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.
There is a wonderful culture in Barcelona for exercising outside, and I love it. I had only really seen regular exercise classes outside on the TV, as in the UK it is difficult to do more than the odd class in the fresh air.
But here the weather allows outdoor exercising most of the year, and the locals make the most of this and the great venues here in the City. Both group exercise sessions and personal training sessions are very popular. Why join a gym?
I have Pilates and fitness classes on the beach and in the parks under the name Healthy Beach Barcelona. There is lots of room for Pilates and sheltered places from the hot sun. For fitness exercise in Barcelona, there is lots of urban architecture that is perfect to hang a TRX from or use for many different exercises.
For me, laying on a Pilates mat and looking up to the sky above is much nicer than looking at a ceiling! And to run and exercise in fresh air is just nicer than an air conditioned studio any day.
I am now running Pilates and fitness exercise group sessions and personal training sessions on the beach and in the park in Barcelona everyday of the week. You can find out more by clicking on www.healthybeachbarcelona.com.
You can train with me the traditional way inside in your home if you prefer. Everything is possible!
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.
Wednesday is sport day. Today I want to talk about Pilates for golf.
There are a growing number of “Pilates for golf” type books and DVDs on the market. As a keen golfer (I have never had the time to get my handicap below 18 though), I must say that many of these publications strike me as people jumping on the bandwagon rather than a serious attempt to improve a golfer’s performance. Many are written by people who have clearly never swung a golf club, and others are so general that they could be a book to improve golf/running/tennis/most other sports.
But the biggest criticism I have is that to actually be useful to golfers, any such material must be written in a way that actually engages club golfers. The average club golfer may have never exercised. Most I work with have never been to a gym or attended an exercise session. I joke that most golfer’s warm-up is a bacon sandwich, and cool-down is a pint of lager! Whilst golf is increasingly a younger person’s game and it is crossing the gender barrier, the basic fact remains that it is still dominated at club level by middle-aged and retired men. As Pilates teachers, I am sure we all know that this demographic is possible the hardest one to get engaged in Pilates!
Those of you who have read my blog before will know that it is a crusade of mine to get more men doing Pilates (for example see “You do Pilates, are you gay?” and “Men do Pilates”) and the fact remains that that nearly all golfers I have ever met would see a big improvement in their game if they did Pilates. So why is this?
I have worked with many golf Pro’s as by working together on technique and body function, we can get the best results. Whilst a golf pro can say to a golfer “swing this way”, many golfer’s cannot swing the way they should because their body can’t physically do it. By doing Pilates, a golfer can make corrections to their body; strengthen the core, increase flexibility, build stability in the pelvis and shoulder girdles, and balance both sides of the body, all of which will allow the golfer to hit the ball farther, straighter and more accurately. But these are just some of the benefits that Pilates can have.
The most successful way for a golfer to reduce their handicap and improve consistency is not to spend hundreds of pounds on new clubs. It is the golfer that plays the game, and not his equipment. As long as the clubs are capable, the biggest results can be achieved by changing the qualities of the golfer. It is for this reason that Pilates has been used by professional golfers such as Tiger Woods for many years.
Why is Pilates so good for golf? I produced a document for the World Golf Federation in which I tried to simply explain the benefits using the most common questions that I have been asked throughout the years by club golfers. To view this document please click the link below.
I hope that this will help many club golfers to understand exactly why they should be doing regular Pilates, not just from a book or DVD, but from their local Pilates teacher! You can also click on www.sportcorestrength.com to see how Pilates can help other sportsmen and women.
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.
Another Monday morning. I always remember the quote “It’s not Mondays that are rubbish, it’s your life that sucks” and that makes me smile as another week begins.
In my article today, I want us (us being the operative word) to talk about Pilates (of course) and also those emotive words diet and weight-loss. Today I would like to know your interest in and experiences about your client’s eating habits and how in your opinion this affects their Pilates practice and the progress that they make.
One of the things that prompted my article today is that I was reading over the weekend about Maria Menounos, so I want us to use her example as a reason to debate exercise and diet. If you have never heard of Maria, she is something of a star now in the diet and weight loss arena. She credits the Mediterranean diet and a combination of Pilates and fitness workouts for her quite stunning 40-pound weight loss. She wrote the inevitable book about her achievements. The Everygirl Diet: The Cheaper, Smarter, Simpler Way to Better Health
I am very sceptical about “quick-fixes” and miracle diets, and Maria did lose a lot of weight in a relatively short period of time, but it seems that she did it in the right way and in a sustainable way. She is Greek and followed the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes healthy fats such as olive oil, salmon and avocados, high-quality animal proteins, vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds. She says that she was raised in a strict low-sugar diet as a child because her dad had type 1 diabetes, so when she went to college, she went overboard indulging all her junk-food cravings.
Tired of being overweight, Maria completely overhauled her diet and began exercising during her early 20s. Within a year, she lost 40 pounds and slimmed down to a size 4. The 5-foot-8 Maria now weighs about 125 pounds. She has maintained an active, health-conscious lifestyle ever since. For exercise, Maria tries to walk 10,000 steps (about five miles) every day and she also runs on the treadmill, takes spinning classes, jumps role, plays basketball, and does Pilates and Krav Maga workouts.
It is my opinion that simple logic dictates that our clients will not make as much progress if they take Pilates in isolation, but how much responsibility do you feel about other aspects of your client’s health and wellness? I talked about what I call “total fitness” is my article “Exercise is only one part of Total Fitness” so today I welcome your thoughts and comments about how you approach other aspects of health and wellness, or if you see you role as purely a Pilates teacher. I appreciate that most of us are not qualified in nutrition so for those who are not, how do you try to approach this topic, if at all? For those of you who are qualified, how open do you find your clients to advice about what they eat?
Monday’s aren’t rubbish. And I am sure that this debate today will make this particular Monday an interesting one.
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.
So, after having so much fun with my blog over the past few months, the limitations of having it on the free WordPress hosting have become just too unbearable. So today my blog will be moved to the new domain address of www.chrishuntblog.com.
This move should be seamless, and the new domain hosting should be up and running by this evening, but if there are any problems then please let me know because I do not want to lose any of my valued subscribers or readers.
So here’s to a brave new world. Well, it’s not so new. And it isn’t really brave either.
I talk a lot about being Buddhist and about giving. In these times of austerity, maybe we do not have as much money to give away, but no matter what our financial situation, we can always give away our time and our expertise. And I have absolutely no doubt that the more we give, the more we receive.
So, as I am someone who practises what I preach, I will be giving away a free Pilates session with me every week. You can have the session in person if you are in Barcelona, we can arrange to meet if I will be travelling to your country soon, or you can have the session online.
All you have to do is follow me on twitter www.twitter.com/thechrishunt and tweet “I want Chris Hunt Pilates” with the hashtags #chp, #pilates and #Barcelona. Simple. You can enter each week as many times as you want to and I will announce the winner every Friday. So good luck, and I hope to see you soon for a private Pilates session!
So I am blogging about my blog. That must be kind of ironic or maybe just a little sad?!?! But I am proud to be a 20,000 blogger in only 7 months, and saying that on my blog has some poetic justice about it.
So thank you to everyone for spending your precious time and reading my ramblings, some of which I hope you liked. And here is to the next 20,000 hits. I won’t let it go to my head…. 🙂
Demi Moore: Pilates and you are what you eat, no excuses!
I like Demi Moore. Maybe it’s because she had a hard childhood, maybe it’s because of the scene with Patrick Swayze and the potter’s wheel in the film “Ghost”, maybe it’s because she is an intelligent and likeable person who has stood the test of time.
I certainly like the fact that she does Pilates, and at 51 as the picture above shows, she is in an amazing condition.
Demi follows a raw vegan diet, so as I am a vegetarian I appreciate that about her as well. There is no doubt at all that to achieve a healthy body (and mind) we must look holistically at how we live and how we train. Diet of course is a vital part of that jigsaw. It never ceases to amaze me that people will train their bodies really hard then eat some crap food, justifying it by saying (and clearly believing) that “I have earnt that”.
The idea that junk food is some sort of treat is one that I find interesting and disturbing in equal measures. Here in Barcelona I often hear people say “have a cake, treat yourself”. What I am saying is if you want to eat food that is full of fat or sugar then I have no big problem with this, as my philosophy is everything in moderation, but please do not think of it as a treat or a reward, because that is dangerous.
We can speculate as to where these thoughts come from, maybe rationing in the war, but in my opinion, such an attitude is only (and quite literally) fuelling the obesity epidemic that is sweeping the world.
Another scary thing I hear people say is that eat junk food because their body is telling then to eat it because it needs some type of particular ingredient. And people actually believe this nonsense. Take it from me, it has nothing to do with your bodies nutritional needs.
Another chestnut I hear is that diet is influenced by blood-type. Particularly popular is the belief that people must eat meat because they have the “meat blood group”. Let’s just spend one moment to consider this. They must eat meat because our ancestors ate meat? It is no surprise that the vast majority of respected medical experts do not support the idea that blood group has any affect what-so-ever on dietary needs. Worry about your blood group when you need a transfusion, not lunch. It’s dangerous to be thinking that it’s due to 50,000 years of evolution that our blood type is the reason we feel the need to eat a certain type of food.
The moral of my story? Eat what you want, but if you want to be healthy then try to eat a balanced diet. But for the love of God, do not try to justify your eating habits with outlandish, nonsensical and irrational excuses. We are what we eat. And what you eat is not the fault or influence of your ancestors, World War 2 or the little voice in your head. It is your choice. Pure and simple. And the sooner you stop making excuses and accept that and accept responsibility for what you put into your mouth, the sooner you can start to change things.
Demi Moore: Pilates and you are what you eat, no excuses! I want Demi to have the last words on this blog.
“I have had a love-hate relationship with my body. I sit today in a place of greater acceptance of my body. And that includes not just my weight, but all of the things that come with your changing body.”
After decades of suffering a neurotic preoccupation with being sexy, Moore said she ultimately found that beauty and thinness never truly made her happy. “I had an extreme obsession with my body,” she said. “I made it a measure of my own value. I tried to dominate it, which I did, and I changed it multiple times over. But it never lasted, and ultimately it didn’t bring me anything but temporary happiness.”
Demi Moore: Pilates and you are what you eat, no excuses!