I will be presenting Pilates EVO in Moscow, Russia at MIOFF in October 2014. I hope to see lots of my friends there and I am sure that I will meet lots of new friends as well.
Click on the image above to read about MIOFF and Pilates EVO (there is an English language option).
During my visit in October I will be holding a 3 day Pilates Foundation Education, a 3 day Pilates EVO Advanced Education, and a 2 day Introduction to Pilates course. There will also be some Pilates EVO masterclasses.
For more information about attending the courses, please contact me as soon as possible as places are very limited. If you are a club in Moscow and you want to talk about bringing Pilates EVO to your club, then please contact me.
Chris pays 50% of any money made from this BLOG to his charity partners. More details can be found by clicking on www.chrishuntwellness.com and selecting the “charity partners” tab.
When we create something ourselves, it can be a difficult step to share our creation with the world. What will people think? Will they like it? Will they criticize or praise? Will it be a success? I have always followed the words of Aristotle, who famously said, “there is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing”.
When I was young, I suffered from a lot of back pain. I was born with a spine defect and that led to poor posture which made my problem worse. Hours spent playing sports and practising the piano further added to my problems. I tried many things to help, but Pilates was the thing that really changed my life. It enabled me to live a full life, to run marathons, to snowboard, surf, play golf and never think twice about my back before trying something new. From that day forward, I had a passionate belief that Pilates could help many people improve their quality of life.
In the early days, whilst still practising and studying Pilates I was worked in the City of London as an Insurance Manager. I continue to this day working as a Senior Business Consultant so my life has an excellent balance.
I travelled the world teaching Piates and learning (we never stop learning, and anyone who says any different is very sadly mistaken). As well as Pilates, I was interested in kundalini and other methods of functional training. I also developed a deep love of meditation which took me to the Buddhist Temples of Thailand. Whilst there, I also discovered and studied meridians, becoming qualified in Thai Massage. It was not just the body that interested me. I had always been interested in psychology, in what I saw as “total fitness”. I studied Buddhist psychology and other modern concepts such as Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
As I travelled teaching Pilates, within my subconscious there was a seed that was growing, an idea that I could use all my knowledge to create a different type of Pilates that reflected the ancient and modern. I am classically trained, and it pains me to see some of the new systems that claim to be “Pilates” when they are clearly nothing of the sort. So I took my time to think about how my new system could stay true to the principles of Pilates, to my principles, but how I could add to the experience my own knowledge, character and ideas.
It was important for to me to create a system from my heart, a system where everything has meaning and purpose. In my opinion there are too many systems and teachers who teach not from their heart, but from their bank balance. To quote Einstein, “Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty.”
Music has always been a massive part of my life. I am a classically trained pianist and I play guitar, sing and write songs. I wanted every detail of EVO to maximise the total experience, so it has its own unique uplifting soundtracks mixed in London designed to enable clients to really connect with how their body is moving and working, giving a deep and rewarding experience.
We should never forget our past. It built the foundation that our present so depends. But the past is not an excuse to stay still and not plan for a different future.
Chris pays all profits made from this BLOG to his charity partners. More details can be found by clicking on www.chrishuntwellness.com and selecting the “charity partners” tab.
The World Cup is in full swing, so do we really need another football related story from me? I think yes, as it relates to the most beautiful game of all, Pilates.
My article today is (not for the first time) about men and Pilates. My celebrity headliner is considered by many to be the best player in Major League Soccer history and he is the national team’s all-time leading scorer, L.A. Galaxy midfielder Landon Donovan.
He may have been left out of the US World Cup team in Brazil, but he is still a superstar. As retirement approaches for the 32year old, in a recent interview he revealed one of the secrets of his prolonged success: “I do Pilates. I love Pilates because we do very specific training in soccer for the same six or seven muscles, but we neglect so many other muscles. So when I do Pilates it helps get all the rest of the muscles in shape and gets them working together.” Wise words indeed about our holistic exercise system from a top athlete and sportsman who has firsthand experience of the benefits Pilates brings.
Whilst in London, I was asked the question again that forms the title of my blog today. I have lost count of the number of times people question my sexuality because I am a man who teaches Pilates. Whilst I take such comments as a compliment, they would be quite funny if it was not such an ignorant attitude. I am not gay, not that it matters, but I still find it interesting and disturbing in equal measures why some people make a link between men doing Pilates and their sexuality. I have some very close friends in the fitness industry and in the Pilates community who are openly gay, but there are also others who hide their sexuality, presumably for fear of suffering the prejudice that regrettably still exists in society today.
One of the (many) wonderful things about living in Barcelona is the openness of most of the people. There is a strong gay community and I am happy and honored that my Pilates sessions are popular with that community.
There are so many men in the public eye who do Pilates now, it never ceases to surprise me that there remains a section of society that is still so ignorant. I wrote previously about Dwayne Allen (see my article “Men do Pilates, ask Dwayne Allen”) and I could (and no doubt will) write about many other men including most football and rugby teams.
Such comments do make me all the more determined to continue to change attitudes towards men and Pilates. It is a battle, but it is one that we can and will win.
It’s breakfast time in Moscow now, Barcelona will not be waking up for a while yet….