Overview
“Pay attention to signals from your body and mind.”
When something is going too far, it is definitely sending signals. If the balance is broken unconsciously, we fell down to any direction where we don’t expect before. That’s a fact of nature. We should apply the same even in our lives. When we are facing tough times, it happens to show in various ways. At times, we are fragile in these situations. There was a time when I went through similar experiences, too. It was around the second year since I had started working. I was a very junior then, and my whole life is almost involved in working only. I didn’t know how to release stress and manage time for myself. I was obsessed with only work at that time being pressured that I had to make it well. My body was sending signals to myself. Finally, It started to break my life apart.
Meet Pilates
“Recover my balance and strengthen my core : Body, Mind, and Life.”
I have tried several workouts before such as swimming, yoga, and cardio exercises. But, I quickly lost interest too fast about those kinds of things. I was looking for a new exercise that would fit me. In the meantime, I got to know Pilates which is an unusual workout in Korea. The thing that I caught my eyes was to focus on basic and core. The key value was toward the time when we were born. Following the direction, the philosophy of Pilates is recovering our cores first. Once we rebuild our core parts, it can rebuild the other parts easily. To get solid things, we have to make a firm root, whatever it is. That is important to find the core part when we had issues in our lives. That is simple but important!
“Let’s find our core and balance in our lives.”
Right. I need to find my core as well. My Pilates life has started from this time. By following this philosophy, I wanted to fix my body and mind as well. When I look back at that time, I am hoping for a more plentiful life which is a lot different from before since I am like a seed of fruit.
What Pilates Has Taught me
It has been 8 years since started doting Pilates. Pilates has changed many things in my life. It has taught me not only to build muscles but also how to look at our lives. Even little pieces of things of my life make me go forward.
1. Back to original body states
We live too fast without checking our body states. We are in natural states after we were born. It means that we in the right position and shape of our bodies. However, we went through various things to survive. For studying, workout, and work, we spend lots of time as a certain position. Our body is getting away from lines as a result of those. Pilates teaches the right position as the shape of origin. Through the gestures in Pilates and with proper breathing, it gets started to fix our body position. When we are breathing, the muscles in our bodies are starting to move.
“Release hard parts and strengthen muscles of weak parts.”
2. Raise muscles of the mind
Like the muscles we have in our bodies, there are also muscles in our minds. That means, when we exercise, it builds muscles. Once we have muscles, we have the strength to stand against hard things. When we workout, we tend to give up at the moment we face some difficulties. As you experience it, we stand at that time and do other things. With that, we can move one more step.
3. Attitude to deal with our lives
After starting with Pilates, I’ve learned to understand our life as well as our body and health. I felt that the process of the workout makes me think of natural flows in our lives. Whenever we workout, we used to give up when we do a higher level of exercise than our normal workout. But, I will be happier after achieving and overcoming the hardship. It gives us confidence that we can do something. Having this small achievement, we can live a healthier life. We are also faced with the various moments in a human being: happiness, sadness, very tough time, and unexpected moment. We need to have the wisdom to overcome that moment. We can get strength through achieve something.
4. Deep dive into understanding our body and Pilates
Since I have been doing the Pilates for 5 years, I wanted to know the professional knowledge about Pilates. Someday, I want to help someone change for the better like me. I’ve learned how to understand our bodies and rehabilitation Pilates. I can learn what motion is helpful for a certain part of the body. Therefore, I can do Pilates in a more detailed and accurate motion.
5. Motivation to Challenge New Things
Pilates, which came to suddenly, challenged me to do new things. By experiencing the process of Pilates from start until now, I can get the strength to challenge myself to do something new and stand a hard time until getting used to it, and do things like an expert eventually. Most of the things are done steadily every single day. Living our every day lives, we usually limit ourselves with the line. “I can’t do this. It’s not worth it. It’s a waste of time.” It’s very hard to challenge what hasn’t done yet before, especially about what other people don’t do things easily. But, I can tell it to whoever is reading this story. We can get unexpected huge happiness and achievement when we achieve it.
What’s Next?
Actually, I want to be a person who like helping someone. Being a Pilates instructor is a very attractive job for someone to recover one’s health indirectly. Someday, I would like to help someone to be physically and mentally healthy with a positive outlook in life . Sometimes my friends around me are asking me about Pilates. My stories, which have been for 8 years now, make my friends get motivated to workout. I want to positively affect people around me directly or indirectly.
“Let’s get started now. Whatever it is waiting for new a challenge.”
