How to Find Your Seat with Lesley Logan

Sometimes finding your seat in a Pilates exercise requires a little prep. Warming up our bodies with the Hundred or Footwork is excellent, but to ensure that we are doing the work with the greatest connection throughout our entire core, including the glutes, many of us need to do a seat prep. These exercises are an easy way to check in with your body to ensure you are not locking in your knees or gripping in the front of your hips.

Try the prep exercises in the video above before your Pilates session to see if your seat connection improves in various exercises. You may notice that the exercises seem more difficult - maybe you shake a bit more and maybe you feel your glutes working in exercises where you never felt them before. After you prep, check out your Roll Up. Were you able to keep your legs long on the Mat? If so, hop onto your Footwork, Short Box, and more. Your seat will be there, ready to work with you.

A great piece of homework you can do before or after every workout (or even when you have five minutes) is to do Breathing without the Breathing Bar, as shown in the video below. Focus on lifting from around your hips. My teacher, Jay Grimes, gave this to me as homework to do every day. Finally, once I was able to successfully lift my hips without hyperextending my knees or using my lower back, I tried doing the lifts without one leg. It’s an advanced challenge of the Single Leg Magic Circle. Take your time, practice, practice, practice, and may you have fun finding your seat connection!

For more on finding your seat with Lesley Logan, read her article in Pilates Style, available on newsstands on January 3, 2018, and available in digital formats at magzter.com on January 1, 2018 and at pilatesstyle.com on January 6, 2018.