Microscopic and infinite … space and place in Pilates

As a child, you were uninhibited by and about space, an idea the Pilates method can help restore to your physical, mental, and spiritual life.

Your imagination as a youngster allowed you to see a vast ocean as a personal pool, or a postage stamp patch of grass as a teeming forest. You were fearless in your understanding of space as a magical kingdom in which you dwelt, and which dwelt in you.

So it is with Pilates, which takes you on a never-ending voyage of exploration through your and the world’s spaces. Pilates leads you through and beyond your personal spaces and into the realm of universal space that is at once microscopic and infinite.

At its most elementary, Pilates launches that exploration with a slow and gentle measurement of your internal sense of physical space.

Pilates leads you through and beyond your personal spaces into the realm of universal space which is at once microscopic and infinite.

Know your own body … and its place in space

Skilled Pilates instructors have an intense knowledge of anatomy and human movement. They use the insights they gain from these disciplines to help you understand your current limits (not limitations) and to visualise your physical potential.

They refer to our external space through our five senses, and to proprioception (body position sense), our sixth sense in our internal space. Developed by our nervous system, proprioception is a sensory feedback mechanism for motor control and posture. It keeps track of and controls the different parts of the body.

Correct, consistent Pilates training, will eventually convert all your body’s spaces to a positive continuum—the interconnectedness of all your body’s systems.

Four categories of space

Infinity Pilates uses an ocean simile to help explain it. While the world has thousands of seas, bays, straits, and channels, we truly have only one ocean connecting every single drop of water to the next around the entire globe.

Pilates recognises and impacts on four categories of space which in turn sub-divide into eight kinds of discrete space. As well as the three spaces governed by Pilates’ central principles of body, mind and spirit, a fourth, external awareness, comes into play as an inevitable product of the first three working in harmony.

Let’s examine the four.

Internal or physical space

In ascending order of exposure to and proficiency in the Pilates method, you first become aware of your space at body level. You learn to listen to and visualise and feel your whole body as a collective of functions.

You learn to stretch to your limits, and once having achieved them, extend and maintain new limits.
At the next level of proficiency, your internal space, having joined the dots in the complex picture of movement integrity, folds into the same picture the presence, to a level of attaining further interconnectedness.

Then, on an even deeper scale of attainment, you experience your internal space expanding and contracting in a total rhythmic synchronisation, feeling a sense of ease and harmony when the body is in motion.

Mental space

It would be misleading to portray these developments as linear. A first time marathoner develops muscular strength as she pursues her training regime. At the same time, she builds mental endurance as a parallel reward. So it is with Pilates.

The transformation of the body from spaces operating in isolation to systems collaborating in complete coordination brings with it a new awareness and respect for your own capabilities. New found flexibility, strength, and range of movement can have profound, positive impacts on your mental well being too.

Spiritual space

It’s no coincidence that Joseph Pilates built a major insistence on correct breathing into his original Pilates method. He knew that his regulated and controlled exercise regime, combined over time with disciplined breathing, could induce a meditative state. This mindfulness space encourages you to be to attentive to the present moment.

External space

No matter your age or gender, you live in a material world. You are surrounded with every day objects, mostly useful but sometimes hazardous. At a basic level, practising Pilates boosts spatial awareness through energised sensory perception.

A further benefit is the outcomes you receive from dedicated time spent in a studio environment with your trainer and frequently other clients.
Interaction between people united in and by a cause so devoted to human well-being is an integral component of the therapy, if not a therapy of its own.
Pilates positively alters our view of the space we occupy internally and externally. Fully embraced, it can reshape our relationship to space and place in the world around us, and our place in it.

Pilates addresses your needs not only in physical space, but in locating you in and with your mental and spiritual space too. Find out how call Infinity Pilates (03) 9534 6233 or contact us at info@infinitypilates.com.