[00:00:00] Welcome to Pilates Teachers Manual, a podcast for Pilates teachers by a Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia, and I'll be your host. Jump in the conversation on Instagram @pilatesteachersmanual. Today's chapter starts now.

We're going to be discussing the certification process for Pilates teachers, the national exam, study tips, and also sharing my exam story. So stay tuned for that. 

First up as the certification process, You'll have to forgive me, what was the PMA exam is now the National Pilates Certification [00:01:00] exam, so you'll see a lot for Pilates teachers in terms of their credentials that we used to be PMA CPTs, which is Pilates Method Alliance certified Pilates teachers, and we are now NCPT's, which is nationally certified Pilates teachers. The designation acronym changed, but it's still the same certification exam that I'm going to be talking about.  So you may hear people talk about it as the PMA exam because just a few months ago, the name changed. The exam is the same.

 The first question you have to ask yourself when you are completing your Pilates teacher training program at your studio is whether you want to take this national exam in addition to testing out at the studio.

What I'm going to tell you is that if you are really interested in teaching in Pilates, you should definitely take the exam. Yes, it's an exam. You have to study. It's in a testing center. [00:02:00] Yeah, but it's really worth taking if you really want to teach Pilates, when you finish your studio certification process, you finish your teacher training program and the teacher training hours.

It just means a lot to have sort of that additional certification on top of just your studio saying that you're qualified to be a Pilates teacher. The fact that you've taken this additional exam really shows that you're serious about teaching Pilates, and it goes a long way in terms of giving you credibility when you're applying to teach places.

So if you're on the fence, take the exam. If you're not on the fence, I also think you should take the exam. It's worth taking. Again, the national Pilates certification exam is just kind of the standard nationwide, and even worldwide, in terms of caliber of Pilates instructors. 

So while that studio certification, will let you teach at your [00:03:00] studio, if you have this additional national Pilates certification exam under your belt, you can pretty much teach anywhere. And if teaching Pilates is something you want to do, highly recommend that you take it. 

The best preparation that you are going to have for the exam is your teacher training. So the first recommendation I can make to you is that you take this national exam as close to your test out as you can manage, you'll have everything, all the material fresh in your head. You've been studying for your test out because there's, you know, hands-on portion. I also had a written portion. All of this materials fresh in your head, the contraindications, the spring settings, everything is right at the front of your mind and it's going to be very useful to you to not have to study twice that if you can take the national exam close to your test out, you're going to save yourself a lot of time.

I think I took my [00:04:00] exam two or three weeks after my test out and it was fabulous. I highly recommend. That was a great thing that I did and I hope that you can take advantage of that as well.

In addition to your teacher training as amazing exam prep, definitely the review guide, the practice test booklet and the online practice test are going to serve you very well.

Yes, they cost money, but they are a hundred percent worth it. The review guide and the practice test booklet are on Amazon. I will put the link in the show notes so you can check them out. It's actually been rebranded as well on Amazon. So it does say national Pilates certification exam. I assume that it's the same sort of material ,and it is really worth it to do those practice tests because the questions are similar, the way they ask the questions are simila, [00:05:00] the way they want you to be thinking about Pilates. Because you know, Pilates is so hands on and this is a multiple choice test. Like it's just really valuable to get as much practice as you can. 

The review guide is not interesting. It is super dense. It is straight up columns of text. No pictures, just a lot of words and it's not something you read for fun. It's definitely something that you read for information. The review guide is the condensed version of your teacher training, like all of the things that you should have learned in your teacher training in like black and white in columns without pictures.

I'm a super visual learner, so it was difficult for me to just read that through. So I supplemented that study guide with my [00:06:00] teacher training manual that, you know, had pictures of the exercises that had just like a little bit more for my eyes  to latch onto. And that's fine because I know how I learn and I knew that just reading that cover to cover wasn't going to do it for me.

Instead, I broke it up and I said, okay, I'm going to study, you know, contraindications, and I'm going to do this page of contraindications. I'm going to quiz myself, and then I'm going to take a break. And I just know that that's how I study. So I highly recommend that you kind of find out what works best for you in terms of studying. Because the best recommendation in the world doesn't matter if that's not how you learn. 

Another thing that I did when, as I was working through that review guide was, I was studying with a friend, which I highly recommend. Like if there are people in your teacher training who are also doing the national exam, definitely have study parties and work with them. [00:07:00] It's more fun in community, like Pilates is a communicative adventure. And you know, everyone has their own mnemonics and their own ways of remembering things. It's more fun with friends. So if you can, and that's how you study. Do that, for sure. 

Another thing that the, National Pilates Certification Program exam, offers is an online exam, which is a timed exam that has questions that really mimic the way the tests is structured when you go take it for real and it's worth taking. I want to say that I took mine a month before I took the exam for real and it helps highlight where your weaknesses are in terms of material. If there's stuff that you know wasn't quite sticking in your head, it kind of shines a light on that so you know what to review more. But it also just lets you get familiar with the test format and [00:08:00] the interface for the test, because it is, you know, it's multiple choice. It's got its own little thing going on and it's nice to be comfortable with it so that when you see it and the score counts, you are a little bit more comfortable.

Same thing with picking an exam time. If you're a morning person, take it in the morning. If you need a long, slow morning to like get hyped and drink your coffee, you know, take it in the afternoon. 

The test, it will be offered in a testing center that will have computers and like a quiet room and a test proctor and people will be taking an accounting exam next to you or just stuff will be going on that is not necessarily Pilates. And it's may not be the most friendly atmosphere. So the more you can practice taking exams, the happier you'll be. After you studied and you've picked your exam time and you are the appropriate amount of hyped [00:09:00] for taking the exam, all you have to do is go take it. Woo. That's fun. I definitely blocked out the whole day to go take my exam.

It is a timed exam. You do have three hours, but I want to say I finished in just over two and I had lots of time to go over and stare at the screen and rethink my answers. So you do have time. It is timed, but you have time. So don't feel rushed. You're going to be great. 

It's like such cliched test taking advice, but it's also so accurate that you know, go through, answer the questions that you know the answer to right away. Bookmark and save the ones that you don't know, you can go back and revisit them. You get scratch paper, which isawesome, I guess. I mean, I drew pictures on mine. But you can reason stuff out if that's the way you think. 

Another nice thing about the exam is you find out how you did immediately. Like you click submit, you walk out of that room, and they will give you a [00:10:00] paper that gives you  your score on the exam. So there's no waiting period. And that's super nice. So look forward to that. 

So those are my recommendations for the exam and studying for the exam. Coming up next will be my exam story. Stay tuned.

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So my exam story, I was studio certified by a small studio in Hyde Park in Chicago called Chaturanga Holistic Fitness. And the person who was running the teacher training is also the person who gave my exam. So just the fact that you know the person who's giving you the exam, I know, for me, I felt very supported. I felt like I was connected as I was taking the exam. You know, I was interacting with a human and it was like ideal test taking circumstances. Of course, when I'm testing out, there's still like a high level of nerves and you always want to like do the right thing, say the right thing, but. In terms of like taking an exam, like that's the way I would want to take an exam.

By contrast, the national Pilates [00:12:00] exam is the opposite of that. You are at an exam center and the exam center is so far away from Hyde Park. So I live on the South side of Chicago and it is way, way, way on the North side, and it was the only testing center that was offering the exam at the time. I'm not sure if there's any other ones, if you are also a Southsider um, but it's a trek. 

It is North, in this room, in this building. There are lots of people taking exams and they're taking all different kinds of exams. It's very impersonal. You are in a room, you are being observed. There's a camera in the room making sure you're not cheating, which like again, don't cheat for sure. Like how would you even cheat on this exam? I don't know, but don't do it. It was not like a friendly environment, which is fine. It's a testing center.

 Just knowing the way that I work, I blocked off the whole day for this exam. Like I took it early-ish in the morning. I took it at about 10 o'clock [00:13:00] because I wanted time to get up there and I wanted time to do my exam adventure.

So I did take the exam with a friend, which is fabulous. This is someone I studied with and I hope to have her on the podcast as well. So I met my friend. We took a Lyft to the exam. But first we went to, IHOP, you know, refuel.  Props to IHOP, I'm not gonna lie because I was like, you know what, I would love to have before my exam, chocolate chip pancakes. And also if the cook would be willing to draw a smiley face on my pancakes in whipped cream, that would be great. And so we asked our waiter and the chef definitely did that. So thanks to him because that just puts you in a good mood. Chocolate chip pancakes with a smiley face. 

So then you go to the testing center, super impersonal. You give your name and show your ID. We had the paper that says I'm scheduled to take the exam. You go in the room, there's computers. There was someone taking an exam that required a lot of typing. [00:14:00] So there was like a constant typing thing and then you're looking at the computer interface and after a while you start to go cross-eyed because you've been staring at a computer screen for an hour and a half trying to answer like very cryptic questions, which feel like very lawyer-y. Like they very much have that standardized test feel. That's fun.

I don't have severe test taking anxiety, but I have like a healthy amount of anxiety around taking exams. And I, my brain definitely felt fried, going into it, and even after I took the exam, I was like, Oh, I definitely missed a couple of questions that I could have gotten right if I just exhaled. 

But, as I said in the first part, it took me about two hours and I had plenty of time to go back and, you know, look at my answers and double check my answers, make sure I answered all the questions. It wasn't like a down to the wire thing at all, but I was exhausted still when I finished. [00:15:00] I wish that I had taken a couple of deep breaths and gone through some parts a little bit slower actually, because again, there are a couple that I still kind of kick myself over, but that's fine. Both my friend and I passed the exam, which is excellent.

I felt super prepared taking the exam. Like I wasn't surprised by the format or the way the questions were asked, because I had done all of those practice exams, practice tests, which if you are able to do, like, I really recommend, like you'll just go into the exam feeling a lot more confident. I know I did.

Even if you don't pass the exam the first time, you're able to take it again in a month for a lower cost, which is righteous. It's tricky. It's not easy, but also you'll be prepared for it. So I want to say that the year that I took it, it had about an 89% test pass rate. I will double check that [00:16:00] and put that in the show notes.

The really nice thing about the exam is that you only have to take it once and pass it once. Then once you're certified, you're just renewing your certification and you'll have to get continuing education credits and you'll have to, you know, pay to renew. But when you pass it this first time, your considered certified for two years and you'll just renew it at the end of the two years and you don't have to take the exam again.

So take it once and then you won't even have to worry about it ever again. Hopefully, unless you're a certification lapses, in which case you will have to take it again. So don't let your certification lapse. Yeah. It was nice of them to include two years of your certification and your exam fee. So like, cool. You don't have to double pay that. Fabulous. 

I will be talking about continuing education resources and how to get those continuing education credits and how to [00:17:00] renew your certifications. So if that's of interest, take a peek at the next episode as well. 

Quick breakdown takeaways. If you can take your exam, your national exam, as close to your studio test out, as soon as you finish your teacher training. Just so materials fresh in your head.

Definitely know your study style and then study the way that works for you. Like if flashcards works for you, like make a ton of flashcards. If working with friends, works for you, work with friends. If reading that review guide cover to cover in a well lit room in a library is the way you study, do that so that you feel prepared.

Invest in those materials, the study guide, the practice questions, and then also the test practice. All of those things are gonna really serve you well. Going into the exam, you know, set aside time to study and breathe when you're there. Remember to breathe, right? You've got this, I'm cheering for [00:18:00] you. 

I would love to hear your exam story if you have taken the national Pilates exam. Definitely let me know what your exam experience was like. Did it involve pancakes and hopefully smiley faces and whipped cream? Did you feel anxious? How did it feel being done? Because the last thing I will say is being done with that was amazing. And you just get to feel cool for the rest of the day and hopefully for the rest of your life, teaching Pilates, knowing that you really put in this extra time and you really got this extra certification and you can just like feel it fancy. I know I do.

Thank you for listening to this chapter of Pilates Teachers' Manual. Be sure to visit the Instagram link in the description for the post on today's episode. There you can leave your comments, ask questions, and join the [00:19:00] conversation. Also, be sure to support the podcast and take advantage of the great affiliate links in the description.

The adventure continues. Until next time.