How curiosity makes you a better Pilates teacher

For Pilates teachers and studio owners

First published on Tania's Hearts and Bones site, August 2022. Lightly edited; a draft for her approval.

When I was a newly qualified mat Pilates teacher I walked into my first class nervous but prepared. I had my exercise list. I thought I had it sorted.

I fell over at the first hurdle. I knew which exercise I wanted to teach, but I had not thought about how to introduce it, how to get people set up, or what to say beyond “hello and welcome”.

I wanted to leave the room and never come back. I also knew I had to get through the hour. That first class was a shambles. Instead of deciding I was a failure, I got curious. I knew how to teach. I simply had not worked out how what I already knew applied to teaching Pilates.

Out of that came a set of teaching tools, built to answer the questions teachers actually have about how to teach movement so that clients can grasp what is being said. I have honed them over twenty years, and they help teachers teach with more clarity, which as it happens also grows their business.

Did you ever think curiosity might be the most useful business exercise there is? It is.

To change people’s lives with your own way of teaching, the thing you have to do is get clients curious about movement, and teach them with care and a genuine interest in how they are.

I have been helping new and experienced teachers develop their teaching for two decades. In that time I have been asked thousands of questions about how to teach and how to manage what clients expect. The question that comes up most often is about confidence: teachers who feel like impostors. Until that is resolved, it is hard to teach from the heart.

If you would like a hand with your teaching, that is what coaching is for, and there is more on this in Teach Pilates with Confidence. Or book a free 20-minute call and we can talk it through.