Romana's Pilates® Training

Chapter 1

History of Romana's Pilates

Hi, I'm Kristy Cooper here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with Daria Paci at Romanos [inaudible]. And we're here today to talk about Romanos. Pele's. Let's start with you just telling us about your program. Um, I know it's a comprehensive program, but can you tell me what's involved in the training? Let me first start off by telling you how we came into being, so to speak. We started in 2002 and um, my grandmother Romana Chrissa Knob Ska wanted a little difference in how she handled the people going through the program.

She really wanted to feel like she really knew the people that were guiding the next generation of instructors really well. She wanted to trust them, so to speak, and that was the most important thing to her. So we figured out who of the instructors. She really wanted to continue the work that really weren't just amazing instructors, but also knew how to guide somebody through the program.

Chapter 2

Program Overview

I'm interested, but I want to know what's entailed. What does it entail to get through the program? Well to get through the program, it's broken up into different components, which is there's a seminar and there's observation, practicing and lessons and a test.

And that's for three different stages, which is basic, intermediate and advanced. And that's for all of the equipment.

Chapter 3

How Long Does the Program Last?

How long does the program last? Really depends on the person. Um, and how they study and how they progress and the amount of time that they put into it. We require 15 hours a week because otherwise it'll take too long. We don't want it to take more than two years for you to finish the program. Some people, they do have, you know, other jobs and stuff like that that they need to do and they have kids or whatever, they live far away.

But we really want you to do at least 60 hours a month or 15 hours a week because that way you can finish the program within six months is the goal. But realistically it's often a year. So we, we want people to at least strive for six months because you know, if you want to keep consistent, you want to keep the progress. My grandmother used to say with each and every day she would ask you, what did you learn today? And it wasn't just like, oh well I learned the footwork. No. How did you understand the footwork better? How did, what more, how, you know, getting more juice out of each exercise. That's what she wanted to hear. That's what she wanted to know. Getting the juice out of all of it, really understanding it and how to apply it, um, to people.

And that's what we want to carry on. Where,

Chapter 4

Training Locations

where can I take the program? You can take the program. Well, where are you located? It depends on, you know, where you're, we are international. Um, we have, uh, many locations in the U s we have many instructor trainers in the u s as well as in Europe. We have, um, Rome, Milan, Florence. In Italy we have Paris, nice and [inaudible] in France, you know, so there's many different places in the world. Where do I find out exactly? You would go to www dot [inaudible] dot com and you'll find them there. I see. What is a typical, um, training day like, in other words,

Chapter 5

Typical Training Day

do you do it on the weekends? Do you, when you say 15 hours a week, is the training included in that? That's a good question. Okay, so let me back up a little bit. So with each seminar, there's a basic and intermediate and advanced. Um, the basic is taught by, uh, an instructor trainer. The intermediate is taught by a master instructor trainer, and then the advanced stage is taught by either my mom showing me his Santo, uh, wanting to Lopez in Chicago or Cynthia Theola Shard in Australia.

Um, they do the final component of the advanced seminar as well as advanced testing. Okay. Um, and like I said before, my mother is, uh, did study, but Joseph and Clara Palani. So, you know, when people go through our program, they are actually learning from a first generation instructor in the seminars.

Chapter 6

What are the Seminars Like?

Do you, um, do you just learn the exercises? They're lecture over the seminars. What we do is we take each exercise, whether it be the basic or the intermediate or the downst, and we just break it down.

We tell you how to set up what the safety precautions number one, two, three, four and we just drill it because it's always safety first of course. And then who can do it? Who can't do it, what you're looking for. I'm seeing the body understanding the body, making sure that people know how the body moves the anatomical position of people and what is correct and what isn't. Um, my grandma always used to say we're not physical therapists, we're not doctors, but you have to know bodies in the body. You have to understand the body and how it moves. And during the seminars, after the instructor explains how it's all done, they start teaching each other. So they get that kind of hands on experience. They start to feel what to do and how to see things.

And then for the next two to 300 hours, they just continue to practice and observe and embodied the material so to speak. And when we feel like they have embodied the material, when they really deeply understand it, then they test for that stage. And then can you tell me a little bit about the hours in between during um,

Chapter 7

Observation Hours

where they're practicing and you mentioned sometimes they're in the studio, right? So after the seminar they just practice, practice, practice, everything they learned in the seminar and then some and they just learning how to see the body. So there'll be observing, uh, the instructor trainers teaching. They'll be practicing on each other under the supervision of the instructor trainers so that the, you know, we might be teaching a client and then I'll just be like, hey, headpiece down, you know, that type of thing. And then they just continue to observe and practice. We really don't believe in taking a lot of notes during, we want you to really just embodying the material. My grandma was really, really adamant about learning hands on.

She did not want any manuals in the studio. Does the training program offer any written materials?

Chapter 8

Written Materials

What we've done is basically what my grandma wanted, which is she wanted you to know the name of the exercise, how to set up for it, the number of repetitions and the objective and the rest of it is left blank so that you can fill it out and I'll put all of your notes into it and everything and then you can show it to your instructor trainer and they can kind of give you a little feedback as to what else you might be missing or whatnot. It's another way of getting it in your body, even though it's right that that's how she wanted you to do it. She wanted you to put it in for yourself.

She was very adamant. I remember one time I mimicked some of her words and she was like, use your own words missy. You know? It was just like, okay, you know? So when someone tests say, given,

Chapter 9

What is the Test Like?

can you give me an example of I've, I've now done my hours, I feel ready to test out of the basics. What does that mean? Do I come to you and tell you it's kind of a together? You know, do you feel like you're ready? Are you confident? Because if a person's confident then let's do it and it's a learning experience, you know, I mean some people fail and some people pass and some people don't test well and you know, you have to kind of take that into account.

Sometimes people get nervous. I sometimes tell people to do jumping jacks and you know, run around the block and circle and I make them, you know, do some silly things before they test just to kind of make them relax a little bit. And tell me about the test. The basic test is practical. So another words you're teaching a person and what we're looking for is that you understand the exercises, you understand number one, two and three, safety, safety, safety. If you do like a certain amount of safety things that aren't quite, you have to do the test again, sorry. But you know, it's just not worth it. You have to get those safeties. That's the most important thing. Then after that we are looking for that. You, when you teach a person that it's, you see the body, you understand.

If this person is not canid, how are you going to take them? This person's bow legged? What are you going to do if this person is a little weaker on one side? Do you see it? What are you gonna do about it? So even in the basics, you're starting, even in the basics, you should already know all those things. You should already be able to apply those things to the exercises.

What's good, what's not, et cetera. You should already know. Um, because that's what you're working on for your observation practice.

Chapter 10

How Much Does the Program Cost?

What does the program cost? It sounds like a lot as involved, a lot is involved and it takes a lot for the instructor trainers to help a person go through the program. So we break it up into the three different parts. The basic part, the intermediate, advanced, um, it costs about total of 5,000, but that doesn't include the lessons that are required to keep up your own workout because by the time you finished the program, you should be at a full advance level. You have to be at an advanced level as much as possible because at the end of the day you have to understand the exercises inside and out. And to do that you have to be able to do as much as you can, so to speak. Not everybody can do everything of course, but as much as you can.

Chapter 11

Bridge Program

Does remodels Palase offer any kind of bridge program? Well, the way it works is we basically test anybody out who has gone through another program and we find out where this person's at, what their knowledge is, where they need to know, and then we go from there. Um, so somebody might only need to do a final test or they might need to do all the seminars and whatnot. Um, so it's very subjective. Everybody's different. Um, I've actually worked with a lot of people who have gone through another program in Fort Lauderdale in particular for whatever reason. Um, the majority of my students have gone through another program. So, uh,

Chapter 12

Continuing Professional Education

in order to stay certified, do I have to do a certain amount of CPU? So you do need to do one CPE a year to be listed on her website and you know, because we do want to recommend all the instructors and they do stay up to date. And that way the grandmasters can see where everybody's at every year and you know, help everybody out. And we want to be as much of a community and keep everybody invigorated and enthusiastic as possible.

So I'm here with Shari Mahea Santo. It's very exciting for me to be here.

Chapter 13

Philosophy of Romana's Pilates

I'm talking about Romanos [inaudible] and Shari. Can you tell us, we've heard a lot of the details about the program now through your daughter Daria and you being the daughter of Romana. Um, I'm curious to know, is there a philosophy that goes with Romanos PyLadies as a training program, whatever is good for the person's body for that certain body and it's the balance of stretch, strength and control actually for that individual. Um, also what is very important with our Romanos platas is what join Clara and my mother did. It was how to progress a person into the system. Um, Joe Pohlad has always called his system of exercise. Not really an exercise system, that it's an art and a science and that's what a gets the good results we have.

And that's what we're trying to teach. And that is what are our, um, teachers all over the world are leveled. Teachers all over the world are trying to do, they really believe in this system as we did. And, um, what support that is just to give that person that you have in front of you the progression that is right not to give them advanced necessarily because they're not ready and how to make them improve their bodies so that they can do certain exercises that would be great for them, another words when they're ready. So that is a difficult thing and that is what we tried to do on the tests and to get into the program. That is what our strife is. Because as you know, as you all know, Joe out is, was a really a really wonderful genius way, way ahead of his time. And, uh, Clara believed in him, his wife, and that's the way she taught. And that's the way they taught my mother. And I learned from them as well when I was there.

Chapter 14

What Kind of People Attend the Program?

Does it take a certain kind of person to go through the program? Not necessarily. We do get a lot of very active people. We've gotten a lot of always ice skaters and dancers, especially dancers. But we have wonderful people that have never done much exercise at all. And their, they use their minds very well and they've improved their bodies tremendously.

And they're really excellent teachers as well. So it's all very individual. Um, we do, we have lawyers that got into the program and they teach it. They became teachers and they do very well. And, uh, we've had doctors, including surgeons, heart surgeons. So it's not that they necessarily dropped the other thing always, but it's, um, sometimes it is, but it's, it's an addition to what they like to do to help people. I myself, for me, it's, uh, if you'd like to help people and to see people happy, like I said before, and to help them improve their life and their, and their bodies and their minds. Actually it works.

We've also had psychiatrists, by the way. So, well, from what I understand, that's very much what you personally are about. Um, and I know from you and listening to you, um, that that was what Romana was about. Um, this, um, the mind body that you know about helping people feel better in their lives doing it. Really, um, I hate to say intuitively because it's not really intuitively, it's also what you've learned intuitively, intuitively of course, but it's really what you've learned if you've seen Romana do or geopolitics do or Clara do and uh, what you've seen other people do as well. Uh, when I'm teaching a seminar, I learned from my new, uh, people that are trying to be teachers. You still, so yeah. And I think the politesse philosophy has to have an open mind and I can tell the students that are closing their mind, they don't go as fast, Huh. Um, they have to be able to accept the fact that they have to sometimes go back to basics or intermediate and not always advanced. They don't, uh, their pride gets hurt and all that. So you have, if you have an open mind, I, you are really, really do very well at platas.

Chapter 15

Who are the Instructor Trainers?

Tell me a little bit about your instructor trainers. Um, who are they?

How do you get to be one? First of all, they have to want to be instructor trust. They have to know the program very well, very, very well. They have to be with us many years. Most importantly that they keep developing. That's what we look for and they have to want to be able to help other teachers and not feel challenged by other teachers. That's very important.

Tell me about the instructors who teach your program. Okay. The instructors that teach the program are the ones that my mother actually picked and uh, they embodied exactly what she wanted. They had the energy, they had the love of the work, the integrity, and she saw that and she picked them. And uh, that's it. So that's where we're taking our, the training from when we had to take it with Romanos body. Wow, that's great. All handpicked by Ramana. Right. Fantastic. Well, thank you very much. Um, hopefully we shared. Thank you.

A bit about Ramana's Pele's and you can find them on their website, www dot romanos [inaudible] dot com.