3 Benefits of Doing and Teaching Pilates to Children

exploring Mama’s Reformer under strict supervision

– Mama, can you play with us?

I feel bad to admit it but I am not a play-dress-up-and-Barbies kind of Mom. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with all 4 of my girls but I have to be creative about what I do with them. My older girls are 6 years old and are in first grade at this moment. My younger girls are 18 months old and they are in the “Mommy school” right now 🙂 So we have a wide range of interests in my house.

Being a Mom, a Pilates instructor and a web developer makes my personal life balance constant work in progress. As a Mom I want to share my passion for movement with my girls and give them the best toolkit for their life. At the same time I want my children to have fun spending quality time with me. I am at risk of sounding selfish over here, but I also need to find time for my personal Pilates practice.

One of the fun ways that all of my girls and I spend time together is having Pilates sessions. Pilates has so many fun exercises for the kids to do and we can always put an extra playful spin on them. Having these Mommy-time Pilates sessions has been a life-saver for me because they let me share what I love doing with my girls while also having a personal workout. And we just have fun barking like Seals, Rolling like Balls and Swimming across the great big ocean. *smile*

While I teach Pilates only to my children at the moment, Amanda Rhine the owner of Discover Happy Pilates Studio in Decorah, IA teaches Pilates to children of different ages at her studio. I am happy to feature her on PilatesBridge today and let her share her experience of working with probably the most challenging and most amazing population of Pilates clients – CHILDREN.

Watch the Happy Kids Pilates class that Amanda teaches at her studio

1. Amanda, what inspired you to start teaching Pilates to children?

I have a background in child development. I have graduated from Florida State University in 2006 and have been a social worker until I found Pilates. Pilates felt like a perfect way to help people with their mental issues in a more holistic way.

I was working primarily with foster children and foster parents in Tampa Fl. In Iowa I started working not only with children but also with their biological parents. Teaching Pilates to children came from my social work background.

2. What brought you personally to Pilates?

When I moved to Decorah IA, it was the time for me to figure out where I really wanted to be with my career. I had a friend at the time who was the owner of a Pilates studio but she wasn’t around much so she was looking for someone to utilize it. When I was applying to social work jobs I started taking Pilates classes and going through the training.

At the time I was thinking that it would be a healthy way for me to recover from pregnancy but I had no clue that Pilates would make me feel more alive personally. I have a background in dance so when I started doing Pilates it really bought me back to the elements of the dance that I loved – the discipline, the precision, the feeling of movement. Pilates encompassed a lot of parts of me that I left behind when I started doing social work.

I went through the comprehensive teacher training with the Physical Mind Institute in Minneapolis.

3. What are the biggest benefits of starting Pilates early in life?

• The biggest benefit is finding tools within Pilates teaching that help kids feel calm, focused and confident.
• Breath has been our biggest focus. I am most often sought out to teach breathing techniques to children and families.
• My favorite quote from the book The Pilates Path to Health by Gary Calderone (Amazon aff link here) is
  “The greatest gift that Pilates can give you is to know yourself”
  I think that it is true for the children too.

4. Do you do Pilates with your daughter?

Yes, I do. My daughter (who is 5 years old) loves to come up with her own moves and names. She loves to be the instructor. The other day she told me that she wanted to do the Dinosaur Flip Flop. It turned out to the Rocker from Pilates mat.

5. What is the most rewarding part of teaching Pilates to children?

I think the reward is the personal one. We should remember to move that well, to be that joyful about moving.

The benefit for me is feeling that I have personally given back to what I am passionate about. It makes me really appreciate the creativity of this job. We don’t have to think of smooth transitions all the time. We can get up and turn the wiggles on for a couple minutes. It is really nice to have that break from a more serious, therapeutic, and rehabilitative nature of Pilates.
Watching Pilates in children is the natural movement that Joe was talking about. It is such a beautiful connection to Pilates (the method itself) when you see the roots of what inspired Joseph Pilates.

It is really fun to watch children and get inspired by them and to keep knowing that they are inspired by Pilates too.

Recommended resources:

1. Pilates for Children and Adolescents: Manual of Guidelines and Curriculum (aff link)
2. The Pilates Path to Health: Body, Mind, and Spirit by Gary Calderone (aff link)
3. Pilates Pro Interview Creative Ways To Teach Pilates to Children with Amanda Rhine (must be logged in to access the interview)