Articles

Pilatesstyle - March/April 2006

instinct and inspiration by Jessica Cassity

With a sensitive and soft-soken approach to Pilates, Michele Larsson energizes clients and teachers-in-training alike

Claim to Fame: A true second-generation teacher, Michele Larsson studied Pilates intensely with Eve Gentry, a regular around Joe's studio in the late 40's, 50's and 60's. And while the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based instructor is not quick to point out her own contributions to the Pilates community, Larsson's work goes beyond preserving the classical technique that Gentry imparted. Her client base is largely post-injury-just as Gentry's was, later in her career-which has taken her teaching practice in a direction that others are eager to learn more about.

Through her certification program, which is held in six cities nationwide, and in presentations given around the world, 62 year-old Larsson is actively spreading a Gentry-fied Pilates approach, and her own lessons, too.
Hometown: Santa Fe, New Mexico. After years dancing in New York City and San Francisco, in 1982 Larsson returned to the Southwestern town where she grew up.

The Studio: Core Dynamics
FINDING PILATES: " In 1970, when I was visiting my mother in Santa Fe, she said, 'Oh, there's this dancer here who's retired. She teaches something; I don't know what it is, but here's her number. Call her!' I called her, and it was Eve, and she said, 'Do you want a lesson?' And I thought, 'a lesson in what?' So I went to her house, where she had a studio underneath her garage, and I took my first Pilates lesson."

CONTINUING HER EDUCATION: Following that first session, Larsson spent several summers in Santa Fe, studying intently with Gentry, then returning each fall to San Francisco to dance. She began teaching mat classes in San Francisco in 1979, and in 1972 returned to Santa Fe with the intention of studying machine-based work with Gentry, then taking it to San Francisco. She never left, and wound up working closely with Gentry until her death in 1994.

HER SCHEDULE: Larsson is only able to teach individual clients 10 to 15 hours a week, due to her demanding travel schedule. When not leading one of her training programs, which are held in Santa Fe, Phoenix, Miami, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Fairfax, VA, Larsson can be found lecturing in places as far away as Singapore and Chile, teaching the Eve Gentry approach, as well as workshops on "special problems" and "how to develop you own eye as an instructor."

IN THE STUDIO: "I don't run a traditional studio anymore. I run a traditional program for people who have injuries and who cannot go into a class because of risk of reinjury. I meet with them initially, and set up their program. We have a class that meets three times a week, and they do their won individual workout under the supervision of three teachers."

PURE PILATES: "For those who can do it, I stick to as much of the traditional Pilates as possible, because I think it's very, very, good," says Larsson. "And in and of itself it'll solve 75 percent of the problems. For those for whom anything that gets a wee bit vigorous is too difficult, I back them down and we do a lot of Eve's breathing and pre-Pilates, plus things I've learned in other workshops, like those taught by Kathleen Grant. I incorporate all of that to get the person back to moving, to eventually begin to do the standard repertoire, even if it's limited and somewhat modified. That's my goal."
PILATES PROBLEM SOLVING: Larsson compares getting to the root of a client's movement troubles to peeling an onion: The compensations they have tend to layer, so as one problem is corrected, another one may appear, she says. "You have to keep reevaluating. As you try to get someone to move as efficiently as possible, more quirks come out."

TRAINING TEACHERS: "I try to teach everybody the kind of Pilates I learned from Eve in the early '70's, which was classical or historical Pilates. After you understand the roots, when you grow your tree and sprout branches it makes a lot more sense."

ON BECOMING A GOOD TEACHER: "Eve was an instinctive teacher. She would just look at someone's body and feel what that person needed. And that's the way she trained me. So that's the way I teach, but it's hard to impart. In the beginning, you absolutely copy whoever you learned from, until you get your own feet, your own wings. You constantly are evolving, constantly studying, constantly doing something. Otherwise you just sort of dry up. I know I teach very differently now that I did 15 years ago."

POWER IN NUMBERS: "I like the camaraderie of a class, of a group situation, probably because I spent so many years as a dancer in company class and rehearsal. Eve worked out alone, but I'm not that disciplined."

HER OWN WORKOUTS: Larsson's fitness routine changes frequently, and it ranges from a Gyrokinesis session to a Pilates workout alongside a male instructor. "I like to work out with a man once a week if possible, because it's a different approach, " says Larsson. "They have a different energy."

"I adapt Pilates for any client, form the highly fit, to those with special needs. What I really love is problem solving."

Wisconsin State Journal - Friday, January 21, 2005

Pilates Powerhouse

Instructor at the core of the Pilates movement comes to Madison – by John Morgan

Had Joseph Pilates been from Wisconsin, he could have started a support group with Georgia O'Keefe and Frank Lloyd Wright - visionaries so far ahead of the curve that their complex ideas weren't understood fully until decades later.

After Pilates' death in 1967, almost 30 years passed before Madison-area fitness experts and consumers began embracing his holistic form of physical fitness that seeks to marry mind, body and spirit through exercise. Many still do and will study this week with one of the most knowledgeable Pilates instructors in the world, Michele Larsson of the Core Dynamics Pilates studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

"We've been eagerly awaiting a return visit from Larsson," says Sandy Rusch, owner of Fitness Balance on Madison's West Side and a student of Larsson's. "Pilates instructors and students in Madison have a rare chance to meet and learn from the vanguard in the filed of Core Dynamics Pilates."

Larsson, who learned the craft from one of Joseph Pilates' students, explains that this approach demands concentration on breathing and control over the body's core - essentially the core body muscles of the abdomen and back. It's this rather organic approach to exercise that Larsson believes now has people more interested in Pilates than ever.

"I think it's probably the need that people have now for a more balanced form of exercise in their life," she explains. "And so far, none of the exercise systems have really answered all their needs."
Interestingly, while Pilates is seeing a renaissance, it has been around for almost 100 years. Joseph Pilates was born in Germany in 1880. Although he became an accomplished athlete, he started out in life as a frail child. Determined to get stronger, he immersed himself in physical activity. Eventually, as a hospital nurse in England during World War I, he prescribed exercise to speed recovery.

It was during this time that Pilates adapted bedsprings to fashion the first exercise resistance coils that patients used for exercise. These hospital beds were precursors to the Pilates "bed" called the Universal Reformer. The Reformer is a cross between a rowing machine and squat machine upon which a person lies. Straps attached to ropes are wrapped around feet or hands and are pulled, moving the bed's wheeled platform along a track against the tension of the springs.

 

"He used the springs, because he felt that the springs mimicked the way the muscle worked better than a weight," explains Larsson.

Pilates, says Larsson, was completely unimpressed by the mind-numbing repetitions of weight lifting. Instead, he sought to devise more complicated movements done over fewer repetitions that relied on strength and balance. Indeed, a one-hour Pilates workout may be the most rigorous on-hour exercise around.

"You don't have a leg day, an ab day, an arm day. You're dealing with the whole body all the time," says Larsson. "And the benefit of that is that in your everyday life and in your sport, you don't do things in isolation. You do things using your whole body - reaching something from a high shelf, picking something up from the floor, etc."

This idea of a whole body workout is championed by Dr. Betsy Trowbridge, a physician with UW Health who also serves as the medical director of Q 0.


Rusch's Turquoise Mountain Institute, a Pilates education center for aspiring instructors. Trowbridge, who sees many older women through her medical practice, has observed how Pilates can help them.

"One of the main reasons I like it is that, especially with older patients, it works with balance and coordination," she says. "The fact that it targets on core muscles in the body protects our spine, our trunk, our necks."

This message seems to resonate with those who visit Rusch's Fitness Balance studio. On a recent morning, the studio was abuzz with activity. In addition to the exercises done on the Reformer and its cousin, the Wunda chair, Fitness Balance offers mat classes, which feature adaptations of the exercises designed for the Reformer. These mat classes are what are most common in athletic clubs and the YMCA.

Joe Pulizzano, 55, is a recent convert to Pilates. A triathlete, Pulizzano had been plagued by a serious spinal injury that prevented him from running more than a couple of strides. He recently laced up and ran for an hour and a half, and he credits Pilates with his turnaround. "This is a lifestyle now for me - I have to have it."