Point of Control

Happy Holidays to All!

So I have to tell all of you that I am totally geeked to be a Pilates Trainer right now! After much blood, sweat and tears about growing the studio over the last few years I was able to finally take a vacation last month (the first in about 6 or 7 years). I think it did some good because after I returned a bunch of new mat class clients jumped on the Pilates bandwagon. It is so weird to have a class full of new people in December!

Since this boom of new people, I thought I'd go ahead and clarify the infamous phrase that I use a thousand times a day.....your point of control. Again, I've taken for granted that my "normal" verbage isn't so normal to my newbies. Take for example the exercise "the hundreds". After I have the client prepare the legs up to the ceiling I usually give the cue "if you are able to advance this exercise, please lower your legs to your point of control". Huh? What's the mean? What's my point of control?

I generally use the imprinted spine when the legs are up in the air (a gently flattened back and pelvis). I tell the client that their "point of control" means to lower the legs down to just that point before you loose that gentle flatness and the back wants to arch and take over the movement. Core work = ab work. Not back strain work. Someones point of control could be lowering the legs a few inches to maybe 45 degrees towards the floor. Since everyone's spine and pelvis sits differently and everyone's flexibility and strength is different, each client will have a different point of control. My super duper lordotic, sway back, duck booty doesn't allow me to do lower my legs to far down in my "hundreds" position when doing matwork. I'm the couple of inches down girl. When I actually get a chance to practice what I preach (Pilates 2-3 times a week) I can get those legs lower to the floor. Until that day, the higher the legs stay to the ceiling the easier it is to keep it in the abs and protect the back from pain. This "point of control" concept can apply to exercises like the hundreds, double leg stretch, double straight leg stretch and bicycle.

Remember, Pilates is all about core strength and in order to achieve this all the exercises should be executed with precision and accuracy. It's not about competing with your mat class neighbor.....even though those advanced clients are quite impressive!

Seriously?!?!?!?!

Okay....So you can probably tell by the title that today's post will not be your typical Pilates article but it will be a complete and total sound off about the ethics of blog writing and taking other peoples work. I thought about apologizing for this rant....but I can't and won't. I still believe that this article will be informative. Maybe even spark some good conversation.

Most of you that follow this blog know that there is usually a new post about every month and half about something related to Pilates. Most of the content on this site is written by myself and does consume an ample amount of free time in order to compose. The other articles not written by me are from other individuals that have contacted me and offered to contribute an article. They have also approved their work after the post is made. They get links to their website.

So, I recently decided to start a twitter account and see what all the fuss was about. After I created the account I added a few Pilates professionals and other individuals I found interesting. When I logged in Saturday morning I noticed that someone I was following had several threads that were promoting articles from my blog. COOL.....I though someone really loved my blog and was using my new twitter buttons to share the love. Well....no. I clicked the link assuming I would end up here but the links took me to another "Pilates" blog that wasn't mine. I found that the most of my articles (that took me a few year to accumulate) were pulled of this site and added to theirs in a matter of a day. All the content on this particular site was not original work but the posts of other Pilates bloggers. Of course there is no valid email address to contact this individual. My comments requesting the removal of my articles were ignored. Nice!

I would like to state right now that the content of my blog belongs to me! I have no problem with links and I certainly don't have a problem with someone interested in posting one of my articles with my permission and appropriately crediting me for my work. I don't believe it is ethical to cut and paste other peoples hard work onto your own blog. It's actually pretty cheap that you have nothing original to say for yourself. Well, why don't you go ahead and steal this article too!!!! Or better yet....why don't you just remove my articles off your site instead of stealing over half the articles on my blog.

I am totally appalled at this. Am I in the wrong here?

For those of you that network in the Pilates field, could you please go ahead and pass this article along to other Pilates bloggers or writer. I'm not the only one that is having my feeds pulled by a splogger.