The very first time I visited Vintage Pilates in Los Angles was in 2013. I attended a Mat Workshop taught by Jay Grimes. It was fantastic, of course. He’d say 3 words and you’d be working so, so hard. I felt my whole back body work like never before. There was a Q+A that followed and I was sure someone would ask about the back. Everyone felt it, right? It was a crazy amount of back work, right? No one asked about the back. Hmmm, guess it was just me that had been overworking her front side all this time. Ok, gotta ask but I’m super nervous. My hand shot up.
“Yes?” He said.
“What cues did you use to get us to work our backs like that? I’ve never felt my back work so hard.”
He just stared at me. His eyes narrowed and he put his arms behind his back. The room fell dead quiet. It felt like 5 minutes passed and the air around me was feeling sticky. My face was definitely red. What had I said?
“I hate the word cue. I don’t use cues.” he politely said.
I don’t remember what he said after that because I was too busy being embarrassed. There I was in a sea of really fit and so-much-better-than-me-instructors that totally knew not to ask about cues. Or so it seemed.
A lot of time has passed and I’ve since enjoyed a lot more learning from Jay Grimes and Vintage Pilates. And, I’ve heard a lot of cues. Cues aren’t bad. No. It’s what happens to instructors when they are searching for cues. They become cue hunters and fixated on delivering the “right” cues. Someone says something in a class and it hits you like a bolt of lightening; you feel something you have never felt before. You stop…feel the magic…this is new…and immediately, you want to know what that CUE was. Your thinking is that if you deliver that CUE your clients will have the same sparkly moment. I wanted everyone to feel their back like I’d just felt mine.
And we’ve all done it. We’ve memorized them, wrote them down, and delivered our cues with pride. We’ll even take a deep breath to build up the delivery, we’ll give a slight pause to ensure the words are heard, and THEN repeat the exact words that were so life changing for us. We expect the client to jump up and say “YES, that was it! I now understand corkscrew, completely.” But more often than not, that doesn’t happen. No two bodies are alike. The words that work for one body on a particular day may not work for another. Darn. More importantly, though, delivering a memorized cue means that you haven’t started doing the best part of your job. That’s what Jay Grimes doesn’t like.
Now what I have to say here isn’t news. It wasn’t the cue. It was you moving and doing the work and being in your body and it all fell together to create a learning opportunity. You know that. But have you tried to put that moment into your own words? What happened in your body? What did you feel? Explore all of your senses, really hone in on what’s happening for you. That’s the fun, creative, put-your-own-spin on it part. That’s where we get to reinvent the wheel as much as we want. Don’t change the roll-up, but please do create vivid imagery that helps us hold our heels in place, round our spines, and work our center. All day long. Say it any way you’d like. Once you start using your own unique experience as a guide, cues won’t matter.
