Finding Your Voice

Hi. My name is Ed Botha. I'm a Bassie Pilates faculty. I'm originally from South Africa, but I've been living in Sydney, Australia for the last 9 years. To be more specific. I live in Manley, which is a beautiful beach town in the northern beaches of Sydney.

I've been lucky enough over the last 20 years to teach Pilates, I was fortunate to start very young in the industry. I was twenty three years old, and, yeah, I'm forty six now, so you can do the math. And I've, been lucky to be with Bassie Pilates over the last 20 or so years. So I'm a faculty member for Bassy, which allows me to teach and travel across the world. So I get to meet so many different people and so many different aspiring Pilates instructors.

So today, you know, I just wanted to talk to you about some of the the struggles you might feel you have as a Pilates instructor, especially a new teacher breaking into the the industry. Well, you know, when I started Pilates, wasn't really a big thing. It was, you know, it's still pretty new. And I built my business and started a studio at the probably when I was around twenty five years old, and I I was lucky enough to start working with I'm gonna say some of the very difficult clients from early on, and that gave me a really good foundation in teaching Pilates. Right? Then as I got a little bit more into it and I found my place in Bassy, I started teaching more students.

And what I could tell you is that my job teaching Pilates students is way easier than what you all do out in the in the real world. Right? Teaching clients is really, really difficult, right? Because, firstly, when I teach Pilates instructors often, they have good an Anatomical background. Yeah. When they start, they've learned a little bit about the Pilates method, and they often good movers. And many of them come without any problems or injuries, right? So when we're working with clients, you don't only have to know Pilates, but you've Botha understand personalities, and you've gotta understand the different limitations and restrictions that they have. Alright. But, you know, what I think is really important for you to remember, if you have gone through a Pilates certification of any type, particularly a comprehensive training, certificate course.

You are qualified for the job. Right? You wouldn't be, or you wouldn't have that certificate if you were not qualified. Alright? So often we doubt ourselves when we're in the position of teaching, right, thinking that clients may be getting bored or not happy with what we're doing. But what you Botha remember, if there's people in your class, They've come because they're happy with the product. Right? And they are hanging on to every word that you are saying.

Right? The rest of the day, they are thinking about other things. They're not thinking about Pilates. So often, you know, the the difficulties we face in, you know, keeping the clients satisfied and not bored, it's it's our own boredom that we're sitting with. Alright? And the more we practice Pilates and immerse ourselves in the culture of Pilates, the easier it's gonna be to teach the method as well. Right? So, you know, when it comes to designing your classes, you shouldn't think about entertaining the clients.

You wanna do exercises and things that you know that works. Alright? And the clients will keep coming back because they'll feel better. Right? And that brings me just to, you know, finding a really good system that works for you. You know, I was, like I said, I feel really comfortable within the Bassy system of Pilates, what Bassi offers is what we call the block system, which is a filing or programming system. And Pilates is no different to other forms of exercise, Without a good program, we don't have any direction. So if you find yourself in that position where you don't have structure in your sessions, well, you may need to look back at your education and you know, think where have I gone wrong, or am I using the system correctly? Because once you have a system, it's really about just, you know, placing different exercises in different parts of the system, which will give us a a comprehensive session to work with. You know, I also found that having some kind of mentor has really helped me over the last 20 or so years.

My mentors realize Zachabits, the founder of Bassie Pilates, you know, and sometimes I think I know it all, and then I'll come to California and I'll visit rail and do some sessions with him. And I'll always have my mind blown and just realize how I've only scratched the surface of learning and education in Pilates. So, to have someone to mentor you, and to follow. And if you look at all the great artists in the world, when we're talking about the, the masters, they all copied to get good at what they did. They copied the masters before them before they created their own style. So if you could find a mentor and really base your style on theirs, I, I find that's really helpful.

And like I said, I use rail. I use him to prepare a lot of my classes. I always think what would Elle be doing if he was teaching this session? And, yeah, that, I find that's really, really helpful. And you've just Botha know that the Pilates community, we're all out there for to help each other and to support. There's so many great people online on social media that are sharing their ideas and exercises and just for your new instructors, you should just always know that, you know, we're there for you, especially the Pilates and Anytime team. Alright.

We're always open for, for a chat and discussion. So please reach out to us. If you ever have any questions, Yeah. And let's let's, you know, keep this industry grade together. Alright? Thank you.