Welcome to this week’s Newsletter.

I hope you have had a good week, it’s been great to see everyone in class and to ‘Pilat-ey’ together.

All classes — Face to Face and Online are running as usual this week, so head to the timetables and check them out.

I am really excited to announce my 25th year of Jane Thomas Pilates Celebration Day. This will be held on Thursday 4 October 2024, and I am giving you lots of advance notice so you can mark it on your calendar now. 

The day will consist of a variety of different sessions, including Pilates of course, but also a Sound Bath, and a Meditation and Mindset session. There will be more details to follow, such as venue and cost, but mark the date in your diary now if you would like to join me.

I want to celebrate this year, and I want all of you who have been a big part of my life in the last 25-30 years to celebrate with me, I do hope you will be able to do this. Part of the celebration will also be to raise funds for Macmillan who have played a huge part in my life and the service they provide is vital, so I want to support it and what better way than to do so than with this Celebration. 

I realised that this year is my 30th year in the fitness industry as a group exercise and personal trainer, and I launched Jane Thomas Pilates in 1999, opening my dedicated Pilates Studio the following year. I have witnessed a great deal of change in that time, but in the last few years exercise has taken on a wider role in keeping us healthy. 

When I first started in 1994 the focus of exercise was physical health, but the emphasis now is very much on the mental and emotional wellbeing that exercise supports. Mindful movement such as Pilates and Yoga are considered to be a big part of our overall wellbeing, a more holistic approach to our health, which I personally welcome and am grateful for. One of the aims of JTP has always been about the mind, body connections and how as a whole being we need this in our lives, so I want to celebrate this as much as possible.

Let’s do it.

Swimming Part 2 this week — progressing from the foundation level. 

Work appropriately for your body, keep away from pain, and if you have any questions please message me. 

This exercise is brilliant for strengthening the posterior chain of muscles, while also mobilising hips and shoulders and challenging the stamina of the core for stability. 

Enjoy!

I hope you have had a good week of ‘being’!!

This week I was triggered by a guided meditation talking about how our environment can affect you, specifically the effect of context.

Thinking about our surroundings and how they can affect our thoughts and emotions, it can be as simple as the difference between how we feel when we have a warm drink compared to how we feel when we have a cold drink. We can feel more comfortable when having a cup of tea than when we are having an iced latte for example. 

We can all appreciate how different we feel when the sun is shining than when grey clouds fill the sky. We might feel more positive, more energetic, more able in the sunshine. We’ve had a lot of rain recently, and I think everyone I have spoken to has commented on it and saying how miserable it makes them feel, and they don’t want to go anywhere when its raining or do anything. 

Imagine being stuck in traffic when wanting to get somewhere,  and you get a phone call (hands-free of course) from a friend. You might start to feel more irritated, more anxious, even if the friend is just wanting to make arrangements to meet up. It’s all about the context and the effects of this and the impact this has on your mood and attitude. 

I know that how you feel about exercise can be affected by the environment. Exercising from the comfort of your own home has enabled some to feel more confident when doing certain movements and exercises, and progression is much more than when attending an ‘in person’ session, perhaps in a cold hall, with a group of people who you may not know very well. The context and the environment definitely has an impact here. But also for some it might be the opposite, in that unless you are going somewhere to exercise you just wouldn’t put the same amount of time aside to do it at home, because maybe you don’t feel you have the right space, or you don’t feel the context is right for you. 

It’s really important therefore to be aware of the context — you need to feel comfortable and to feel able to do what needs to be done. So if you want to meditate, it’s unlikely to happen in a noisy environment. You may have some detailed work to complete but if your environment is cluttered and untidy, this will have an impact on concentration and focus. 

So we need to always think about a specific setting where you spend a lot of time, workplace, home, and how that environment impacts you and how often are you aware of that impact. Can you make mindful changes to the context that will help to maximise mood, attitude, energy or focus? 

When I am writing this Newsletter I always like to sit at my kitchen table, looking out at the garden, seeing the birds on the feeders, all the colours of the flowers. It’s light too, even on the darkest of days. This environment maximises my mood and my focus to do this job.

So think about your environment this week, and if you need to do anything that will have a positive impact on your thoughts and feelings. It’s all about context.

Have a good week everyone — keep moving, feeling and looking good.

With love

Jane xx