Maria & Tracey's Favorite Tips

Hi. I'm Maria. Hello, Tracy. And I've been teaching teachers for 25 years, and there's some things you should know. So Tracy and I are gonna give you some of our best tips who are starting with. We're starting with Tracy.

I think, I studied Pilates when I was sixteen and been probably teaching teachers for the past 20 years. Obviously, in the Pilates realm and the bar realm, for me, Bar is standing Pilates. What is the difference then? And now when I learned Pilates to now, I think the biggest thing now is the struggles, is that there's so much information given to us. When I learned, I really didn't even have a manual. I had jaw stick figures, and I had to figure it out myself how to do the movement through trial and error.

So we always say to fail is how you're going to succeed, but with our ethos of today, nobody wants to fail. So you have people coming in, the younger generation who feel like they shouldn't fail, they should always succeed, but they have to go through that journey of self discovery to understand how to put it into their own body. But because there's so many so much noise around us that they're always comparing, and it gets a bit confusing. So I think that's the biggest thing. It's more confusing because there's more people.

There's more chefs in the kitchen. And instead of just listening to the instructor that's teaching you, you have to put your trust into somebody to help you and let them help you on your journey. For me, it was always finding person that I resonated with, stuck with them, and learning more like emulating them to a certain extent, but obviously me, but emulating them to be able to find my journey. So I think my biggest tip to instructors is is really just listen to your subconscious and just try and cancel all the noise out. And if you're with Maria teaching her teacher training program or with me or with anybody, trust your instructor. They know the best.

That's why they're teaching you. I mean, what do you think on that? Well, at some point, you just gotta jump into the pool. Right? So there are just some fire? Yeah. It is more of a fire. More of a fire. So, I mean, there are just some basic tips to remember when you enter that room.

The first one is be friendly. People wanna like their instructor. Doesn't matter if you're the best instructor in the world. If people don't like you, they're not coming back. So be friendly. Meet people.

Greenville. Like your t shirt. And then as we've been discussing, be confident. People this is true. People cannot sometimes tell a good teacher from a bad teacher.

But they can tell a confident teacher from an incompetent teacher. Yep. Even if you're not a seasoned teacher, if you come into that room and you're friendly and people like you and you, teach with command and confidence, people think you're the greatest teacher in the world. I have clients tell me all the time, like, oh, I have I have this great teacher, and I'm thinking in my head, well, they're a brand new teacher. But you can still be great with limited knowledge. You know? So another tip is that you have to switch on. You are now on stage, and it's not a conversation.

It's also for me, it's not a democracy. So when you're up there, you're giving commands in an authoritative friendly way, and I am not opening up that room to discussion. Actually, here's something I wanna talk about. Do you let people in class ask questions to you? Well, in the middle of a flyer. Like, what did you say? Like, like, that? And you're like, no. Let's I was like Or or or they'll say, like, where am I supposed to be feeling this? Yes.

I hate that. I'm like, this is not a democracy. I know. Speak to me later. Or how would you modify this? I'm like, what? Why are you asking me? But that's been strict in taking control of your class.

But I'm pretty strict. Yeah. Well, you should be coming into a class and asking you where am I supposed to be feeling? You say, well, this is supposed to be feeling in your glutesy hamstrings. Let's get going. Come on. Let's move it. Oh, yeah. Well, yes. But, yes. But the the overall vibe I'm trying to give is you don't stop and ask a question while I'm teaching. Oh, wait. We flow. We flow. We could discuss it later.

And and what you tipped on was so true when I have new instructors and I say to them, look, it's and I don't mean to dumb down Pilates here. It's not rocket science to learn how to teach Pilates. We can all learn the moves but is how you command the room is what people are gonna walk out with, not how you taught the 100. So how you tested the extract, it's how you connected with them. And you walked in and you took control with a limited amount of knowledge, you can be extremely pop feel like. Yes. Very, very efficient.

And if you are fun, which I am not. Oh, yeah. But if you I'm a different kind of fun, but if you can be fun, people really wanna have fun, not silly. Not silly. But fun. If you can be fun, bring that to your sessions. Clients will love you for it. The biggest tip is to not give them the authority to start chatting between themselves. Yes, Keith.

To chat chatty Kathy's. I hate that. I separate them. Yeah. Because it changes the flow. No talking. Do you say no breathing? Do you say no talking?

Yes. To a certain extent, I'll say, yeah. Can we not? That's a no. She doesn't tell them to shut up. What I'll do is but I'm too nice. You see. There you go.

But if they're talking too much, I'll say, no. Come on. We're here. You're here to learn. You're here to work out. Let's do it. Put it in a nice way. I'm very diplomatic.

So I do like, hey. Do I hear someone talking? Like, that's supposed to be breathing. Sarcasm. Well, there's another philosophical philosophy behind, philosophy behind, philosophy's breathing.

If you don't breathe Yes. That's true. Work, you're transverse, then you're not gonna have that nice. That's true. It's about spanks. It's about spanks. It's about the spanks.

So you don't breathe. You don't work at transverse. So if you breath if you're talking, you're not breathing. Yes. Yeah. So I'm probably a little too nice, but, yeah, no talking. Hope those tips helped.

They helped us. Thank you.