Head Space Daily Words...

The first time I ever heard the mention of the word Pilates, was on an episode of Frasier in the late 1990s. I didn’t know what it meant and brushed it off as one of Frasier’s vain attempts to fit into the celebrity circuit or to impress a lady that he stood no chance with. For whatever reason, the word always stuck with me, probably as a footnote to discover it’s meaning at some point in the future – a point that arrived in February 2010. I was out on the back garden playing football with my eldest son, who was taking shots at me. There I was, stood in typical goalie pose – knees bent, arse out, hands held out in front of me - ready to pounce like a nimble cat. Then it happened. My back ‘went’ completely. I was frozen by pain, unable to stand and had to waddle back into the house. My kids have never let me forget it, as I was due to take them to Selhurst Park to see Villa play Crystal Palace in the FA Cup the following day. Anyway, I couldn’t move properly for several days and had to take three days off work, during which time I saw an osteopath, who asked me if I had ever considered Pilates. The big round smiling face of Frasier Crane leapt instantly into my mind’s eye, leering down at me with his grown man look of little boy lost. Not knowing what it was, the only way to find out was to get stuck in. The reason I had back trouble was after years of sitting in front of a computer screen each day at work, with incredibly bad posture and what I was to discover – a lack of core strength. I persuaded a friend at work to come with me to a local Pilates class. There we were, two blokes stretching it out with ten ladies and my god it was bloody hard work. I had done no proper exercise since I was regularly clubbing on a Saturday night many years before and was incredibly unfit. My main aim was to never have to suffer the pain of a bad back again and I was soon attempting to master leg circles and downward dogs. My lack of strength was acute but after six months I could move up from one class a week to two and within a year, I felt in control of what I was doing. Joseph Pilates, the creator of the series of exercises that took his name, has a bit of a story himself. A German circus performer living in London, training police officers self defence, he was banged up as an “enemy alien” when World War One broke out. Whilst in prison, he began to devise and fine tune his techniques, trying them out on fellow inmates. It must have been the fittest prison on the planet!! Back in Germany years later, he escaped the Nazis, who wanted him to teach them his exercise regime and fled to New York, where his Pilates techniques began to catch on. One very Wild West part of his story is when some guy stole his methods and set up a rival establishment, to which Pilates went straight round with his gun and ran him out of town.  He sounds like what these days might be referred to as a dude. Back to my own Pilates experience, my twice-weekly sessions ended early in 2012, so I now take it upon myself to do my own routine at home each morning and night. It is something that I can’t live without as my body starts to seize up if I don’t have time to fit it in. The result of all this Pilates business is that my aim has been achieved and I have never since had any back trouble. Frasier Crane was well and truly ahead of his time…