Hello

 

It's January and — as usual at this time of year — we welcome an influx of new Pilates participants, looking to reap the benefits of flexibility, mobility, strength, reduced aches and pains that Pilates offers. We have a few ways you can join us if you would like to take up Pilates with us...

 

First, we have Absolute Beginners Workshops starting soon in our Loughborough Studio, on Tuesday mornings. These are the ideal way to get started in Pilates — a three-weekly, hour-long session for a maximum of only 4/5 people. As sessions are so small, you will get an exremely good grounding in the Pilates basics, in an ideal environment with one of our Beginners Specialist Pilates Coaches. Once the three week Absolute Beginners Workshop has ended you will be at the stage where you can join one of regular mixed-level classes around the area.

 

If you can't join one of our Absolute Beginners Workshops, next best method of starting Pilates is in our regular Thursday 6pm class in Rosebery Street Medical Centre, Loughborough. This is a low-level Beginners Pilates matwork class you can join for say a term, picking up the basics as you go along, before moving to one of our mixed level classes around the area when you feel ready for the challenge.

 

Our Reformer room at our Loughborough Studio is home to four superb Reformers, and it's here where our micro-group Reformer classes run. Because we have only four machines, classes are highly tailored to suit class participants, and we believe you will simply not get a better Reformer Pilates experience in a class anywhere.

 

We will be running Beginners Reformer classes on Tuesday mornings: initially at 7.30am, and 8.45am, starting in January. Free Taster classes are available. You don't need to have done matwork Pilates first either — our Beginners Reformer classes are for newcomers and experienced alike.

 

So what's a Reformer? The Reformer was originally invented by Joseph Pilates around a hundred years ago, and though modern machines are very much better than his first Reformers, the principles are the same as they always were. Note: the Reformer came first, and all of Joseph's Pilates exercises were devised on the Reformer long before they were adapted for matwork class use. That's why our Beginners Reformer classes are suitable for people who have never done Pilates before, as well as people who have already matwork Pilates experience but who may have never heard or seen a Reformer before. There's more information about Reformers, and our Reformer classes, on our website here.

 

Finally, if you already have some Pilates experience, and would like to join one of our regular matwork or Reformer classes, just go to our website here and look under the Classes tab, where you will see them all listed.

 

And that's all there is to it. Just reply to this Newsletter if you want further details of any of these ways to join us, or to book yourself a space. We are so looking forward to welcoming you to Pilates with us and hopefully to you joining the JTP family.

 

Remember — Pilates can, and will, change your life. Welcome to a new you!

 

There's a children's book: Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty, by Anne Herbert, that tells of the feeling of helplessness we can have when thinking about the world today. How we are led to believe that things exist the way they are because... well, because that's the way they've always been, and that's the way they always will be. How our "betters" tell us to do things a certain way, because that's what they believe is best for us. How we feel we cannot do any particular thing to ease a given situation.

 

But that feeling of helplessness is not something we have to suffer indefinitely. Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty shows us that we don't have to do nothing. We can and — for our own self-esteem — we should do things that — however small — help.

 

When we help someone, our feelings are lifted. It does not need to be a large thing. When we donate to charity, we feel that someone else's suffering may be relieved — if only for an instant. When we talk to a stranger in the street, our self-worth goes up as does the stranger's. When we hold a shop door open for that mum with young children, the act of holding the door is much smaller than the benefit it gives.

 

It doesn't matter that what we might do seems of little consequence, it postively affects someone else. You don't have to take in a refugee family, or give your life's savings to charity. It can be the smallest of things. Just something that makes a difference.

 

When such small random and senseless acts of kindness and beauty are carried out regularly, by lots of people, in their day-to-day lives, the results can be much, much bigger. In the foreword to Anne Herbert's Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty, Bishop Desmond Tutu explains that his nation's change from apartheid to self-rule could have caused much chaos and bloodshed, but for the cultivation of forgiveness within South Africa. It might have seemed a random and senseless thing, given the country's history, but the change it helped bring about was truly wondrous.

 

Let's see what random acts of kindness and beauty we can all do this year.