Welcome to this weeks news!

After the rain came the sunshine 🌞 — it's been a lovely week, but I am amazed how quickly the garden dries up and the plants begin to shrivel from heat exhaustion even though we had continuous rain pretty much throughout July. It was good to get into the garden and enjoy it. 

Recently I have noticed a few things feel different in how I move and how my body is working, and it got me thinking about how things are changing. In the fitness industry there can sometimes feel a lot of pressure as an ‘older’ teacher that I should be carrying on doing what I have always done, why should things change, just because I have reached my 60s it doesn’t mean I have to stop or slow down, and surely I should want to be doing all of this still in my 70s and 80s. It’s a peer pressure that I haven’t felt for a long time, but has become more apparent in the last 6 months. 

Then I read an article written by my Pilates guru, my teacher who I did my first training with in 1999 — Michael King—  and in this article he talked about Pilates underscores the value of mindful progress over rushed performance. Meaning that everything doesn’t have to be done at speed in order for us to continue to progress, Pilates incorporates range of movement speeds, from slow and controlled to quick and dynamic. Which is a reflection of how life should be. Reading this gave me what felt like permission to take a breath and put what I feel is right for me at the front of my thoughts.

It reminded me that Pilates has always given me consistency of movement, it's always given me time to realign when life has left me off balance, it engages my brain in a way that no other exercise technique has ever done, and it gives me a mindfulness of how I am feeling both physically and mentally. 

But also what this article gave me was a clearer understanding of myself, that I don’t want to be the same, I don’t want to do what I was doing 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I am happy with the way things are changing for me in my 60s, instead of feeling embarrassed and ashamed of talking about doing things differently, slowing down or being more dynamic when I feel I want to, I can make those choices and understand that I am still moving forward, I am not standing still. And I don’t need to feel judged or feel like a disappointment. 

The reason I am sharing this is for anyone out there that might be feeling the pressure, thinking and comparing what they are doing now to what they were doing 10/15 years ago and feeling disappointed. Thinking that somehow they are failing or not performing as they believe others expectations of them are. I am not just talking about exercise, I am talking about all aspects of life. Ask yourself do you want to be doing the same things, or do you have other things in your life now that you didn’t 10/15 years ago, that are now more important? Do you feel differently physically, and therefore want a different way of moving the body when you exercise? Do you think differently about what is important to you, family, friends, work, lifestyle?

If your answer is you do want to carry on doing what you were doing 10/15 years ago and you don’t want or see a reason to change, then that’s fantastic for you and it’s brilliant for you. But also, if you don’t then that is fine as well. Ask yourself what do you want? — because that is all that matters. We can keep moving, we may be moving at a different pace and it may feel different but this doesn’t mean we aren’t moving, and it doesn’t mean that we are standing still, because that’s all we have to protect ourselves against.

Keep doing good, keep feeling good, keep looking good … have a great week.

With love 

Jane xx