Weekly Wrap up. Week 46. Knowledge versus Wisdom (and what's coming up next week)

(Scroll to bottom for what's coming up next week!)

Knowledge V Wisdom

We have masses of knowledge around us. Possibly too much. If I keep it to my industry, then we all KNOW that exercise is good for us. We all KNOW that we need to eat well, get lots of water and sleep, cut back on processed foods. This we KNOW. There are magazines, radio programs, books, podcasts, tv documentaries - social media is saturated with this. We have no need for more knowledge. You do not need to work in the health and fitness industry to know this because it is being shouted from every rooftop.

Now, wisdom is a whole different ball game. Wisdom is to fully absorb and live the knowledge. Wisdom is the embodiment of knowledge.

What on earth am I going on about? Well, let me make it personal to me.

I know that I need to exercise regularly and eat well. If I don't (and there have been plenty of times) then the anxiety, low mood and all that boring stuff is knocking at the door, all too ready to barge right back into my life. If I let my routine go too askew, I lose my coordinates and very quickly go off course. I know this because I have experienced it. For me, exercise is essential to keep me feeling calm and sound of mind, strong of body and to give me purpose and direction. I have the wisdom to make this part of my lifestyle because for me it is essential for my well being as I have experienced the disastrous of the alternative.

"No-one ever regretted a work out"

I know that if I am feeling low, down in the dumps, sluggish - I need to pick up my weights or get on my bike or my mat and EVERY SINGLE TIME without fail, I feel better even after a quick 20 mins. We all do. FACT. We know this!!

So for me, it is lifestyle. I talked last week about the importance of "just turning up" - so if I have planned a workout at 5pm and at 4.45pm I am making excuses in my head or I feel tired, I now have the commitment to still go to my mat and do something even if it isn't what I originally planned because I need to turn up and honour that commitment. I have the wisdom to know that if I skip a session I promised myself, things will quickly slide.

As you know, I used to be fitness manager for Jason Vale on his Juicy retreats. A week of green juice, masses of exercise and positive support. Guests lose LOADS of weight and feel amazing. - better than ever done. Taking away all the junk food gave guests the most incredible boost and lots of people made life changing decisions as a result of feeling so energised and strong.

The most common question I am always asked about this is "when I stop juicing, won't I put all the weight back on?" and the answer is YES, you definitely, 100% will IF you go right back to your old habits and lifestyle. However why would you? You now have the wisdom - you have experienced how a clean diet and regular exercise makes you feel fantastic so why on earth would you not continue (obviously I don't mean you have to live on green juice and live up a mountain in the sunshine but you know what I mean - it is about balance).

When we did our 7am challenge a few weeks ago, so many of you messaged me to say how productive you felt - you were setting your alarms an hour early, getting in a 30 min workout but also getting other tasks ticked off before it was even properly light and that you felt energised throughout the day. You embodied the knowledge of why an early morning exercise session is so beneficial - why a quick 30 mins before the rest of the house wakes up can really work.... from here, it is about making it realistic and sustainable. Look at how you can make it fit into your diary and stick to it - you have the wisdom to appreciate why it is an essential part of your life, now you need to make it a long term, life habit.

I made a decision earlier this year to make some life changes. I was deeply unhappy for lots of reasons and had to take some responsibility. No one else was going to do it for me. As Mel Robbins kept saying to me in my podcasts - "no-one is coming. You have to do it yourself"

I have put in 8 months of clean living. Eating really well, going to bed early, lifting weights ( a lot), cycling, walking, lots of stretching and mobility, masses of Pilates, reading and listening to podcasts and practising simple mediation : bringing in protein powder and electrolytes and daily green juices. I am still alcohol free and drinking lots of water... . EIGHT MONTHS.

What have I discovered? That at 56 years old, this is the strongest I have ever felt physically and mentally, that I am committed to feeling this way and that, once again I love getting on my mat. What else have I learned recently? That everyone wants my success but very few want my journey! It didn't happen overnight and there is no short cut. There can't be because these are longterm lifestyle choices but I have the wisdom to know that the benefits far, far outweigh the sacrifices.. for me, at least!

That is where I salute so many of you who absolutely know this. You turn up class after class, week after week. When I had to cancel last week, so many of you messaged to tell me you were using the library. You were not going to miss your workout just because I had an emergency.

You have all taken steps to make sure you fit regular exercise into your busy lives and you stick to it and I absolutely love that about you all. There are a lot out there who have excuses and reasons why not but there are far more of you who shut up, turn up and work out and I love you!

"Everyone wants the view from the top but only a few make the climb to get there!"

Members' Zone. What's coming up.

New in the library.

STRENGTH collection - week 2 Tuesday Functional Strength and Friday strength (Friday will be up by teatime)

MIXED ABILITY collection - Pilates and the pole from Monday's class,

Both in All Levels AND Strength - Today's full body stretch with roller

Always check your live calendar ahead of your class to see what equipment you might need but next week

Monday - balance focus

Tues 9am Functional strength week 3

Thursday 8am

- the technique class, working to break down and fully understand some of the more challenging moves - get in touch if there are any particular oens you would like me to include.

Friday 8am Strength week 3

Friday 9am - bring your resistance bands

I am thrilled at how many we have coming or our Christmas lunch. It's going to be so much fun. I cannot WAIT to see you all xx

And a lot of plotting for December.... if you are not a member online,,,, hurry up and join us - we have SO much coming up!!

WE WANT MEN

Calling everyone local to Lymington. Please encourage the men in your life to take advantage of this super evening at The Arches next Friday. An expert consultant urologist and a very modest but unbelievably experienced head physio responsible for keeping premiere league footballers healthy and match fit for over 20 years, in addition to a local Personal Trainer - all this under one roof and available to you for support and guidance, Please call The Arches for more info and don't forget I pop up in the Serenity Saturdays.

Have a great weekend everyone. Jx .

< Older Post

Newer Post >

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

Weekly wrap up. Week 14. 2025.

By juliet • April 3, 2025

Spring Reconditioning.

Weekly Wrap up. Week 13. 2025

By juliet • March 30, 2025

It's a busy one... but then, when isn't it?

Weekly Wrap up. Week 12. 2025

By juliet • March 21, 2025

Quick weekly touching base!

Weekly Wrap up. Week 11. 2025

By juliet • March 13, 2025

Juliet's Pilates was live. 17 March 2020

Weekly Wrap up. Week 10. 2025

By juliet • March 6, 2025

It's a busy one... but then, when isn't it?

Weekly Wrap up. Week 9. 2025. It's nearly our 5th Birthday!

By juliet • February 27, 2025

I very nearly missed it. I was thinking about an April challenge or similar when I suddenly realised that WE ARE 5! In March, we will have been online for a whopping 5 years and as we grow ever stronger, this needs to be celebrated! Friday 17th March 2020. I was in a totally empty Beaulieu Village hall as everyone was staying home and with legs shaking and heart racing, I leant my phone up against a speaker on the stage and started my first ever Facebook LIve class. A lot has happened in 5 years and we are all far more tech savvy now but this was ground breaking for me at least and I was terrified. Seeing little hearts and smiley faces floating up the screen as more and more people logged on was the biggest support I could have imagined. That week before what we all knew was coming, I was facing the “what’s next” along with millions of others. For me, “what next” was a 3 day non stop run of no sleep (adrenaline has many uses) and a huge learning curve. Along with fellow fitness professionals, I was learning how to use Zoom, membership platforms, booking programs, how to manage my website, multi screening, recording and editing. There were a lot of tears and coffee and I did not see my bed for 3 nights straight. BUT…. (indulge me here please) scrolling back through my old blog posts (still there for you to see!) I saw my first post about Live, free Facebook Pilates on March 20th and my first calendar of classes the same week as we went into lockdown. I went live, online for free every day, one way or another for 6 weeks right at the start. It nearly killed me and how Joe Wicks kept going, I do not know but I am so proud of that and what we achieved together. I was reaching into countries all over the world as at that time, not as many people were offering this and as everyone was at home, time zones were not as relevant. Friends and family were sharing the links so that they could do classes together and see eachother from wherever they were. To be honest, it is all a bit of a blur (as I am sure it is for many, many people) as I just fought hard to save my business and my sanity. I do vividly remember one class where we had zooms from Australia, America, Qatar, Dubai and Mallorca. I wrote it down on my office whiteboard where it stayed for years. It was just surreal and I honestly could not believe this was me! I was doing all this on my laptop mirrored to my TV, in my lounge! You saved me! I was on my own and horribly lonely and isolated and slowly going a bit mad and “having” to log on daily and be positve and upbeat and full of energy to motivate and inspire you genuinely saved me. I have removed most of the old lockdown content and anything that still triggers me into a shivver of how awful it was, but one thing that I hold in my heart with enormous pride is my online community. I am more proud of this than I can begin to descibe. You are my family. I created this, built and nurtured it and continue to be indescribably proud of what we have all acheived together. Our Christmas lunches, when I sit back and see so many friends, the care and what we share - please know that it means the world to me. We have got up to SO MUCH online over 5 years. I am not going to go back over it because a) it is all there in old blogs and social media posts and b) full disclosure, I am only truly, this last year, coming out of what the lockdown era took out of me and I do not wish to revisit it but…. True friendships have grown and we all know we really are “SO MUCH MORE THAN PILATES”. Only last week when a group of us met for a walk, I took so much from hearing you talking about how much YOU get from it - not just the exercise but the daily morning chats and check in’s, the community and support - that you cannot believe how you used to do one class a week, whizz in, whizz out and that was that until the following week whereas now you are doing multiple classes a week and what’s apping fellow members, logging in to see friends and sharing so much. I have been able to teach from Cornwall, Botswana, Croatia ,Pembrokeshire, the local beach…. and as my feet get ever more itchy, the wonders of online means have van, have wifi - you can come with me! I have never wanted to go down the commerical studio route. That was never for me. Far too restrictive - and as online works, the world awaits! So here we are. This last week we have beamed into MELBOURNE (furthest reach so far!), Singapore, Tanzania, Germany, France, Spain, Greece and never forgetting the Isle of Wight… we have more members than ever, a wonderful variety of classes and the library has had another update with more to come. Teatime talks are shaping up (new page on the website under construction), we have 2 socials in the diary and it’s still only February. This year is my 20th anniversary as a Pilates teacher and 22 years since I started out as a Personal trainer. As the wonderful Master Teacher Michael King (who I am going to for a week of Pilates in Crete in May) says - “Old Pilates teachers never retire. We just roll down one day and never roll back up” For our fifth anniversary, it seems only right to go back to where it started so bear with me and watch this space as I plan a collection of extra FREE classes available to EVERYONE, some on Zoom, some on instagram live. This will be week commencing March 24 March and PLEASE put Saturday March 29th in your diary and come to Beaulieu village hall for old time’s sake for a FREE class open to ALL starting at 9am - and coffee and pastries up the road afterwards at Steffs. I will sort the times and days and post next week and in our members’ calendar but everyone is included. Do also keep March 11th in your diary for the first of our Teatime talks - again, open to all. The wonders of being online.