It's our 2nd Anniversary!!

TWO YEARS ONLINE!



 

 Happy 2 years ONLINE!!!


I mean technically I was not fully yet online - but the cogs were whirring, the plans were forming and we were, as of 8pm 2 years ago today, locked down. 


THREE DAYS…. No sleep, a lot of tears and some pretty fantastic anxiety attacks and we were off!!! Straight into a full month of Facebook lives… every single day…  It was very exciting and very terrifying and so we were launched online!!


WHAT a couple of years it has been. To think back to those early days when we were all a bit trepidatious of this thing “Zoom” and how did one sign up and what was mute and quite honestly, just what was the etiquette?


Passwords did NOT work, wifi was being stolen by children homeschooling and it was too much bother. Spouses tended to wander semi naked, post shower in the back ground and pets and small children bombed the class….those days when no-one was quite sure who could actually see what and OH the delight when it was realised that you could stay in your pyjamas and forget about your hair.... well, YOU could....!!!!


Fast forward and we are quite the online community. I am proud to have taught live into 11 countries and counting with the grand accolade of being recognised, half asleep and staring at my coffee, at 6am at Bristol Airport just a few weeks ago by someone who’s mother had joined from Bahrain. Bertie has been recognised several times as “the Pilates dog” … we are, I believe, quite established!


Think back to Lockdown 1 when lots of you joined every single day and how STRONG and FLEXIBLE you all became with your daily practise. Lots of you accomplished some moves that had evaded you for years and with the help of toilet rolls, tins of soup, towels, dressing gown cords and a lot of laughter, we got very creative and incredibly strong.


Do you remember our first online Summer party when we all wore hats and danced to ABBA in our sunny gardens or going into Autumn and playing online Charades which worked suprisingly well. 


We have had “From the Sofa” sessions including our wonderful Pelvic floor workshops, cookery demonstrations, read the book and meet the author, skincare tutorials and our back care and common injuries tutorial. 


We had the 28 days live on Facebook at the start of Lockdown, all free, all recorded and all loaded into my blog, we had the November challenge which saw me posting every single day, including dressing for dinner Friday, socially distanced sparklers, relax and read a book, dancing for exercise….. and who could forget or indeed, keep requesting Pilates and Prosecco (oft repeated elsewhere but you saw it here first and it even got a mention on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen!! 


Who could forget the Bond inspired week of classes to celebrate the new movie launch, our Olympics themed month of classes  and two year’s of Christmas jumper day and The 12 moves of Christmas…. Not to mention HIIT, Circuits, Power, Back care, Mobility and Stretch, small equipment, Technique Tuesday, upside down and back to front, Pilates and the wall, my Teacher trainer workshops, sequence and flow, Abs burner, weights and bands…Rollers, Magic Circles, The Pole, The fit band, resistance band, The 34 moves.. forwards AND back again, our “between lock down” live classes with coffee and cake in the Forest when we got mugged by a herd of donkeys……We have had Sports Specific classes where I have welcomed horse riders (we used kitchen chairs), Pilates for Golf, for Running, for Tennis, for Sailing....


We have got to know each other virtually. Certainly we have missed the face to face interaction but we have shared SO much by zooming into each other’s houses….. We sing happy birthday, greet new babies and puppies…admire house moves, envy at holiday destination zoom ins, .....there have been new friendships formed when people realise that they live near by, we have sourced exclusive wallpaper, dog sitting companies, flight dilemmas, plumbers and decorators, advice on technology admin - only recently one member visited another who they found lived very close to research rowing machines…. We have house guests and family members joining in, mothers and daughters, sisters and friends all zooming in from different countries to see each other and to say that they can do the same class together from London, Dubai, The USA, Greece, France, Bahrain and so many more as well as those scattered across the UK - in one class we had Cornwall to Perthshire to Pembrokeshire to Dublin. 



I think one of the best stories is the Grandma FaceTiming family in Canada after one full lockdown and telling her (utterly stunned, teenage) grandkids that her wifi was weak so she was hot spotting from her mobile data and was screen sharing from her laptop onto her tv so that she could see them all so much more clearly. All tricks learned from our community where people found skills they never knew they had and shared their knowledge to help others join in.


So, as I continue to have sound and camera difficulties (consistency is KEY), and we are technically no longer “The Lounge” but “The Studio” aka my spare bedroom… as we no longer have to cope with Bertie the Brilliant Barging into class (do miss that a bit), as we see new members still joining and our online community growing ever stronger, it just remains for me to say THANK YOU ALL for your support, your humour, your energy, your friendship, your loyalty, your checking your phone when you think I can't see you, YOUR CRAWLING ON HANDS AND KNEES TO GET YOUR COFFE THINKING YOU ARE BELOW THE CAMERA, views of your ceilings, your wonderful pyjamas, your pretending to freeze when really you are just having a lie down….your pets and kids joining in, your cat's bottom in front of your camera, your patience, your hard work and last but not least, your subscriptions…. Here’s to a very happy life online. 


So - WHY are we staying online? Well, here are a few from me and below are a few from you!!!


Cost - for the same price as you used to pay for one class a week, you now have access to 7 live classes a week and a library of hundreds of classes on demand


Convenience - no parking, petrol, commuting, traffic jams and faffing. No childcare issues when someone is ill at home. Being able to sign for a parcel, let the builder in, be around for the isolating child. Being able to join in when you are isolating. Being able to join in when I am isolating!.


Time - opening your screen 5 mins before and being straight back into your life seconds after.


Accessibility- from wherever you are which includes bedrooms, kitchens, landings, hallways, conservatories, garages, Premier Inns, holiday homes, motor homes, gardens, abroad and at home.


Community - being able to sit in your own kitchen with a coffee and chat with your online friends before the class


There are just a few reasons why I think it works!!!


Jx 




As to WHY JULIET’S PILATES ONLINE? ……in your words… 



“‘Why Juliets’s Pilates Online’


The only good thing to come out of the pandemic was to be reunited with Juliet’s Pilates again.


The only downside to moving to Somerset in December 2021 was leaving Juliet’s Pilates behind, and the friends I had made at the gym and in the classes. So when Juliet went online in March 2020 it was a pure joy to be reunited, to be able to do ‘real time’ classes with others at a time we could only leave home for an hour a day and to feel we hadn’t been truly cut off from humanity. 


Now, even though we are free, it is just perfect to connect online to do just as strenuous classes as if we had Juliet breathing down our necks in the flesh, four days a week, with others we can count as friends, and all without having to drive and park. Even from miles away Juliet’s beady eyes can see if we aren’t doing it right! If we can’t make a class there is an online library of countless classes of all abilities.


The true joy to be able to do regular Pilates with Juliet online, who makes every class interesting and different, is immeasurable. It may be virtual but we still have time for a chat and a laugh and it really is as if we are in the same room.


Keep up the good work Juliet and never come offline.

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“Dear Juliet,


Your Zoom class has been a wonderful link to normal life from the grey clouds of the Covid pandemic. Juliet M remembers me saying, as we heard of the first outbreak in Wuhan, that it would be with us within two weeks! I got back from NZ on 16th March and J encouraged me to sign up almost immediately. 


Your determination to master the necessary technical skills has always amazed me and I am sure you have had to pay considerable amounts for all sorts of kit. The Green Goddess look is one I remember!“



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“Hi Juliet,

Simple. Because you are the best of some ten Pilates Instructors I have had in over twenty years and I have now been working with you for over ten years. I can understand what you are attempting from your instructions without having to watch your demonstration so can close my eyes and concentrate on getting it right. From you I have learned a massive amount about how my muscles and skeleton work.”


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You kept us sane when we needed you most. Now we have fabulous classes we can do anywhere, anytime. xx


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You've been incredible - you bring so much enthusiasm and joy xxx



                                                         ---------------------------------------------------


Happy 2nd Anniversary! And thank you for helping me get through the last two years - I love my mat time with you, even if sometimes it might not look like I do!!!!


                                                                      -------------------------------------------


SO glad I was introduced to @julietspilates!

                                                             

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............and HERE'S to the next 20 years!!!!!!






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By juliet • May 19, 2025
What does being healthy mean to you? I don't suppose any of us set out to be deliberately unhealthy. We may continue a behaviour that we know is not good for us, but we don't actively choose poor health. We may grumble that we ought to do more exercise of make some changes to our diet, but I am asking you to stop for a moment and just think - what does "being healthy" or "living a healthy life" mean to you? I know for most of us, our default opinion will be towards diet, exercise, relaxation and sleep and yet is it not so much more vast than that? What about the term "unhealthy relationships" or working "in a toxic environment" to name just two examples of things that affect our health but have nothing to do with what we eat or how much we move. I had an insanely "healthy" weekend this one just gone. I did a couple of really good training sessions, I had an afternoon nap, walked in the forest in the late afternoon sun with the dogs and ate so well that if you cut me I would probably bleed raw vegetables. When I sat down to watch some t.v. I flicked over to a true crime documentary on Netflix. Now, I am the QUEEN of crime dramas, be it reading them, watching them... I would probably be quite an asset to the SOCOS, truth be told with my eagerness to establish who last saw the victim alive and protecting the crime scene, (although the waste of single use and throw rubber gloves is of some concern - can we find something more environmentally friendly?). When I was running one of my retreats in Turkey, one of our guest's husbands was a detective actively working a murder case that week and I was only too willing to offer my extensive knowledge on procedures (not taken up, bizarrely!). Yet here I was watching this hideous documentary and finding my peaceful, happy mode deteriorate towards something quite dark and I just stopped it to wonder what on earth I was doing. I had to flip it around and instead go full immersion into a podcast on The Archers, itself quite dramatic but in a much less gruesome way (although Peggy's will is a worry but so too is her entire family's attitude - poor woman has not yet gone cold in the ground and they are doing their sums). I talk to people a lot about health and wellness. Of course I do. It's my business, a passion and interest of mine and I always feel privileged when someone chooses to discuss concerns with me and I reiterate - what does being healthy mean to you? We need consistency in our lives in order to carry us over the lows as well as the boring bits - the highs can often take care of themselves but they will always have a downhill or at least a flat bit to follow. Sometimes, the boring is good - some familiar, chugging along, recharge and just hum drum normality but the lows are what are going to be the challenge. So maybe for a change, think further away from the immediate - if you are still not sleeping well, or have that growly digestive issue or are more irritable or anxious or emotional, maybe your diet and exercise choices are not to blame but there is something else staring you in the face. I am not suggesting you choose divorce (worked for me but hey! may not be your first option) but maybe that friend is actually draining you more than you realised. Maybe work is taking up too much from you and you just haven't seen it because it has been like this for so long. We adapt to what we do and then it becomes the norm and perhaps we then don't see when it is no longer servicing us, or we forget that we change as we age and want and need different things. I am not big into meditating per se, but I am into mindfulness, gratitude, recognising what I have rather than what I don't . Those are things that have helped me. Well that and stepping away from a few relationships that were not nourishing me and were taking up a lot of battery power. What other things might enhance your life? What might your changes be? Perhaps your book club just isn't right for you anymore or actually you really do not want to continue Tuesday morning walking group- it might seem so trivial but if you are thinking and worrying about it, it clearly is not trivial. What is one thing you could cut loose and what is one thing you could replace it with? If you are fed up, sad, stressed, exhausted, cant sleep, can't stop sleeping, get bloated or gassy, have no energy... then apart from any genuine medical concerns, maybe you need to look at your global health. As the motivational speaker Mel Robbins says - "No-one is coming to rescue you". You have to fix it. Take a good look, have a good think and perhaps it is something that diet and exercise are not a part of. psst... but keep going on the exercise!

Weekly Wrap up. Week 20. 2025.

By juliet • May 15, 2025
The sun is out which can only mean TEACH ON THE BEACH! (The picture above is one of the beauties who joined me this week!! ) We have enjoyed a week of classes down on the local beach and have dodged low flying and quite inquisitive seagulls, ponies coming to see what is going on and a very sweet but very annoying lost dog. I mean, I didn't think he was lost - 2 ladies were walking past and he was with them and as he continued to bounce about over us and our mats with his muddy paws, dropping his stick and waiting for us to throw it, I was glaring at the retreating backs of the aforementioned women, thinking how unbelievably irresponsible ... just you WAIT until they return... until someone in the class mentioned that perhaps he wasn't actually their dog and might be lost... which it turns out, was absolutely the case... and two other walkers passed by and said "Ohhhh he's Lara's dog".... and kindly took him with them... I don't think they actually planned to but as I said "oh MARVELLOUS, you know where is from because he has been a total pain" and they were sort of left with no choice. I hope Lara and he are happily reunited and all is well. Anyway, it continues to be an absolute treat to be able to throw a. mat down on the beach and have our classes in such a setting. I will never take it for granted and I just love seeing you walking down the beach to join me so let's hope this weather lasts (with regular overnight rain please - wouldn't that be the perfect solution). Welcome to some new members this week - I have already seen one of you on the beach and look forward to seeing you online too.

Weekly Wrap up. Week 19. 2025.

By juliet • May 8, 2025
So that was a busy weekend. As Lou and Clare were coming to the end of an epic 100km run around the Isle of Wight I was settling in for an early night before taking my bike over to ride the 100km the following day. I have never seen so many bikes - the ferry we were on had only 2 cars and otherwise it was wall to wall bikes with a lot of lycra in the lounges! Bearing in mind people were arriving on ferries from Portsmouth and Southampton as well as Lymington, that was A LOT of cyclists. The group I was in were faster than I would normally ride so it was quite the challenge. When we first sat down in the ferry and I saw one of our group wearing a "Team GBR Triathlete" I felt slightly doomed and to be fair, we were pretty fast straight from the onset.... I could see my 2 little energy bars were not quite going to cut it. This was going to take a lot of gritted teeth and hoping for the best. Very early on, Lou was driving (trying to avoid the thousands of cyclists) and overtook me, so she kindly pulled in and took a little video of us going past (pic above) and it was lovely to see her. Do you KNOW how hilly the island is? They just keep coming.. and you sort of can't really enjoy the downhill as you know it will only be short-lived before you start the climb again. I knew that I would do it. If I put my mind to something I will stick to it despite how much I may overthink and worry but I knew that I would finish it, no matter what. A small achievement to many but the start of something new for me and being in a group, God forbid I held anyone up. It was actually a year to the day... it was last year that I went over to the Island to watch Lou and Clare run 50km (although I did sort of wander off and find our island member Sarah and spent a very happy afternoon in her bluebell wood eating home made chocolate brownie but I was thinking of them) but I really missed being part of the event. After so many years of running, I realised how much I missed the build up and anticipation of an endurance event: the sense of camaraderie and being in something together . It was off the back of that that saw me come home and buy my first proper bike - I mean proper as in all the others have been acquired along the way and have been older and heavier than me. I have snuck off and done a few bits and bobs here and there and of course, had the shock of how much work I have to do to keep up with the clubs I have joined but here we are - one year later and a 100km ride around the island. The Military Road is forever etched in my memory - it was only 20 miles or so from the end and my legs were tired. Somehow for a short while, I found myself out of my group and riding alone and as I tried to ride up this endless hill, cycling slower than a toddler dawdling along, I was literally shouting out loud "WHY do I do this to myself? WHAT is this teaching me about myself?".....but keep peddling I did. You see we are funny creatures - the whole psychology behind a challenge is massive. Once I knew I was into the last few miles, I allowed myself to feel and acknowledge how tired my legs were - until we realised we could make the 5pm ferry at which point I found a new energy and powered on faster and stronger than ever - I was NOT going to miss that ferry! As I say, not a big deal to lots of people who did it and nothing like the achievement of Lou and Clare (I can't even begin to imagine how deep they had to dig) BUT I am chuffed and it is the first step on the ladder. It is all relative isn't it? What is not much to one person is a massive challenge to the next - whatever it is, be it physical or otherwise, to succeed in something that requires courage, discipline and commitment is worth celebrating. We have to dig deep to push out of our comfort zone but when we do, the feeling of achievement is so self rewarding. Sometimes I think we forget to reward ourselves or give recognition for when we have gone outside our comfort zone and achieved something and we deserve to remember - a pat on the back or a mental high five even if it is not shared with anyone else can really boost our mood and if we have tried, we ought to (even very quietly) give ourselves a "well done me!" For me, meeting and chatting to like minded people who are all there for their own reasons. Some built like professional athletes, some not, all doing their best - all encouraging and supporting each other. Mind you, the ones who whizzed by at the end while my legs were falling off, saying things like "nearly there".... not so keen on them to be honest! What next? I think I need to buy a road bike now to start the collection... this could become the new passion..... will I keep going... yes of course I will... I think....

Weekly Wrap up. Week 18. 2025.

By juliet • May 1, 2025
USE IT OR LOSE IT! I saw a post on instagram that I shared today. It is a video of a large family posing for a group photo, with many of them sat on the floor. Once the photo has been taken, they try to get up and that is where chaos happens (along with a lot of laughter) as they are clinging onto eachother, trying to get to their feet and getting into a total heap. Very funny... but also not... I was involved in a workshop today at Limewood and the phrase "Use it or Lose it" came up in the presentation. We all know the saying and can use it quite flippantly but how about acknowledging that if we no longer perform that particular activity, our body thinks it is no longer required and we find we CAN'T perform that movement. We need to condition our body and therefor when we first try a new exercise for example, we can feel quite unstable or uncoordinated and lacking in proprioception but as we repeat and practise, the move becomes more familiar and we grow in confidence and ability. Think of some of the sequences we do in Pilates or some of the more complex moves in our weights work - not for the faint of heart and performed only once we have built up the skills and have the coordination and understanding of what needs to go where. However as we stop doing those (or any other)moves they quickly become harder to reach. If you haven't seen it, do please watch "Secrets of The Blue Zones" on Netflix - about communities where people not only live beyond 100 but do so with good physical and mental health. It is a superb watch but the factors are the same in each community and one of them is of course, exercise, be it walking up a practically vertical hill to church or getting onto hands and knees to tend the garden daily. Whatever you do or don't do, please don't be the one rolling around because you cant get up from the floor!! Using it beyond all reason this weekend however are Lou and Clare - please join me in wishing them the very best of luck as they set off together at 6.45am on Saturday to run 100km around the Isle of Wight. If you recall, they did 50km last year and that achievement set them up for going the full distance this year. It also did something else as I went over to watch them and had a bad case of missing out, as I can no longer run and realised how much I missed the training and camaraderie of an endurance event and it was off the back of this experience that I came home and bought a new bike. So a year (and lots of cycling and joining a club) later, I am also off to the island on Sunday to cycle 100km on the IOW Randonnee. I respect that my challenge is nowhere near the scale of what Lou and Clare are undertaking but there are some big old hills over there... good job we have a Bank Holiday Monday to recover!! 

Weekly Wrap up. Week 17. 2025.

By juliet • April 24, 2025
Blink and you miss it. There went Easter. I hope you all had a lovely time doing whatever you got up to and we now enter the summer term. I mean we don't really have terms but if we did, this is it... exams, summer uniform, netball and cricket and dusting off the bbq's. Personally, none of that really applies to me... well perhaps the summer uniform as I drag my shorts blinking and yawning from the back of the drawer. As for netball - I used to absolutely love it. I was always in the school team, playing Centre or Goal defence and did briefly join Lymington as an adult. When my girls were at prep. school, they reinstated a teachers v parents netball match and we won by a country mile -none of us really knew how but me being me, I went full out to start a mum's netball club one evening a week. Before we knew it, "friends" had mentioned us to the Bournemouth and Southampton leagues. This was very, very scary as we were just running up and down shouting "is that allowed? what are we supposed to do here? did that count?" so clearly in our infancy and anyway, we didn't have any matching kit but we did have a lot of fun - well, until someone went over on her ankle which promptly broke and that was the end of that. I have been spared life as a cricket mum or widow but sitting in a deckchair for hours in the sunshine pretending to watch sounds wonderful to me. As I watch my nephews revving up for the start of GCSE's, I thank my lucky stars those hideous days are behind me. I have a vivid memory of sitting at the kitchen table trying to revise while my mother sat outside in the garden listening to Wimbledon on the radio and the two are forever linked for me. Wimbledon with exams not my mother. Apparantly we have wonderful weather next week so dig out your sunscreen and if you can make it, I will be teaching on the beach for Monday and Tuesday's classes. We went through the 34 Moves recently and the upside down/inversion moves are usually the ones that need the most practise. You can really get a deep dive into these moves on the studio equipment if you ever go to a studio but we have several in our mat work - Roll over, Rolling moves, High bridge, Control balance, High Scissors and Bicycle. Remember that Joseph Pilates' philosophy was to perfect on the studio equipment and practise on the mat, hence we use all sorts of equipment and creativity to recreate as close to the studio work as we can for the vast majority of us who do not have access to a fully equipped studio. Why inversion? Gravity can lead to compression of the spine and their little shock absorbers known as discs that can become dehydrated. When we tip our body upside down, we can reverse the gravitational pull. This can help to create more space between the verterbrae and studies suggest that this allows for the discs' soft tissue to absorb moisture and rehydrate and plump up. Exercises like Roll over or the rolling moves can provide a massage for the spine and fascia as well as improving spinal mobility and of course, abdominal strength. (please note in photo above, my right arm is not perfect - my wrist should be flat and my arms could be stronger and better connected to the floor but it was the best pic I could find for now and I wasn't sharing that space with anyone else so it was a mediocre me or nothing!!!) Want more? Well, it is widely believed that being upside down can stimulate the lymphatic system and help with lymph drainage. Also the action of being upside down can increase blood flow to the stomach and therefor help with digestion and digestive issues. You don't need to be performing an advanced Control Balance move - some of the rolling moves and spinal extension we have been working on do the job in a modified way and anyhow, high blood pressure, glaucoma and spinal issues are some of the reasons why full, advanced inversion is not ideal - there are always ways to adapt, modify and practise safely. What we established in our 8am class yesterday was how many ways we can break down, build up and practise. For example, consider the Roll up, Roll down and Roll over as exactly the same exercise but variations come from the position you start from, how you work against gravity and whether it is your upper or lower body that moves. Thinking about Roll over, and going into the inverted positions (where your hands support you from under your hips), we worked on how to open up the chest, the need for strength through the traps, lats and triceps, length in the hamstrings, strength in the core and so much more. So for example, to improve High Scissors, you could consider side lying chest opener, Roll down with arms behind you, Saw and upper body only double leg kick - all moves to open up the chest and strengthen the upper body. In addition, hamstring and hip flexor stretches. Focus on pelvic floor and deep core connection so lots of abdominal and core strengthening- we could (and do) a whole class on moves to prepare us for one single and seemingly evasive exercise. What we do know is that to get better, we need to practise - a few daily exercises relevant to what you need to build on will make ALL the difference so.... with that in mind, I am going to start planning some workshop style classes again as we haven't done this for a while so your input would be welcomed. What moves really challenge you and what would you like to work on? I will get my creative hat on and build a class around the strength, stretch and mobility we need to focus on. What I continue to hear from you (and feel for myself) is the benefit of building strength from lifting weights and how that really helps with your Pilates progess. Isn't it great!!

Weekly Wrap up. Week 16. 2025.

By juliet • April 17, 2025
Make it a lifestyle, not a duty.

Weekly Wrap up. Week 15. 2025

By juliet • April 10, 2025
On the beach, meeting our challenges and other bits and bobs
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