pilates 1, yoga 0

Friday night classes always ends with a glass of bubbly and conversations about weekend plans. This weekend, we're all off for points north and east (and hopefully, sun).

Conversation last night turned to pilates vs. yoga. Now, we're all a little biased, standing around a pilates studio after class, our scoops still tingling. "Yoga's just to ooommmm la la la" for me," said Madison, my new favorite teacher. Agreed. I'm not a huge fan of the chanting or how culty people get about certain classes or teachers. Or even how I feel afterwards, like a stretched out rubber band.

As one of the teachers pointed out, "Pilates is about form and staying within your joints while yoga's about getting into the pose no matter what, even if it means getting out of your joints."

Maybe I just haven't found the style that works for me, or maybe there are simply too many to choose from. One of my classmates, Ipanema, told us about a naked men's yoga class that one of her teachers takes (tho she's clearly not qualified to attend). Does the world need naked men doing yoga together? The possibility that it's bikram is even worse to think about.

Kathy Smith on iVillage explains the difference like this: "Generally speaking, I think it's fair to say yoga is more about how it makes you feel while Pilates is about how you look -- how you carry yourself and move." On first read, my inclination is to disagree totally. Pilates is not about how I look but how it makes me feel. Then again, there's no difference between how I carry myself and move and how I feel since I started Pilates. I have better posture, feel (and look?) taller, and of course, my RSI is much improved. I look and feel better, and it's clearly coming from the inside.

by way of background

I first discovered pilates in 2000 when I was first starting to heal from a serious repetitive stress injury. It's a long story, but suffice to say I will keep these blog posts short as I still try to limit the amount of typing I do. I started with weekly mat classes and in January, 2003 I was introduced to the reformer thanks to an amazing MD/acupuncturist who believed that that combination of treatment can fix just about anything.

Since then, I've survived a writing intensive masters degree program (writing my thesis in 4 days using voice recognition software) and continued to study pilates. I try to take a class at least once a week (some combination of reformer/springboard/mat/ball) and then practice at home.

My injury still causes some issues. My wrists can't tolerate a lot of plank work and my upper ab curl could be a little stronger. But I can't blame my injury on the fact that I can't do a teaser for more than 3 seconds without falling over. My hamstrings are too tight? My balance is funky? I'm just plain uncoordinated? All true.

Pilates is supposedly helping me with all of these things, but I feel like I need to focus a little more if I want to take my practice to the next level. The teaser is sort of the quintessential pilates move and if I can achieve that I'll feel like I've made true progress in moving past this stupid injury (which it really is -- injured in the line of... typing? Now that's just ridiculous).

Will it happen?