is supported onto your hands or feet or your hands and or feet, rather than having the chance to, you know, lay down on the reformer bed like you would. So, yeah, it's a super spicy one. It can really push your limits, but they're great. We love the chairs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love the chairs and the high chair is. The high chair always throws me off how strong the pedal is. That pedal is a beast. If you go and do any kind of footwork, anything on that pedal, it is tough ones. I feel like again, if you're listening to this and you always go in and do reformer or even tower, like maybe try to just get yourself into a chair class or something, because if you've been consistently doing the other stuff you will be strong enough to give it a try and see how it is. But it'll just be such a completely different experience. It'd be so cool.
Speaker 2:And I also I think I feel like I've been neglecting the high chair. For my own personal practice, I so often will go over to the Wanda chair, especially because we have so many um and most stooges will have more Wanda chairs, I think, just because of space, um. But there is so much fun stuff that you can do with the high chair. Especially for me, it's really good where I have had that like hip instability or like pelvic instability. There's a lot of fun stuff you can do with the high chair. I feel like it's often seen as a less fun one between the two.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's also very exposing when I go on the high chair and I'm doing anything where my, where my feet are on the pedal basically. But really, if I have one foot on the mat and one foot on the pedal, my hips are just so not squared and I have kind of been neglecting the chair for that reason, because every time I just get so frustrated that I can't keep my hips square but I just have to keep doing it. And there's no to Layla's point earlier. There's nothing around you to hold on to or to get extra supports from, it's just you yourself and you.
Speaker 2:So, very highlighting of any unevenness that you might have, unevenness that you might have, yes, yeah, that's kind of like the big ones, oh, there's one, there's one last one, the guillotine, oh yeah, which I can't actually talk to that much Cause I have yet to be go on the guillotine. I've been meaning to book a private with someone at pie because we didn't have one at Equinox, so I was never able to use the guillotine the one with Max. That's the only time I've ever used.
Speaker 1:It is with Max.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's what's been recommended and I've told Max I was like I really want to just book an hour with you. Can we just go on the guillotine Like I've never experienced it? So I just need to find and work that into my schedule.
Speaker 1:I feel like I don't like maybe take this definition with a grain of salt, because I feel like I don't really know it well enough to speak on it at all. I've only been on it that one time and I've watched Max on it a lot, but it's. I talk about being kind of exposed and open. There's basically two bars, one of which can be or maybe both, but I think one of which can be shifted around to adjust for height purposes and you can. There's 3D space on either side of that of those bars so you can really fluidly move, fluidly move. So there's a lot of kind of like momentum based exercises. From what I've observed, that could be not entire, like I'm sure there's uses to it that I don't understand, but it's a very um. It's cool because if you were in the studio and you weren't looking for it, you probably wouldn't really notice it no, it does kind of blend into our space, um, as a name that's addressed.
Speaker 2:It does look kind of like a guillotine, like just like a ball with like spring attachments to it, um, but yeah, those are sort of.
Speaker 2:I would say those are almost the accessory equipment in terms of and what a lot of teacher trainings will teach you is that chunk the main chunk of your session, or your privates, will always be either on the mat, so either tower cadillac or the mat, or on a reformer, and that is where you do your main part 50 to 60 percent of your session, because that is what allows you to flow through the body and see what that body needs. And then you would take them from the reformer or the mat and do accessory movements. So you would normally use a chair, um elements of the Cadillac or I guess maybe a guillotine, a ladder barrel for those almost fine tuned things that you wanted to work on. Um, you can, of course, do a whole session on a chair, a whole session on the guillotine or the Cadillac, whatever, but with a lot of class formats or private formats, that is what you are guided to do during a teacher training yeah, yeah, accessory equipment is a good term because there's tons of those.
Speaker 1:We're going to go through all of there's. I feel like there's so many more little ones to go through the toe corrector barrel fertilizer yeah the barrels are kind of a yeah, yes. So there's a small barrel and a spine corrector which kind of from the side looks like a cartoon of a whale a bit. It does Like it's round with a tail, and then the small barrel is just the hump. Get those Go on the mat. Love those as well. Those are great. Get those go on the mat.
Speaker 2:love those as well. Those are great. Um, what else? There is also a, the neck stretcher, which is uh, it's almost. It's a strap that can be put basically around the forehead and then it ties to a spring and that spring gets attached to the cadillac, or I think I've seen it can also be done with a guillotine and then there is some cool spinal work that you can do with that the toe corrector, like you mentioned, which gets put onto your big toes and is so two straps and then there's a spring that connects between the two.
Speaker 1:I am pulling up. Oh, we missed another big one, the pedipal. The pedipal, yes, pedipal is cool. I did a workshop on the pedipal and it is like a pretty cool one. Another one that kind of blends into the background. Pretty cool one. Another one that kind of blends into the background. It's a very tall. There's a wooden square stand and then there's a tall wooden or metal something pole coming off the back with two handle springs coming off of either end.
Speaker 2:There's like a T at the top of the pole and the springs come off of that I never teach people on the pedal pole, but I actually think I have a client who would be quite nice on it. It's really nice to really press in and find lift in the spine, yeah, but yeah, I don't think you would spend an hour on the pedal pole. Necessarily, there is also, um we said, the breathicizer, which is like the straw that is connected to like a pinwheel, almost how would you describe it?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think pinwheel is a good way to yeah it and you, literally, you hold it. It's small and handheld and when you blow air it spins the pinwheel. I guess pinwheel, yeah, that's a good description.
Speaker 2:And that's because breath is obviously one of the major focuses in Pilates, so it's a way to train your breath, yeah.
Speaker 1:What else is on the list?
Speaker 2:The last one, which is actually one of my absolute favorites the foot corrector.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you've used it much. Yes, I haven't used it, but I have seen it. So why don't you talk on it a bit?
Speaker 2:It is like a, so it's small. It's about the size of a foot, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2:bit it is like a, so it's small, it's about the size of a foot as you can imagine and it's like a metal floor and then it's on top of it there is almost like a lever, there's like a spring and then a sheet of metal above it and it's in like an arch shape and the idea is there's quite a lot you can do with it, but you have one and you can be guided through it and you have your foot almost resting over that arch and you can press, guided through it, and you have your foot almost resting over that arch and you can press into it and it's really nice to release um fascia and tension in your foot.
Speaker 2:But also, just, I find every time I've done five, ten minutes on it, I leave and the arch of my foot is so lifted and it's I feel so much lighter and it's been great as I've been doing more running, we've been incorporating it into my sessions with Laura and it just puts a spring in my step. That's awesome. Oh, we've got. Oh, my God, we have another one that we've forgotten about the baby chair, another favorite of mine, the baby chair.
Speaker 1:Baby chair is very cute. Baby chair is an accurate description of it. You are, and it kind of is just a chair, not just a chair. But we were saying how the Wanda chair is like. It can be flipped over and then it's like a chair the baby chair as it is set up. People do often sit in those chairs, like I would do this at work with my laptop and do sort of things with it, and there's two arm springs attached to it as well.
Speaker 2:It'll sort of come from the back so you can be sat and just do a lot of nice work. Whenever I had stuff going on with my spine, I would be taken over to the baby chair, and it's where a lot of people go whenever they're sort of rehabbing stuff in the back. I think some people call it like the armchair as well, but a lot of people, I think, refer to it as a baby chair.
Speaker 1:I like the name baby chair and it's sweet because you have the high chair which is like big and tall, yeah, and a little baby chair next to it.
Speaker 2:Um, and the baby chair is the spring to cut, like you're saying. The high chair has a very intense spring. The baby chairs is quite gentle and nice, so it allows you to really get into the stretch. Um, there is also I don't know if this counts as an actual equipment, but a lot of studios would have like a metal, um, a metal like a wooden bar that might have a like a sandbag connected to it and they will do like the wrist strengthening exercise I learned in.
Speaker 1:So in salt lake when I was doing the photo shoot for the new studio I'm going to be in a few, so everyone there is like really outdoorsy, and a few people in the studio in particular climb a lot which I'm not a rock climber so I don't know but apparently tons of tension in your forearms and just your whole arm in general and they were all like raving about that. They were saying that you roll it down or roll it up and then it feels like so much tension, like you're all twisted up, and then you release it and it like totally relaxes out your arms and then it's good for like tennis elbow and things like that. So I've never actually tried it but I'm curious to. Apparently that is a big thing that that climbers who come into the studio use.
Speaker 2:So we've got one um pie, because I've picked it up every once in a while and I would.
Speaker 1:I never see it really get used, but luke uses it a lot, so I've always seen him pick it up and do it um, and then it made me just like luke and max are the ones who, like, have the head thing, the head stretcher, the next stretcher on and they're like if you didn't know what was going on, you'd be like what is happening here?
Speaker 2:yeah. What is this place? What have I signed up for?
Speaker 1:yeah anything else? Is that the list? That was the list.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if you can think of anything else no, I mean there's little.
Speaker 1:There's like the airplane board and kind of like little accessories, like there's the magic circle. Oh yeah, the magic circle, that's a very important one. That one's pretty self-explanatory. You've probably seen versions of it Ball, hand weights sometimes used. Hand weights sometimes used especially to train something that might usually use straps. Like sometimes people will train backstroke, swimming with weights or something just to get the choreography right.
Speaker 2:There's tons of little there are the almost like the calisthenic, like pushup bars or handles that are sometimes used I think very rarely used or maybe people use in their personal practice which is almost like these handles that are elevated off the floor and if you search they're very similar to like what you might use in a calisthenics workout.
Speaker 1:And there's also just all kinds of like little, like pillows and things, pillows and towels and things to help build support. So you might not have a client who can lay all the way down or, you know, go entirely over a barrel, so they need to have something more under their neck or the base of their head. So I think one thing that's nice about Pilates is that there's this very clear kind of framework of things. But also I've seen teachers on the Cadillac with a client like basically constructing not a new apparatus but they, but like building a structure on top of a barrel so that a client who is really elderly or has some kind of specific weakness can still use that space.
Speaker 2:So I can think of a few clients. We've had to do that, yes, and I thought to do that for you have to. You definitely have to get creative and rock the brain, um, but yeah, it also goes to show you that you truly can put all these is for everybody and it can all, whilst some of the apparatus you can change the apparatus basically without changing it, but you can yeah adjust.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there are a few things like um with reformers. They are different, they come in different lengths and not anything like. If you walked in you'd be like whoa, that one is so short.
Speaker 2:But sometimes you might direct a shorter client over to the one that's a few inches shorter, just because it can make a difference you can also gear out on a reformer so you can make change where the springs start or end, so that it changes that again, based off their height.
Speaker 1:Um, that's the main thing yes, those are the main ones. There might be other little things that we're missing, but we can always tack them on to the next episode.
Speaker 2:These are the main things that you would encounter in a classical studio at the very least, Definitely, Definitely Cool, and hopefully we'll go on to discover more in oral history. So if you're more interested in, you know, the classical equipment um origin, that whole archival world. Come on over little plug to oral histories, which is something that's going to come out soon through Honeycomb. So stay tuned.
Speaker 1:Stay tuned, and that might be it for episode 11.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got to head out soon, so that would be all.