The Pilates Method Alliance announced plans earlier this week to create regional and local chapters, in response to frequent member requests in recent years. A new PMA Chapters Committee has been established, headed up by PMA member and certified teacher Andrea Jeanfreau, who brings 17 years of corporate organizational experience to the initiative.

PMA Executive Director Elizabeth Anderson said that regional chapters will create a better communication vehicle for the PMA and its membership, and an opportunity for board members to visit and have direct contact with the Pilates community. “We want to feel that there’s a lot of back and forth. We’re interested in getting direct and accurate feedback from membership about what they want from the PMA and how they’d like to contribute and what they’d like the organization to do,” she said.

The announcement was made in an e-mail blast that went out on Tuesday (which, in an uncanny coincidence, was released just about the same time we published a story on The Growth of Pilates Collectives). At the moment, Anderson says, they’re still working on structure and documentation for regional use, and putting together the affiliate agreement.

“We’ve had over 100 emails since Tuesday, from all over the country and all over the world,” Anderson told us yesterday. Internationally, Anderson said, the PMA has received inquiries from Italy, the U.K., Germany and Mexico, among other countries.

Jeanfreau, who is based in New Orleans, will be launching the pilot PMA regional chapter. She’s considering forming a Gulf Coast chapter encompassing in Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia.

This is a big week for the PMA, which is also convening a Teacher Training Summit in Dallas on Nov. 7-8  in lieu of its regular annual conference.

The full text of the announcement, including contact information, is after the jump.

By Nicole Rogers

It’s been a little more than a year since Pilates-Pro.com reported on a Pilates collective forming in the San Francisco Bay Area in August 2008, but in that short span, something seems to have taken hold. Other regional collectives have surfaced across the country, and the Bay Area group—which quickly ballooned to the state level—is now taking its program national. These collectives were inspired by a desire to build Pilates community spirit or a local Pilates network, and some, on a more pragmatic level, organized for a shared business advantage. For all, the rewards of sharing information, comparing notes and pooling resources are only beginning. There is, after all, strength in numbers.

We were able to catch up with a few of these groups to bring you this update on grassroots-style Pilates organizing. Read on to find out what the various Pilates collectives are up to now. 

Support for the Business of Pilates
The Bay Area Pilates Collective, now known as the United Pilates Collective, was one of the first to materialize. It started in 2008 when Tracey Sylvester and Nancy Myers, owners of EHS Pilates in San Francisco, thought to hold a mixer for Pilates studios in the Bay Area. “We invited trainers and studio owners within a 25 mile radius to chat about business, and it was immediately obvious that there was a need in the community for this kind of support network,” Sylvester says. She and Myers, as business owners, saw a need for studio owners and independent contractors to share information, such as where to find a lawyer who understood the Pilates business or where to get good liability insurance.

by Mary Kay Hausladen Foley, PT, GCFP

Foley (r.) with a patientPilates instructors know well that the Reformer is an excellent tool to work on strength, flexibility, motor control and balance. For these reasons, the Reformer is also an extremely useful tool for working with people with multiple sclerosis. I have worked with a wide variety of MS patients over the last 23 years, as a physical therapist and as a Pilates Reformer instructor, in association with The Heuga Center for Multiple Sclerosis (the mission of which is to empower MS patients; its motto is “Can Do”). Some patients have such mild symptoms that an outsider would never guess that they have the disease, while others can be quite debilitated it. For the MS population, the Reformer can be invaluable for work on functional changes in areas where motor control or muscle function is compromised.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. It is a chronic and usually progressive disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin—the layer of insulation around nerve fibers—in the brain and spinal cord. This leads to a decrease in nerve function, which causes symptoms that vary from patient to patient and in severity, such as weakness, fatigue, spasticity (a condition we’ll discuss later on in this article), bladder dysfunction, pain, vertigo, decreased balance, cognitive deficits and speech and swallowing difficulties. Because multiple sclerosis affects motor control, the majority of people diagnosed with the disease experience walking difficulty at some point. Research indicates that number is somewhere between 64 and 85 percent. In fact, 70 percent of MS patients report that walking is the most challenging aspect of their disease. Within 15 years of diagnosis, 50 percent of multiple sclerosis patients require assistance walking and, in later stages, up to a third of patients are completely unable to walk. More than 400,000 Americans have multliple sclerosis: most are between the ages of 20 and 50, and women are twice to three times as likely to be affected than men. Worldwide, MS may affect 2.5 million individuals.

Though Pilates exercise will not change the disease process, it can help people maintain strength and function longer than would otherwise be possible. There are, however, special considerations that a Pilates instructor should be aware of when working with someone with MS.

We caught up with Doreen Puglisi, founder of the Pink Ribbon Program, a Pilates-based rehabilitation program for post-operative breast cancer survivors, who explained why Pilates is such an effective form of exercise for this group. Doreen, a survivor herself, holds a master’s in exercise science, and is a Pilates instructor, certified personal trainer and chairperson of the health and exercise science department at Morris County College. Read on for a closer look at what Pink Ribbon provides—for the Pilates community and for breast cancer patients—and a taste of what’s ahead for the program.

Doreen PuglisiHow did you create the Pink Ribbon Program?
I started working with breast cancer patients around 2002. At the time I owned a small wellness studio, and when clients filled out a health history form, I would check the contraindications for programming. That’s when I found out there was no true rehabilitation program for breast cancer patients. Because I’m a physiologist, I looked at the research and at the time, there was nothing. Really, it was astonishing.

Then, in 2004 I was diagnosed with breast cancer myself, and I used my program for my own rehabilitation after a mastectomy. I did have a Pilates background before I was diagnosed. (I was actually trained through Stott.) I truly do feel lucky–I was diagnosed early and had this knowledge base before. It was so scary. None of my surgeons asked me if I needed physical therapy. I thought ‘How am I going to get my range of motion back?’ I had a dorky revelation moment [about creating the Pink Ribbon Program]. I realized that I needed to do something to reach more survivors. I realized I needed to get this out there, and help women who don’t have a rehab or movement background. If it’s hard for me, what are they doing?

Pilates was a great fit for this population: it worked in terms of full range of motion, integrated movement, proper breathing. A lot of what we work with is scapular stability and shoulder range of motion. And in the Pilates world, this was very welcome.

How does Pink Ribbon work?
Well, there are two programs really, for survivors/patients and for instructors. The first is designed as a six-week rehabilitative movement program. The goal is to get them to move beyond Pink Ribbon to a mainstream form of exercise and move forward.

By Nicole Rogers

It’s surprising that there are so few books out there that directly address the anatomy of Pilates, considering the Pilates world’s enthusiasm for studying anatomy, and considering there are plenty of books out there about the anatomy of yoga. But if you’ve been wishing for a Pilates-specific anatomy text, you’re finally in luck. 

Paul Massey’s The Anatomy of Pilates, released earlier this year by North Atlantic Books, covers the basic anatomy of the classical mat series. It is a great introduction to Pilates-specific anatomy, and it is definitely intended for Pilates professionals. The book is filled with excellent illustrations that clearly show the key muscles and how they function in each exercise. The first two chapters provide an introduction to Pilates, and a guide to posture and movement assessment. Then the book provides a description of each exercise: the movement, the breathing, the possible “pitfalls,” and of course the specific muscles that are used. 

The book is a straightforward text that deals mostly with musculature.

By Lauren Charlip

Not only is Pilates for Pink a way to raise money for a great cause, but it has given two Los Angeles studio owners—with studios mere blocks away from each other—a reason to come together and put a new spin on the program.      

Maria Leone and Shari Berkowitz both own studios with teacher-training programs, a rare occurence in any neighborhood. Leone owns Bodyline, a PhysicalMind Institute certification studio, and Berkowitz owns The Vertical Workshop, and directs Power Pilates’ West Coast teacher-training program. Together they’re putting on programming for Pilates teachers that will raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation through Pilates for Pink this Sunday, October 18.

Each will be teaching a professionals-only mat class at Bodyline (which will also sponsor its own Pilates for Pink class for clients). Leone, ruminating on how she’d make her third year as a Pilates for Pink host different, came up with the idea of having a guest teacher.

By Stacey Redfield

The life history of Joseph Pilates appears to be covered, to some extent, in just about every Pilates book, workshop, conference and training program.

The narrative that’s passed on about his life generally goes like this: He was born in Germany, and it is rumored that he was a sickly kid who became obsessed with developing his own physical strength. He first wife died in Germany when he was 30, and somehow he made his way to England—Joe stated that he was touring with a circus troupe. When WWI broke out, he was interned on Britain’s Isle of Man because of his German citizenship. It is a common belief in the Pilates community that the rehabilitative work he did with his fellow detainees became part of the foundation of what we know today as Pilates. (Unfortunately, records from the Isle of Man were destroyed in the war and I haven’t found any official account of his work there.) Pilates immigrated to the United States in 1926, and in doing so, made the acquaintance of Anna Clara Zuener, whom we all know as Clara, and with whom he remained until his death in 1967. After arriving in the States, he opened the New York City studio in which he taught for the duration of his life, though exactly when he opened it is unclear.

There is also plenty of lore about Joe Pilates. For instance, there are many stories about Joe’s love of beer, women and cigars. Though there’s reason to believe them, one might wonder, for example, just how far-fetched is the story of Joe running through the streets of New York in the middle of winter wearing just a pair of skimpy white trunks and his gym shoes?