One of my clients who is in her 70s right now and had double knee replacement told me once “If I knew that I would live that long I would have started doing Pilates at your age!”
At the time of our conversation I was 28 years old and I have been practicing Pilates for 5 years. Yet, I didn’t feel that I started early enough. I came to Pilates because I had back pain, had issues with weight management and was trying to stop the progression of scoliosis.
How much better would it have been if I (or you!) have started Pilates as kids?
I remember reading an interview with Daria Pace, granddaughter of Romana Kryzanowska, when she shared her memories of having Pilates sessions as a child with her grandmother. Of course, she had an opportunity to take classes from Joe’s protégé and yet I was thinking that learning the Method so early was the biggest gift that she received.
I believe that any instructor out there would agree that teaching Pilates to children will be the most useful self-care tip that children can get. But how do you start teaching Pilates to kids? Working with children is so much different from working with the adults.
Today I am talking to Amanda Rhine, the owner of Discover Happy Pilates Studio in Decorah, IA. She has been teaching Pilates to children for 3 years and she shares her experience of working with probably the most challenging and most amazing population of Pilates clients – CHILDREN.
Download your worksheet here before you start listening to the interview.
Recommended resources:
- Pilates for Children and Adolescents: Manual of Guidelines and Curriculum (aff link)
- The Pilates Path to Health: Body, Mind, and Spirit by Gary Calderone (aff link)
- Pilates 4 Youth Facebook Group
BONUS
Watch Amanda’s Happy Kids Pilates Class
Transcript of the interview
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 age groups of children do you work with?
Currently I work with 3 to 5 year-olds and fifth and sixth graders. The reason I work with these two groups is because I am restricted with time. In a perfect world and if I had more instructors working for me I would love to have classes for all age groups.
4. When is the best time to start introducing Pilates to children? And what level of Pilates can you teach to the children at different ages?
We start working with 3-year olds and even let 2-year olds come into classes. At that age kids are clearly NOT doing Pilates. We call it Kinder Movement but we base it off what we know about movement from Pilates.
Joseph Pilates’ intention was to help us return to a more natural state of movement. He looked to animals and children for inspiration so kids can start moving at any point of their life. Our little kids will not do the most perfect and efficient Pilates Bridge but I will tell them that there are little boats that will come. They have to lift their Bridge to let the little boats come by, and then maybe a Big Boat will come by.
We have to play with this age group. Of course, we work on different concepts at every level, but ultimately kids can start at any age. It really depends on how creative the instructor is and to what length they are willing to put themselves developing programs for children at younger ages. It can be a little more challenging unless you are really a kid at heart and you love movement and you just love to have FUN!
5. How long are you classes?
The little children that I teach have 45-minute classes. I can say that they can handle less but we stick to the 45-minute class for the price range that we need to keep. And we get creative! We fluctuate between movement, crafts and games to keep them engaged.
The older kids (10 and 11 years old) have a full 1 hour class. They have their classes right after school. During my first sessions with them their behavior was pretty bad. I understood that at that point they were hungry and tired and they didn’t want to think anymore.
For the past two years we’ve made that class a Nutrition and Movement class. I can say that the movement piece can stick to 30-45 minutes.
6. How often do you have classes with your older group?
We have classes jut once a week. I feel that the kids are really overscheduled these days. I think that there is a lot of pressure on kids right now to be well-rounded and to experience all these things. All of my kids during our recent talk about mindfulness were really worried about their performance.
It is nice to think that now they have at least one atmosphere where we are not being competitive, and more focused on internal self.
7. What props do you use in your classes?
With the little guys we use a lot of different shapes like balls, hula-hoops, balloons, yoga blocks etc. I create obstacle courses for them to shift their thinking.
With the little guys the biggest rule is that if the teacher is not touching the equipment then you don’t touch it.
The older kids can handle more serious props. I have very rarely let on the Reformer but they are very curious about it. The biggest issue though is that the shoulder blocks are too wide. The girls just slip right through them.
The older kids also really like the foam roller. They need a lot of release work because they are into a lot of sports. We’ve also played with the foam arcs (by Balanced Body.)
8. 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.
9. What are your tips for the instructors to transition from teaching adults to teaching children?
I think that if they really want to work with children then they have to throw themselves into working with children.
- Spend time with children. I don’t know if there is any good way to prep for it. You have to spend time with the children, talk to them and see how they are perceiving instruction in general. It has been a challenge for me to figure out how to teach children.
- Be prepared to have fun and play games. I don’t start kids the same way that I start adults. They want to breathe and focus but at the same time they are more driven to letting go and having fun, playing games. My kids request burpies and DESPISE the Hundred.
- You just have to revert yourself to this childhood stage. The stage of curiosity and wonder. If you are going to talk about the spine then show them the spine. Don’t just assume that they know what you are talking about.
- Let go of the expectations that you have for adults. Let go of the expectation of perfection.
- Be prepared for trial and error.
- Everything has to be a game. You have to think in the realms of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Peter Pan.
10. Which Pilates exercises do you include in your classes for the older kids?
The Pilates Method Alliance has created a phenomenal manual Pilates for Children and Adolescents: Manual of Guidelines and Curriculum (Amazon aff link)
One of the things that is pretty evident if you read the manual and watch kids is that the abdominals are not really present for a long time. For example, doing the Hundred is not something that children can do until they are about 11-12 years old. You can play with the movement, let them try but don’t expect them to do it perfectly.
The kids love rolling movements like Rolling Like a Ball, Open Leg Rocker, Seal, Crab, the Boomerang. You are going in all these fun dimensions, throwing legs over your head and just enjoying the moment.
When we are doing side-lying work we always talk about something fun. With the older children we pretend that we swoosh a paint brush back and forth, with the little guys we chomp like alligators with our legs.
We do a lot of play with the younger group. When doing Single leg Circles we pretend that we are cutting out circles on the ceiling. We also experiment by letting them hold something between their toes like ribbons or pinwheels. That’s the stuff that makes them smile, laugh and enjoy being there.
I will explore pretty much any exercise with my older group. Of course, I will make sure that they are safe and will correct them if they are putting themselves in harm’s way. And I don’t expect them to do it perfectly. Right now I am working with the older kids on learning all 34 mat exercises so we’ll see how it goes in 10 weeks.
11. 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.
12. What are the challenges of marketing Pilates for children?
I do a lot of local marketing. It so happened that some of the kids came and loved the class. And then they kept spreading the word out to other children. Now we have a group of friends who come.
A lot of instructors have a challenge of bringing Pilates to schools. I feel that if I wanted to spread Pilates to the middle school then I would start by talking to the teachers.
I create local awareness about Pilates for children with my Youtube video and my current clients. I was able to teach some movement classes at the Montessori school that my daughter goes to, so it was good exposure as well.
I also have a lot of connections through my social work. I have a friend who teaches dance so I partner with her a lot. There is a local home schooling group that sends out a newsletter regularly. I was able to reach out to them as well.
A couple of years ago we did a Play Group. The front room had activities for children and the back room had food and a place to hangout for the adults.
Marketing Ideas:
- Local Homeschooling groups
- Local Facebok playdate groups
- Dance studios
- Physical therapists
- Video
- Private schools and preschools
- Daycares
- Art groups for children
- Connecting with teachers and school boards
- Word of mouth
- Organize playgroups
13. 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.