SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hello and welcome to Pilates Perspectives. I'm Joy, and today we'll be talking with Misha von Bechtelstein on proprioception. But first, let's check in. For today's check-in, let's take a moment to talk about your sensory experience. Now, depending on your background and lived experience, this phrase sensory experience can have a hugely varied impact. If you are neurodivergent, you may experience sensory issues such as audio overstimulation, but may not have the words to describe it. You may be highly familiar with this topic, even formally educated on sensory integration. Or you may have no idea what on earth I'm talking about. Regardless of your background or conscious awareness, your senses inform each and every moment of our life. And yet, we often find ourselves in settings where we often don't give much thought into our sensory experience unless it's particularly under or over-stimulating. Today, let's take a moment to check in with our senses. As usual, let's start with breathing. So take a few breaths. Just a big inhale through the nose and exhale either out through the nose or through the mouth, your preference. You can do this for a count of two in and six or eight out. You could do this for a count of five in or five out, or you could do four in and six out. You you choose what works for you. But let the breath wash over you. Now, is there a particular sense commanding most of your attention? Maybe it's particularly loud where you are. Maybe it's dark. Take a moment and choose a sense, one sense, and focus on it. It could be sight, it could be smell, it could be if you're driving, you're holding the steering wheel too tight, and that feeling of the touch of the steering wheel under your fingertips. But what do you feel from that? Whatever that sense is, is it too much? Is it not enough? Today we're gonna talk about the sensory system, but most specifically proprioception. We'll get into specific definitions later, but for this conversation, let's think about proprioception as the awareness of our body's position in space and how it moves. Now we're gonna go into a little playtime. And if something's not safe for you, for example, if you're driving and you don't want to close your eyes, then please use your best judgment. With that in mind, if you're able, put your right hand out in front of you. What does that feel like to have your hand out in front of you? You can see your hand, can't you? But now look away from your hand. How is the awareness of where your hand is in space changed? Repeat that on the other side. Put your left hand out in front of you. Look at it, see it in front of you. Now look away or simply close your eyes. How has that changed? Put your hands back to a comfortable position and make sure your eyes are open that you're safe. Was one side different than another? Was any of that difficult or uncomfortable? And you could try to evaluate that for yourself. Now we did that with your hand, but if you stood up and you stood on one leg and you were looking out on the horizon, and then you closed your eyes while standing and balancing on one leg, how does that change? And you could try that on the other leg as well. Or as Misha's going to offer, you could even stand inside of a doorframe and just gently stand on one leg, but gently have a fingertip against the doorframe. And how does that change the experience of where you are in space? Okay. It's really important to understand that our sensory experiences are individual, they're varied and they're deeply complex. In the coming days, I challenge you to take a few additional seconds out of your day and reflect on things like the light, touch, feel, and when things may be overstimulating or understimulating. These are all a part of your sensory experience. And if you're looking for some extra credit, what kinds of inputs are coming into your body when you're working out? What does the weight feel in your hand that you're overcoming? If you're pushing a door open, the temperature. And take notice of not only how you experience it, but how the inputs change the way in which you may experience it. See if there is one thing that you can add or change to your day to improve your experience based on the inputs that you have around you. As always, thank you for spending time checking in. Today we have Misha von Bechtelsheim, fully certified STOT Pilates instructor, Z Health, TRX, Sports Medicine, Mobility Fitness Academy, and Brian Grant Parkinson's trainer. She provides an intelligent application for clinical rehabilitation to athletic performance from a neurological lens. You can reach Misha at www.brainbody approach.uteach.io and at brainbody approach on Instagram and at Centralcore PB, P as in Peanut and B as in Butter on YouTube. Let's get started. Okay, we're here with Misha von Bechtelstein. How did I do with that? Yeah, pretty good. All right. That was the first first one out of the gate. Um, and here today we're we're gonna talk about proprioception. Yeah, I'm really excited. Thank you for having me. Uh, we're so, so glad to have you. Um, so I guess my my first question is if for a listener would be how do you define proprioception?

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, it's a really good question. So, proprioception is understanding where we are in space, but more than that, it's understanding the force and the effort one perceives from the brain in movement. And so let's give an example. We can stand on one leg, or you know, standing on one leg is too difficult, stand with one foot in front of the other and then see what that feels like. And then close your eyes and see what that feels like. And when we take away the visual system, which I'm sure we'll get to in a little bit, we now have the proprioceptive system upregulated. And so now suddenly we feel these little twitches in our feet. We feel the ground, we feel the force nature of our bodies and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

And that is pro-perception and understanding So the way you're defining it though is more than just understanding where we are in space, right? Yeah, you're defining it's more cognitive.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

It's it's more cognitive and it deals more with our stability, our motor control, our balance system. It allows us to feel stable in our bodies for movement. Is it a form of a protective mechanism? I think more than a reactive mechanism. I think it's more than protective. It can be protective if it's not high-quality input. It's an input to the brain to allow the brain to make a better sound decision. The more high-quality information we have, both in the sensory system of actually feeling our feet. This is a huge problem for people walking with neuropathy. Um, this is a huge problem for people that have had surgeries and then don't want to fully extend their knee or their elbow or whatever it might be. That that sense of self, that sense of knowing where your body is in space seems like something we take for granted. However, when we lack it, we see significant changes in the body.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Would you say uh it's it's a sense of knowing where we are in space relative to uh the environment around us or relative to an experience? Um, it just it just feels to me that it's it's so been overly simplified.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah. So it is uh, it brings up, you know, other aspects of introspection versus extrospection and kinesthesia and all these other things. But when it comes to proprioception, we're talking about where our bodies are in space in relationship to us. So if we're standing and we have our arms dangling by our sides, we don't have to look at our hand to know that our hand is still there. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

You know your hand is there. Or if you're at a computer and you're typing at a computer, but you want to take a glass of water that's to your right, you have a sense of yourself in that space.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Now, the sense of of yourself in the space is going to be the proprioception. The sense of grabbing that glass is not gonna be proprioception.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

All right, well, then then let's talk about um you mentioned kinesthesia. Can you define that?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

So kinesthesia is going to be more about the body parts itself through body positioning and acceleration, I'm gonna say. So, what I mean by that is if we're going to do a squat and we understand where our knees are in space, we understand our hip placement. These are things we have to learn. These are skills that are built. But as we become more proficient in it, um, that's what starts to happen, nuancing those skills. So understanding the acceleration and movement is gonna be more of the kinesthesia. They work very closely together, proprioception and kinesthesia. So in movement training, can how do these two intersect? So let's take the simple reaching out for the glass. So understanding where our arm is in space is going to be the proprioception aspect. The how far to extend the limb is gonna be the kinesthesia aspect. Fantastic. So they work really closely hand in hand. So let's take something in the Pilates world, understanding where we are in space, that our toes are on the footbar, that we feel that connection, that we understand where our heels are in space, that we have clients that are constantly dropping their heels under the bar, right? And losing that form and technique, understanding where that body is based, where is our pelvis in space, feeling the connection of the mat and what the pressure, remember, we mentioned force and effort, right? The pressure on the shoulder pads. This is going to be a lot of the proprioception sense. But then the movement, the moving through the machine is the kinesthesia aspect of it that we can actually learn proper form, build on that skill. So together we can have quality of movement.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Great. So let's let's just back up for one second. What made you even interested in this work?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Oh, so many things. But I I had originally in Pilates worked with the extremes. I uh I now am in Pismo Beach, but I had started in San Jose and had the opportunity of being near a lot of uh professional athletes. And so on one side, I was trying to improve athletes in that 0.1%. And then on the other spectrum, I was working with a lot of people with autoimmune diseases, cancer rehab, neurological diseases, um, brain traumas, and things like that. And of course, the general public I enjoyed working with, but these were the extremes of my passion. And those individuals in those extremes, helping them move better required something more than just doing it again and again. It wasn't about practice, it was about inputs. And so say that again. It wasn't about practice. It wasn't about practice, it was about inputs. Yes. And so what I mean by inputs is how much information are we getting to the brain that is worthy of the brain being able to make a competent decision? The better the information has. Like take anything, right? If we want to make a decision about what school to go to, you know, if all we know is that it's a good school, that might not build us enough confidence. But if we know that it has the degree program we want, and if we know that it's close to family and we know what the weather is going to be like, and we know all these things. You have all the variables, you can make it. We can make a better decision and feel confident about that decision.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

And that's what the brain needs. The brain needs confidence. The brain needs to reduce its threat.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

It well, that's why I asked you if it if if you thought of proprioception as perhaps protective. Yes. Meaning, so maybe I should rephrase that as is proprioception giving you the input to give the brain a sense of confidence.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

A hundred percent. Got it. A hundred percent. And the better quality of that we have than that, we have that. So going back to why I started with all this and really wanted to delve into proprioception and neural training in general was to improve those inputs to reduce the threat. Got it. And when an athlete had an injury or neurological stuff from stroke rehab and they lack sensation, being able to use proprioceptive training helped improve those inputs, which helped us have better motor output. Great.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

So, so um this becomes really super important. Let's talk specifically about the Pilates environment because you referenced the footbar, the shoulder rests, the carriage, sort of everything in that environment, and and the tension, of course, from the spring. Absolutely. Everything in that environment is sort of geared toward creating certain levels of proprioception.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

100%. And also keep in mind that the skill is done barefoot. Right. Right. Not all forms of exercise are barefoot. And this is a huge part when we start with the grounding in our feet and feel sensation in our feet. We we are walking individuals. So though proprioception is necessary in every spot in our body, starting with the feet is a good place to start. And and you know, Pilates starts with footwork usually and all those kinds of things. So, yes, but having the shoulder blocks as a sense of contact. Do you feel more pressure on one side versus the other? Are you aware of that? And then does that mean that one shoulder is hiked up or that your rib cage is shifted? Or what does that mean introspectively on how you can align and fix your body, right? The pressure on the mat, we often use it for neutral and imprint and how much space and how much all these types of things. I think it's so naturally integrated. Right. And based on what you're saying, it's all input. It's all feedback. It's all feedback.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

It's all feedback. So, you know, even when we talk about balancing, and I tell clients, okay, you know, someone's worried about falling over. Well, if you put them in a doorway or have them near a wall and you just have their finger barely, barely touch the wall. One finger that's not holding them up. That's not keeping them from falling. But because if they lean slightly, now suddenly they felt more pressure in that finger than less pressure, then now they also have an awareness of I'm leaning and they can fix that where they didn't even know before they would lean so far that they would fall.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

The same is true for when we do exercises on the reformer saying, Oh, you can touch the foot bar, you know, or just have your finger above the footbar doing any sort of lunge series or anything else. That gives us the cueing. It gives us another input to make a good decision.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

So this then kind of speaks to the idea of neural hierarchy. Um, so the visual system, the vestibular system, right, and proprioception. Now, for you, like, can you unpack that for us?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah, absolutely. So think of it as a pyramid.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

So the visual system is going to sit on top of that pyramid. It is the most important to the brain. Interestingly enough, it's a whole nother topic, but even for people that are blind, they have the occipital lobe, they have visual integration. They're not seeing through their optic nerve. Oh, interesting. But they still have a structure to it. And then if we start thinking about it, okay, they have seeing eye dogs and they use sonar and clicking and they use seeing sticks. This is to get a visual representation and mapping in their brain to navigate their world. Now, they do show studies of the occipital ligament changing and redefining a little bit among those individuals because they don't need that as much as someone that's seeing and utilizing in that same way, but it is still holds a high placement in even those that are blind. So we have our visual system. And what's interesting is when the brain wants to make a decision, every decision the brain makes, 90% of the time, 90%, it is calling on the visual system for what are your thoughts? It's like a board of directors. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

So how do you feel about this? Yeah. So it's always kind of checking in, saying, hmm, what do you think? What are you, what's what's your interpretation of this?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

It wants its thoughts on it 90% of the time. Interesting. And so the visual system is really, really important. So when we talk about that in in in connecting with proprioception for a moment, utilizing mirrors is a huge one because being able to see what you're doing to fix what you're seeing, which you might not be feeling yet, or feeling yet you have good posture, but then looking in the mirror and seeing your shoulders are forward, right? This gives us the opportunity to fix our proprioceptive awareness through our visual system. So the visual system is going to raise on top. Then we have our vestibular system, and that's gonna be in the inner ear. This deals with all movement. So squatting, lunging, moving across the floor, ups and downs, all these kinds of things. It's based on where the head is placed. So this is what's also interesting. Let's take laying down and doing footwork. This is technically to the vestibular system the same as doing squats. Right. Jump board is the same as doing jump squats, which is awesome for someone that can't do the plyometrics, doesn't want to do the plyometrics for whatever reason. Jump board still gives you the bone density, still allows you to get the movement. And for the vestibular system, still upregulates the vestibular system from that plane.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

It does. How does it do that? I would have thought lying down, it would have changed the orientation.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Because the orientation from the head to the body is the same. Ah. So it if the head tilts forward and the body still upright, that changes the vestibular system. But if you are laying down and you're a neutral, it's actually the vestibular system is working the same way as if you were upright.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

So it's not gravity, it's the head relationship to the rest of the body. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

So we can actually improve our vestibular system. Now, of course, the vestibular system deals with a lot with balance. It also has a huge connection to our visual system. So this idea of sensory mismatch, for example, if our vision sees one thing, our vestibular system things another, it's giving both of these pieces of information to the brain. The brain's like, which one do I trust? Is that why I get motion sickness? That is it. That is it. And on top of it, that is why the first thing people talk about with motion sickness is look to the horizon. Because with the horizon, looking at the horizon and seeing the horizon move the same way that the boat is moving or anything else is now trying to reduce that sensory mismatch as much as possible. Now, why do we get sick? Because the brain's fastest way to get you off a boat is to make you vomit and never want to go on it again. It's it succeeded multiple times. And so same thing goes true for people that have vestibular issues, vertigo, their crystals are out of balance in their ears, whatever it might be, or a deconditioned vestibular system. They don't like to go on roller coasters anymore. They don't want to swing in a swing set. Just mentioning the word cartwheel freaks them out. You know, like these types of things, we used to do it as kids all the time. We trained our vestibular system, but sitting sedentary in a world, doing things where we always are one plane really changes that. So being able to change our angles, lay on our sides, sit, rotate. And what I love about the equipment is the movement that is given to us with it, right? So having an equipment move at different speeds, playing with our speeds also changes our vestibular system.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Well, and the springs are somewhat uh unpredictable in that regard. Some of the springs are going to allow for uh faster recoil, for example. Absolutely. Um, so I would imagine that plays into also training the vestibular system, the unreliability of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yes. And then that moves us into the idea of kinesthesia and proprioception, which the deceleration, right? The understanding of how to decelerate something like that on a jump board or how to eccentrically control the load in legs and straps and not let the legs fly over your head and all those kinds of things. So then we get to the proprioception aspect of it in that pyramid, and that kind of finishes it up. So a good way to train proprioception is actually to get rid of the visual system.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

A good way to train proprioception then is to get rid of the so you're taking the board of director out of the room and you're asking like the vestibular system and the proprioces system to step up and make a decision. Yeah. Oh, that's that's interesting. So uh uh a question uh uh about deceleration. Uh, what about um anticipatory movement? Where does that fit in in terms of uh if you're on a jump board, um, you can anticipate the recoil or the rebound?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

There is some rhythmic aspect to it, and our brains are predictable in nature, right? So the first time someone does jump. Board, they come crashing into the stopper. Right. Bam. Right. And then they're like, I don't like that feeling. I don't like how that felt. I don't want to damage the machine. I felt embarrassed. It was loud. And so that's a very good instigator to say, okay, how do I fix this? How do I control it? And so the first or second time or third time you you then jump again, you're only worried seemingly about not hitting a stopper. But then when you don't hit the stopper, suddenly there's an awareness that builds, right? That is how I did it. And then you try to repeat that over and over and over again. And where it was awry, you fix, and where it was good, you try to repeat. And that practice starts to build a proprioceptive nature. Oh, interesting. And also the kinesthesia of how much do I bend my knees? How much ankle flexion? Where, where do I slow it down? When did I feel my toes barely touch the board that I can start that action? Right. So we start to learn that. And that's what's interesting about it. You can learn both proprioception and kinesthesia, but the kinesthesia is going to come more from repetition. The proprioception is going to come more from sensations and inputs. And can you have one without the other? I don't really think you can. Well, let me put it this way: not in movement. You could have proprioception potentially, but proprioception is also going to decline without movement. You need the inputs. So if you had your arm in a cast and you went three months without moving that arm, the pain is going to increase because the proprioception and the movement decreased.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

So if you have a broken arm and you're in a cast, what do you mean the pain is going to increase?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

So when you get that cast off and you don't need to move it.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

So on the the initial movement of that. It hasn't moved in a while. It doesn't have a sense of it. It kind of lost the sense of how to move it. Not just to mention, not just did it lose the sense, but because you were in a cast, something traumatic happened to you, right? You broke something. And so suddenly that movement is like maybe I don't want to do this. Maybe I need to be restrictive. Maybe I need to be careful. Maybe, you know, all these other things that come up. And so that movement might be more restrictive, which means your properceptive nature is going to diminish.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

So that would be the same for pain then. Yeah. So if somebody is in pain and they move less, uh, they're they're gonna pain's gonna go higher, properception's gonna go lower, uh-huh, mobility is gonna go lower, which is gonna then create that cycle of pain.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

It's gonna be a constant cycle.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

And we can actually reduce pain using this neural hierarchy, improving our visual skills. And I'm not talking 2020 vision, I'm talking about visual inputs and the speed in which we are able to take in that input. Um I use the term perceive, decide, and act. So we perceive a stimuli, we perceive the information, whatever it might be, auditory, visual, sensory, anything. We decide what to do with it and then we act on it. And these are different parts of the brain that are gonna have a communication. And let's say you have two cars with the same tire size, with the same capacity, same capability, same driving, but we have a student driver in one and we have a Formula One driver in the other.

unknown 25:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Right? The person's gonna get to the finish line. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I want to stay out of the way of both.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

And so getting to the finish line is gonna be a lot less effort for the Formula One driver because they can take in a lot more inputs and reliably work with that and move forward faster and start making the next decision faster.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Right. Oh, well, using that as an example, the Formula One driver also has, I mean, learn there's many learned behaviors there. Yeah. Right. Uh, many learned ways of managing the the stimuli, or or is it creating a tolerance for more stimuli? Where a new student driver is looking at like the garbage can and the dog that's across the street. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

And that's exactly it.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

And how far the stop sign is and when they should start to hit the brake and all well.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

So that would be the same thing if we take it back to Plotties. Let's take the first time someone did legs and straps. We're saying, okay, inhale up and exhale down. That's one thought. Right. Connecting the rib cage and diaphragmatic breathing, that's another thought. Pelvic floor engagement, that's another thought. Keep your knees straight. That's another thought. Control the machine. Don't go too low. These are all singular thoughts, right? Relax your face. Don't, don't crunch up your shoulders. Uh, keep the you know, I pity my first clients.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

I know I when I think about all the tumbling of cues, I would give to them and they'd be like, what do you want me to do? Keep your inner thighs together.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Keep the, you know, so these are all one thought, one thought, one thought, one thought, one thought. But then you take someone that's done this for a while, and you're like, uh-oh, legs together, quad activation, glute contraction, pelvic floor engagement, one thought. Yeah, yeah. Diaphragmatic breathing, exhaling through your mouth, you know, inhaling through your nose, connecting through, relaxing face, one thought. And so suddenly now instead of 16 thoughts, you have two thoughts. And so then you can add a third thought, right? You can add nuance, which is why the practice can constantly evolve and can be mindfully connected, but it can also be overwhelming at first for someone learning it because it's all one thought. Every single item is its own thought.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Well, then that leads to then training, right? So, what what are some of the the ways in which you can bring this into the training environment? Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Yeah, so uh one thing is eyes closed is a really great way. So, you know, doing footwork with eyes closed, changing nuanced positions. Being able to do arms and straps, we tend to do up and we tend to do V position at a 45 degree angle, we tend to do a T position, we do triceps and we do arm circles, do have it. But what about 30 degree? And what about 74 degree? And all these different changes in the shoulder angle for having a proprioceptive awareness of where that takes you. Or, you know, we do Pilates, V froggy, bend and straighten. But what is if we separated our feet by eight inches? Could we keep that eight inches as we bend and straighten?

SPEAKER_02 28:12

So then you're saying that at at some point when there is learned, what when there's a competency or a um a reliability or an expectation around a movement, adding a novel, something novel to it.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Adding something novel to it, but also kind of understanding a space you haven't always trained in, which is that novelty, right? But being able to change angles because our joints are meant to do a lot of ranges of motion. And if we get stuck with only ever doing squats with our toes parallel, right? That's again why I love footwork. Because we I whenever I have someone new in Pilates and I do the medial rotation, the internal rotation, this is something you don't easily do standing. Often it's not encouraged standing, right? There's usually there's change of facial expressions with that one. That one, that particular one in footwork, I never miss because of how it can activate the VMO, how it can give a different sensation, how it can support a development of a cross balance across the knee joint. Um, but it's a sensation that has to be learned on one side, felt in another, connected with. Um, and I think that that's what's really fascinating about it. Um, other things that help with that is perturbation. So perturbation is this idea of having some sort of external stimuli, whether it be springs, a Cadillac is a great option because the springs are directly attached to you. Right. Each is attached to its own limb. Yep. And controlling it, you could have you have this perturbation. Perturbation meaning it's an external thing perturbing your body. Think you are walking through the grocery store and someone bumps your cart. Are you suddenly off track? Are you able to keep your track? This is important for athletes, soccer players, for example, they're running and get bumped. Are they able to maintain their pace and direction? But this is also important for every factor of any individual, whether they be professional athletes or whether they're trying to reduce their risk of falling.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Is it almost like can the body stay focused on the task at hand despite some external stimuli? And more than focus, can it adjust? Can it adapt quickly? Quickly to the changes.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

To stay focused on what it what the goal is. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that when we start to add in that perturbation training, you know, for example, the angle at which the springs are coming if your legs are together is not in line with the spring itself. So every time you go up and down, that's actually a change in load, not just in the load on the muscle, but the angle that the joint is having to work on the perturb, the line of pull.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Yeah. Um, so so that's in the Pilates studio, but but what are some exercises that can be done at home?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

So there's one that I like to do with clients, which is I say step to a line. So whether it be grout lines or tiles or wood, whatever they have at their home, you stand and then you say, okay, I'm gonna go, let's just say eight like small square tiles, or if it's like two big tiles, you're gonna step to a specific line. You can match a line, you know where it is. You can even put a blue tape down. And then you say, you without looking, you're gonna step to that line. And then you're gonna keep your foot there, and then you're gonna look down and you're gonna get picky with yourself. You're gonna be really because the more picky you are, the better your pro perception is. So then you're gonna look down and you're going to adjust your foot to that line, making sure that it's perfect. Like your toes right on it, and it was four inches over, or it was two inches over, or it was one inch back, and now you're gonna get right to the line. And what does that feel like? And then you're gonna look up again, not look at your feet, and step back where your feet are together. Look down at your feet. Are your feet actually in alignment with one another or are they not? Look back up, step again. And what's interesting, I try to have them now. Some people, they won't get it after even 20 repetitions. But I tell people, if you if you do get it, if you do step to line and you're like, the dopamine that happens, it sounds crazy because you think that this would be an easy drill. But the dopamine that takes place in like feeling rewarded, feeling like I hit that line. Like that's awesome. I got my mark.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yes. And then you do it again and again. You try to repeat the sensation you felt because what you thought was the line wasn't. And then what is the line actually feels like shorter, maybe, or you feel your the weight difference, or you feel more glute activation. Like you start to sense, well, what does that feel like? Okay. So then I'm gonna step forward and I'm gonna try to recreate that feeling. And then if you hit the line again, now you start to understand that feeling and try to repeat and repeat. And you can do that with sidestepping, you could do that with diagonal stepping. That's for your arms. You could also do it with your hands in kind of an all fours position or plank to get the shoulder motion. You can do it with that. I also think um, a really great one that people can do at home is breath work. So they can tie a sweatshirt around their waistline. Having an external contact helps them feel their diaphragm move open and close, or putting a mini ball under their rib, or tying a resistance band and tightening it up. External uses can really help us produce an internal connection.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Do you think there's a difference between like an external use of, say, a band for breathing or a roller under your under someone's spine? Like, does is a is is an elastic member different than say um a harder density um feedback?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely more give in an elastic, which means that naturally you're not gonna necessarily have the input as much. I think it does hold value and for different sensations and different things.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

I mean, for breathing, I feel like it's brilliant, right? It's almost like an external representation of your internal, your connective tissue in a way.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Exactly, exactly. But if we're trying to produce better rib cage expansion, having something that's static that we're pushing into could also help us have a bigger goal and a bigger aim than feeling, uh, let me put it this way: a resistance band is going to emulate the diaphragmatic capacity of breathing and the openness. So you're going to, from an external view, see the movement of the band, feel the movement of the band to kind of show how the diaphragm is working. Right. But if we actually want to improve diaphragmatic capacity, a static position like a ball or a block or something could actually be more beneficial because now it's not moving and we're feeling the change of pressure moving into it. And then that makes us push deeper into it, which makes us focus on more expansion. Then when we take it away, we actually have better expansion. Not because it changed anything more than our pro-perceptive awareness of how much we can do, where our breath can take us.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Right. And that just goes back to um the different inputs are going to produce uh a different decision. Interesting. So I I find I find this fascinating, right? So there's so many things I I want to talk about with you and I want to unpack with you. Um so much of this comes like how much of this is is cognition? Uh how much of this is sort of higher level understanding? How much of this is more um um I I keep going back to protective, but learned or instinctive or even sensory, just this this larger topic of sensory. Well, I think that and how much is the wrong question? Yeah, because you really can't quantify it, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Right. I think that proprioception, I kind of look as a sixth sense. So when we think of it that way, you know, it kind of happens but doesn't. Um it can be trained um and it can be built and it can be lost. It's a use it or lose it mentality, right? Um so when you get older and your gait shortens, for example, is that an example of losing it? Yeah, that's a perfect example, or the shuffling of the feet is what I see a lot. So, and that goes into a lot of things, obviously. If your visual system's worse, and so you don't have uh as much mobility and your vestibular. I was gonna say visual vestibular appropriate section, right? Exactly. And then if your vestibular system is a bit off, you've had you don't move as much, you, you know, that's gonna make your body stiffer. That could also shorten the gait naturally because now you don't want to take big strides. Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

So again, these work, these truly work hand in hand, right? You know, I I didn't always wear glasses. What I noticed when I wore glasses was it changed my depth perception. When it changed my depth perception, it changed my stride, particularly walking downstairs, right? So so these things And the speed of walking downstairs and the speed and the and the confidence and all of that then changes your movement ability.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Absolutely. Your movement quality. I like to explain with that neural hierarchy how one might perceive how comfortable they are actually with each of these levels would be you are going to, in the broad of daylight with the blinds up, walk from your bed to your bathroom. And then you're gonna do that in the dark of night. You're gonna walk from your bed to your bathroom. How quickly does that happen? How confident are you? How comfortable are you? Now you're going to take the dead of night in a hotel. Yes. Right? This is the difference because there is a sense of understanding where your space is in your own home, though the confidence has dropped with the lights off. There might be still an understanding of where the bed ends, sensing and feeling, but we are moving slower. We are using our hands. We are using our proprioception sense of where our bodies are in space. And when we don't know where our bodies are in space, we're using our sensory contact to be like, oh, there's the wall. Oop, there's the end of the bed. Oops, I'm not quite at the end of the bed. You know, whatever it might be. Then we take it into a hotel where we don't actually know where anything is.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

There's your very novel stimuli for sure. I've lived that myself.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

And then so we take our phone with us or we put a light on. Yeah, whatever we're doing. Leave a little light on too. We need that visual system to keep us safe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Gosh, it's like I feel like we can, there's so many, there's so many, there's so many places I want to go right now. Um, okay. So let you you were quoted in a podcast saying, uh, you probably do have the skill set, you just haven't figured out how to connect it yet. You want to elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Well, let's take something simple. We have so many people that say they can't squat.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Um I'm chuckling because yes. I can't do that. I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

It's not good for my knees.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

It's not good for my knees.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Yeah, which that's another like a whole nother level, probably to unpack and a whole nother topic. But um, but yes, so they say I can't squat, I can't squat that low, it hurts my knees, whatever it might be. And I'm not saying that that's not true. It might be true in their situation based on the lack of inputs, but it's not a skill issue, it's an input issue. So now if I prop them, if I give them something to hold on to, if I slow it down or speed it up, if I um change the inputs, if I if I have them put heat packs on their legs and I have them foam roll first so they know exactly where their quads are. You know, whatever it might be, if we give better inputs, suddenly now they can squat. I once, when we when the pandemic started, I had a virtual client and um he was telling me that his knees were bothering him. And I had worked with him for many, many, many years. And I I really knew this client and knew what was kind of happening, that it wasn't a soft tissue injury knee issue that we needed to be careful of in this sense, but more of a confidence and input issue. And so I was like, hey, do you mind just showing me like where it bothers you on your knee? Could you just rub that area of your knee? Again, virtually, you know, this was a way for me to have. I'm like, oh, could you tap exactly where you feel the pain? So he like taps a little bit. I was like, all right, well, let's go ahead and do this exercise. I need your resistance band stretched all the way out, three feet in front of you, long. Oh, no, no, no, not there. Like, bring it back another foot. Actually, let's go and do this exercise. I need you to pick up that band and bring it back, bubble. Anyways, I sounded like I was an instructor that was losing my mind and was totally unorganized. But in the process, what we were doing was 25 squats by having him pick up the things that I didn't want and putting them somewhere else and everything else. And then at the end, I asked him, like, are your knees okay? Was that okay? Like, now we can get started with the exercise. I'm so sorry. And he was like, No, my knees are fine. I'm like, well, you just squatted for 25 times. Yeah. Right. So then it's this idea of like building that trust, not having our mindset stop us when we have all these fears and mechanisms. So when you asked, is it cognizant?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Well, that's that's where I was going with the cognition piece. Like our, you know, we tell ourselves, our doctor says, never do X.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Oh, words are so meaningful. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

And then and then uh a client will come to you, and certainly there's a lack of proprioception, uh, and there's a lack of of vestibular, you know, you know, regulation, and there's a lack of of visual input for this particular movement because they've been told not to do it. Right. And it's a use it or lose it. So even on a higher level, there's like there's the first cognitive, uh, I can't do it. Right. And so the use it or lose it, what happens then?

SPEAKER_01 41:38

The thing is that we have to be so careful with our words, both in how we speak to ourselves, but it's particularly if we are the specialist, when when our words weigh more than anyone else saying it because of our specialty.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

Well, how are our words any different than the band on the outside of the body giving feedback and input that the person is going to internalize?

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah, good point. Exactly. Uh, you know, I here's an example of myself. I have had knee injuries up the wazoo, and Pilates has kept me from easy.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

I just got, I have to tell you, I have loved you from the moment we started this conversation, but you just said wazoo, and my heart just grew three times. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

And and I I've I've torn my meniscus, I've torn my MCL, I've strained my PCL and my LCL, I torn my tower tendon.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

This is really up the wazoo.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Um I've fractured, I've had um microfractures across my femur and my patella. Uh, I I've I've dislocated my knee more times than I can possibly tell. I slapped my kneecap back in place when I was dancing in college. Like I have done everything. The reticulums in my knee have been, you know, 90% of them have been torn. It has been a lot. Thank God, knock on wood, I haven't torn my ACL and I've never had a surgery. And Pilates has kept me strong and has kept me capable and has kept me out of surgeries. I love that. Pilates has kept me capable. Yeah. I love that. It really has. It was still getting me only to about 90%. It allowed me to walk, it allowed me to do activities, allowed me to live my daily life pain-free, but it wasn't perfect. Okay, now we add the neurological aspect to it. Now we add the understanding of pain, pain science, motion, inputs, and all this kind of stuff. And what was happening was just like anyone else, despite my knowledge base, I was having horrific chondromalaysia grinding sounds that I was hearing. I put a pain soundtrack to those sounds. Well, why? I there was no pain in those sounds. You put a pain soundtrack. The sounds to me was a bad thing to my knowledge and my understanding and to the things I Learned in life, sound in your knee is not positive. It's not good. So that means it must be bad, which means it must be pain, which now I have pain. The association. Yes. And I trained myself to that. I also trained myself to always being at a higher awareness of how that knee felt. So if I sat on the couch crinkled up, tight in a ball for two hours watching a movie and then wanted to go to the bathroom and straighten out my legs. The fact that my knee felt a little tight and felt like stiff and didn't want to walk, I was like, oh my God, how's my knee? Oh my God, is it okay? Well, if it happened to my right knee, it didn't seem to matter to me because it was like, well, of course, you were crunched up in a ball, right? It's the perception and awareness of it as well as the inputs that you're receiving. And so I was doing exercises and I had to put in my earplugs into my ears, my music, into my ears, and blast my music in my ears. So you didn't hear your knee soundtrack? So I didn't hear the knee soundtrack. And then I dead stared myself in the mirror as I did the entire standing split series. And I went through all of them. I went through the speed skaters, I went through the outer thigh, inner thigh, all of them. And I'm watching myself in the mirror to see is my alignment good? Is my posture good? Is my form good? Is my technique good? Is my knee dropping in? Am I getting a knee valgus? You know, am I dropping in the foot? What is happening? None of it was happening. I also wasn't in any pain. And I was like, that's amazing. This is amazing. My knee's not making any noise. I take my music out and go, put my music, put it back in my ear, like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. So I did that for a while until I could separate sound from pain and then go from there. Right. Right. So I think that the again, then the conversation. So the the quality of the input matters. Oh, a hundred percent. Uh, movement is not medicine. Uh-huh. Good movement is medicine. And then that brings us to the whole idea of like the conversation. Like, how do you have that conversation with yourself? I was a few years out of a knee injury. I was, I was well into the strength building, not in the maintenance or the rehab stage anymore. And I was still telling people, yeah, my knee injury. Now you don't have a knee injury. You had a knee injury.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Right? So then if that becomes your identity, then someone back or my shoulder. Exactly. There was a study done. I don't know how the study ended, these poor people. I really hope. But there was a study done where they found how they found a hundred people that have never had back problems is awesome. But they found a hundred people that have never had any back problems, never reported any back problems, said they felt great. And they did scans on them, they did MRIs on them, and they found that 62 of them had herniated bulge, disc, stenosis, whatever it might be, that would usually produce some sort of level of pain in someone's back. And they told all 100 people that they had something like this that would normally cause pain. And then they reached out to them six weeks later and asked how many of them had pain, and 92 of them reported pain. Oh, yeah. Even the ones that didn't have anything. Yeah. So it's amazing how information of what we receive, particularly from someone that we hold on a pedestal with having a knowledge base, can really influence our pain sensors or our ability to trust our bodies.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

I mean, I but that is so profound to me. And I think, you know, I I highlighted something here that you said once. Um, the question to you was what's one thing you want to share with the world that you haven't yet? And you said encourage people to not let people tell them that's the way it is. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

I I really, I really dislike people just settling or people telling you you're doing great for your age. Like, why the for your age? Why, why do we have to have that pre-notion? I understand that things change. I understand that, you know, recovery might be slower. I understand that the cell rejuvenation and and all these types of things might change. And I understand, you know, that those things can happen, but that doesn't define us. And there's a lot we can do.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

It's almost like you put a cognitive blinder um on the awareness piece and the proprioception piece and the the kinesia piece, like like it's it's it um it puts a barrier or a gap there.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

And I think because we tend to move less, you know, we spend a much of our adult lives working, most people working either in repetitive tasks or sitting at a desk, right? And so we don't play as much, we don't explore as much. I think Pilates is adults at play. Oh, yes. And everything you see people do on the equipment, staying true to the foundations, it leaves a lot of room for play and creativity. Um and I think that that all that exploration within our bodies also keeps our bodies youthful, allowing our bodies to move in full ranges of motion, allowing our bodies to explore ranges that we didn't previously explore. Again, always making sure that we have the foundational principles, always making sure that we have that level of progression to be able to keep us safe. But that's empowering. That's very empowering to the brain because ultimately the only thing that the brain cares about is constantly scanning for is threat. That is the only thing that the brain cares about. It doesn't actually care about safety, it cares about threat. So it doesn't look for safety.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

No, never. It scans for threat.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

But it craves feeling safe.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

It craves feeling safe, but it it it your performance improves and your pain decreases based on reducing threat. So, what do I mean by that? Threat can be in so many factors, which is also really cool to think that there's many different avenues that you can reduce your level of threat. So let's just say everyone has a bucket of water, and the water in it is gonna be levels of experience threat for that individual. So they are having financial aspects that they're worried about. That's gonna be put into the threat bucket. They're, you know, dealing with a relationship that's, you know, having a hard time that's gonna be put in. They had a bad sleep night, one nice lot of sleep night. They're not eating the best. They didn't get to exercise for the last five days, whatever it might be. They're the water's being added to this threat bucket. And then you get one drop more and it's overflowing. It's only one drop, right? But the water is overflowing. What's cool about this is we can start scooping out that water by changing any one of these things, getting better sleep, improving our nutrition, um, moving more, um, having healthier relationships, uh, in having a purpose in life, you know, all these types of things are gonna start to scoop this out so that it's not that the bucket's gonna ever be empty for really any one of us, but that it's manageable. And as threat reduces, our brains can feel safer. And when threat reduces and our brains feel safer, it takes off these safeguards that are there because it doesn't trust or it doesn't have the inputs it needs to make sound decisions. And suddenly our pain decreases, suddenly our strength improves, our mobility improves, our vision improves, our anxiety decreases. Like quite literally, everything will improve based on having a reduction of threat.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Um, if we cycle that back to the first question on what is proprioception, and we talk about that in the training environment. Um, you know, before we started, we were discussing a little bit that that the Pilates environment is a is is a proprioceptic, proprioceptive rich environment. Um for clients who for whom mobility might be restricted, or for clients for whom they may come with a neurological issue, whether they've had a prior stroke, um, Parkinson's MS, um, how does this pertain to the training environment, specifically around proprioception?

SPEAKER_01 52:10

So with that specific population that we're discussing now, movement can be very scary, right? Again, we're talking about threat. And so starting with actually moving the joint and moving or having multiple factors involved with coordination could actually reduce our goals and not move us in the direction we want. So instead, I encourage two things: one, sensory input, and two, isometrics. So when we talk about sensory input, I do all of it. Uh so there are there are six receptors that go to our brain. Think of it as like a neural GPS system. You're dropped off, blindfolded, dropped off somewhere you've never been before. And they hand you a piece of paper and say, here's your map to get home. And that paper is a white, blank printer paper. Okay, I don't know how to get home. There's nothing on this paper. That is the lack of all these receptors not going to the brain. So now let's start to make that map. So first we have our mechanoreceptors. So mechanoreceptors are our movement receptors. They go to our brain the fastest, 270 miles per hour. And so when we move well, we are doing well. We feel good. Yeah. We're back to our Formula One driver. Yes, we're back to our Formula One driver because when we move well, that information is partying up in our brain before anyone else has even entered the scene. So then next we have our barrel receptors. And those are our pressure receptors. We, our pressure receptors are going to tell us, you know, how light we're being touched or how heavy. Like, is a car rolling over our toe, or is it our significant other rubbing our back? You know, like, you know, these types of information. That goes to our brain at 180 miles per hour. Still super fast, but way slower than 270. And then we have our thermoreceptors, our heat, cold, warm, cool receptors. Are we able to sense these types of things? Then we have our electroreceptors, which are gonna be more vibration, um, massage guns, you know, thera guns, vibration of an electric toothbrush, and all those kinds of things. Then we have our chemoreceptors, which are gonna be your bombs and salves, uh, people putting bengay or icy hot on them, or using lavender oil, or using spritz and sprays. And then we have our noseceptors. Gnosisceptors are not pain receptors, they are threat analysis receptors, we'll call them. And so they go to our brain at two miles per hour. Oh, wow. And and they go to our brain at two miles per hour to tell our brain, hey, give it a pain signal because I'm not happy about this. Now, if everything else is working well, if the mechanoreceptors are working well, the baroreceptors are working well, the thermoreceptors are working well, the chemo receptors are working well, the electroceptors are working well, then you're having a party, you've cleaned up, everyone has gone home, and the gnosisceptor is like, hey, I have some information. And the brain's like, yeah, we're done. We're done here. Exactly. Yeah. And so as far as this neural GPS and this mapping aspect of it, now suddenly the mechanoreceptors are your streets, and the the baroreceptors are the buildings, and the thermoreceptors are the street names. And the is now you have a guide-by-guide GPS mapping to get you home. Uh-huh. Right. And there's no fear, there's no concern, there's no lack of confidence, and all those kinds of things. So sensory input is going to be the first place I go for anyone that needs to move better for better body awareness, better proprioception awareness, and the ability to reduce threat. Also, when we talk about the brain pathway of how things move through the brain, it always goes from bottom to top and from back to front. That is the processing of information.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

That's fantastic. From bottom to top, from back to front.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

And that means. So we have our occipital lobe first. We talked about the visual system. So the very first thing is that occipital lobe. That's our visual system. And we're getting that visual integration of what that means. Um, if someone makes a hand gesture, we see it, right? And then we have to discover what that means. So then we go into our language processing of our temporal lobe, of memory, facial recognition, language, all these other things, right? Then we go into our parietal lobe, which is a lot of dealing with where we are in space and that proprioception. Then we have our sensory motor cortex and our motor cortex. This is really important because as we're talking about inputs, sensory comes before motor. So sensory comes before motor. So if you want to move better, you got to sense better. Right. So hence you would start with sensory inputs. Yes, exactly. So sensory comes before motor. Then we have our prefrontal motor cortex, which is going to deal with the pre-planning stage of things. This is going to be, okay, I am ready to take that step forward. So is that sort of the mindfulness piece, the awareness piece? That's going to be the mindfulness piece. It's also going to be the piece that says, I am planning for this. I have all the other information. This is what I need to do. So this is what I've seen. Now this is what's going to happen. I need you now to do this. And the frontal lobe is what does it. The frontal lobe actually is the voluntary movement, which, you know, we're movers, right? So that's frontal lobe. It's executive decision making, deciding to do it, whether that be moving my tongue to create the word I want out of my mouth, whether that means moving my eyes to see what I want to see, like any movement, any executive decision making and impulse control. These are just a few of the things the frontal lobe does, but three big ones that I tend to talk about. Okay. Then it goes to our cerebellum. It goes from back to top, from bottom to top and back to front. And then it cycles back to the cerebellum and says, Did I do it right? Is that a carbon copy of what you wanted? Interesting. And when the cerebellum says, no, adjust, as you reach for that cup that we talked about earlier, right? You reach for that cup and you start to grab it and it's sliding out of your hand. The cerebellum's like, grab harder, grab down lower, put your other hand underneath, you know, and then that information gets sent. We do it. Is that what did it work? You know, this kind of thing. So that is why we need to do sensation training, whether we use film rollers, whether we use props, whether we use the machine itself, whether we use our cueing technique, whatever it is to get better sensation vibration. I use a lot of different tools. Um, I use vibration techniques. I use it. And what about speed? Oh, speed definitely makes a difference because again, not everything should go slower, because that could improve increase threat, right? We we care about threat. Although slower does help you process information faster. So if you move too quickly, it goes back to the legs and strap aspect, right? You have 16 things you need to think of. But if you're not a Formula One driver driving at 200 miles per hour, you're gonna mess up, you're gonna miss things. So going slower helps us be able to process all the inputs that are necessary to move well. So that's an important aspect, and that's sensation training. But then also before we move for that population that we had talked about, um, isometrics are key. Yeah, tell me more about isometrics. So there's two different types of isometrics there's um overcoming isometrics and there's yielding isometrics. So an example of the two. Um let's say you have a yoga strap, something non-resistance bands. Okay. Um, and you put your hand in it and you stand on it. Let's just say, for example, so it's it's locked in, and you're going to bend your elbow. That thing's not moving, okay, but we're trying to overcome it. And so we're we're activating our bicep. There is zero movement. Let me go back, isometric, so people understand what isometric is. We have three ways we can move the muscle, right? Concentric is the contraction of the muscle, the shortening of the muscle. Ecentric is going to be the elongation underload. I'm guessing a lot of Plotties instructors are listening to this. So they know eccentric very well. It's what we are bread and butter. And then there's the isometric, which the most common isometric is going to be a plank or a wall sit. And so when we talk about isometrics of an overcoming isometrics, this is holding a position where we're constantly building more tension in that position, but we're not moving, but we're trying to bring our fist closer to our shoulder in this bicep curl action. That's never going to happen. And that's an overcoming. Okay, so let's go into what a yielding isometric is. Now, instead of using a stiff band that's never gonna move, we're gonna use a resistance band. And now we're gonna hold that same 90-degree angle bicep curl. We're gonna have enough tension on that resistance band that now we're not going to try to overcome it by bringing our hand to our shoulder. We're gonna still hold the isometric at that 90 degree, but we're trying to avoid it from starting to release out into that eccentric. We're trying to, we're trying to hold it there to not let the elbow release towards the pull of the band. So now if we're talking not bands, but springs, let's say we're using the tower springs or the Cadillac springs, and we're gonna hold our leg in an isometric position, the spring is naturally trying to pull our leg back towards its anchor point. And we're going to keep it there. That is a yielding isometric. It is white paper studied shown, science-backed, that yielding isometrics increase proprioceptive nature in that joint. And so if we now take that into Pilates, when are we not doing a yielding isometric? When are we not doing? Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

So granted, we're focusing on the eccentric control for sure, but we could stop when we now include yielding isometrics and we talked about speeds. We could pause at any position controlling the eccentric control, putting a pause and just telling clients, stop halfway, hold there for five seconds, that it becomes a yielding isometric to understand where our bodies are in space. Now drop back down, now push all the way out, bring it back down slowly, stop halfway. Do you even know where halfway is? Are you like two inches from the stopper or are you actually halfway? And this is what we can start to learn in our bodies to be able to be better. I think this is a really, really important skill to have because when we step off a curb, do we know what six inches is? Do we know how much knee bend that is? And suddenly now that curb is four inches or eight inches. Do we now twist our ankle or do we jam our knee? You know, can we make those adjustments? Are we resilient enough because we have enough proprioceptive awareness?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Resilient, resilience, resiliency. Um, uh so much of what you're talking about to me, resiliency comes back, awareness comes back, uh mindfulness comes back. Um what recommendations do you have for instructors who might want to start to incorporate a sensory integration approach to their practice?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Well, first of all, I want to encourage all Pilates instructors to not be overwhelmed by this topic and to also realize that they're naturally doing a lot of it through their cueing, through breath work, through making sure they stay true to the fundamentals.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Talk more about, let's talk about those three things. Um what was the first thing you said?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

So through the movement, through the practice itself. Through the practice itself. So in the practice itself, you know, it's all about, right? It's called contrology for a reason. Um I always learned that the controllogy aspect of it was this idea that if you focus your mind, you can control every muscle in your body. Well, I didn't mention that how we get proprioception is through our joints, our tendons, and our muscles. There's the Golgi tendons and these muscle spindle fibers that are inside of our of our muscles and these proprioceptors, hence proprioception, there are proprioceptors and mechanoreceptors that are utilized in the joints, in the ligaments, and sorry, in the tendons and in the muscles, that when a joint moves and the muscle changes and it squeezes or lengthens these golgi tendons and muscle spinal fibers, it provides that information to the brain of what's happening. And that's that's what proprioception is on a scientific level, right? And so the practice does this. And because we're focusing on control, because we're focusing on not utilizing momentum, I don't know where I heard it and it has stuck with me, and I use it all the time. Momentum is not a muscle. I love that. And so when we think about that and we we master our movement. Now, it's always a practice, right? We're never perfect. There's always room to grow in this practice and to connect more deeply and to have a sensation and anything like that. I think all of that is really wonderful. So I think the practice naturally already builds into that. So my advice to Pilates instructors is be accurate, be particular. Not immediately, you know, I believe in an onion, have a layered-based approach. Don't freak out the first time client with a hundred cues of having to be perfect and understand their bodies. Um, there's room to grow, the room to bring them back, have years of a relationship to build on it. Um, but to know that being sloppy and not having a mindfulness and not connecting with the body, not being present is not going to help your appropriate. It's not going to help your movement quality. And it's not going to help you get out of pain. And I think that naturally we have that in our Pilates practice. Breath work.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

Because I know a little bit more about breath work. There's so much to breathing. The one thing we can agree on is that if we stop breathing, we die. It is a core requirement for brain. And if you try to function, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:30

And if you try to hold your breath, you'll pass out so that your body will just start breathing.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

More than that, it increases threats. Your brain needs oxygen to survive, full stop. And so learning breathing resilience, again, bringing back the resilience aspect of it, being able to change your breath work, you know, learning to do a five by five breathing. That doesn't come naturally to a lot of people, being able to inhale for five and exhale for five, doing staccato breathing and then learning the full breath, or um being able to do the advanced footwork and inhale out and bring it back in and exhale out and bring back in. Like this takes time to have breathing resilience, but also diaphragmatic work versus lung breathing, right? The whole idea of diaphragmatic breathing is not only to have a good exchange of air quality, but it's also to give us the decision and the control of when we move our spine and how we move our spine, rather than the breath work coming from our lungs automatically causing this ripple effect in motion in our spine. And so being cognizant and aware of these differences allows us to be in better control, allowing us to be in better control and allowing us to have a sense of position and let the brain know that we're not in risk of injury, then reduces the threat. And by reducing the threat, we move better. We not just move better in quality, but range of motion, strength, um, being able to feel comfortable in the end ranges. What is that end range? Um, all of those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:07

Comfortable in the end ranges is um, I think another, another place where the movement in Pilates is particularly good for proprioception. Yeah. Um so uh what do you think about like the five in, the five out for the hundred? Do you think there's there's something there? Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:24

Uh yes, absolutely. I I um there is there's a lot of science that has gone into reducing uh blood pressure and breathing, isometrics actually is a big one too. Um they talk about isometrics reducing blood pressure, but breath work. And there are the studies go into what's called 10 second breath work or six breaths per minute specifically. And you know, I do this with two to six breathing a lot with clients in reducing blood pressure, sitting, inhale for two, hold for two, out for six. When I have them end with their stretches, I often have them do that type of breathing, two two six breathing to help lower blood pressure, to help with uh system regulation, nervous system regulation, and increasing that parasympathetic tone. However, uh the the science shows that a 10-second breath or six breaths per minute will do that and a two two six will do that. However, the studies show the epitome of this work is in a five and a half-ish by five and a half. And so when you now you ask me about the hundreds breathing of a five by five, this blows my mind. It really does. Because like, did Joe know this? Did he try different things? Did he try different breaths and see how the nervous system reacted to it? That we were too flooded with oxygen by a 7.3 breath or a 7-7 breath? Were we not able to maintain good body posture? Were we getting lethargic and lacking muscle activation if we did too long of an exhale? Like, what did he see that he did a five by five breathing? But the science shows that it is quite literally the best way to calm our nervous system, to regulate our central nervous system, to increase parasympathetic tone and lower our blood pressure. And and we see it in a lot of his work, beyond hundreds. We see it in heel clicks, right? Throughout different pieces of apparatus. Um, yeah, it's it's impressive to me. And I wish I knew what he was thinking and why he came up with that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

I think that's fantastic. All right, before we go into our rapid fire questions, we said um for new instructors, um, so much of this you're already doing. Uh, the breath work, was there anything else that you would you would offer the new instructor?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

So I think jump board is also a really great way to increase proprioception. I mentioned eyes closed. I think incorporating as a client or as someone they're working with or themselves has uh we talked about the systems in place where, you know, the legs and strap example of 16 different conversations becoming now only two conversations, to add complexity, add the novelty, add coordination challenges to understand, you know, going from an all-fours position to a bird dog position of reducing the amount of limbs on the ground. So we feel these shifts and change and balance. I think those are really important. Adding in weight shifts, marching, changing our foot positions, um, all of those types of things are going to be a big deal. And then I think this goes into a different aspect of it. But one thing I wanted to mention from the neurological aspect is the trigeminal nerve. So we talked about properception in the body as a whole, but the trigeminal nerve is the head and leader of properception in the head. It's where it starts for properception in the face. And it brings up a whole nother conversation. But when we talk about threat and everything else, when we talk about Pilates and having a relaxed facial expression, there's this idea of startle effect of us crunching our face and having tension in our eyes and clenching our jaw. And this increases threat in the brain because the brain thinks that there's something wrong. And so if we actually cue relaxation or why is someone feeling tense in their body, is it actually, is it because it's challenging or is it because it hurts? And being able to disassociate that as well and making sure the face stays relaxed is gonna make a huge difference on how someone perceives the information that they're getting to their body.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:31

That's so fascinating. So just working, I'm gonna try that when I'm on a plane next and we had turbulence. I'm just gonna say relax your face. Relax your face. That's great. Okay, some rapid fire questions. Okay. Uh, what is your definition of Pilates?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:48

Oh, okay. I'm not trying to kiss up to balanced body, but balanced body. Um uh Pilates is so much about producing a balance in the body across the muscle structures to the joint, the breath work connection, um, a balance of flexion and extension and rotation and side flexion, you know. So that is what Plotties is to me, this idea of being able to create a balanced system and and and a longevity, a lifestyle around it. I always tell people, Pilates is not the end. It's a means to whatever your ends are. Uh it it provides. Pilates is not an end, it's a means to whatever your ends are. Yeah. And and so, you know, if you want to run, Pilates can help you feel good for a long time running. It if you want to sing, Pilates can help you. You know, if you play violin or, you know, when I work with dental hygienists, these positions that they're in, um, there are restrictions, there are compensations. And I find that Pilates helps with all those things in creating a balanced body.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:58

Fantastic. Okay, what's your favorite piece of Pilates equipment? It can be big or small, and why?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:05

Oh gosh, can I go big and small? Um I I do uh I do gravitate to the reformer. I do love the chair, but I do a lot of my work on the reformer and I just love all the aspects it has for it. Um, for so many reasons. I won't even be able to get into. And small, I love the miniball. The miniball. Everybody loves it. I really love the mini ball because I feel that talking about proprioception, I feel like you can roll it on your legs and give more activation. You can put it under your arm and feel diaphragmatic breathing. You can place it under your low back and get decompression of the spine. Um, you can squeeze it behind your leg and get hamstring activation. Like I feel like it's it packs a lot for a small thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Okay, I I I'm with you. Um what's one misunderstanding about Pilates or your profession that you wish more people understood?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:59

With Pilates, it's definitely changing. Um, but it has always been an emphasis to me to have people understand that this is for everybody and everybody. Um and I work have worked really hard in the atmosphere of my studio, the queuing I do, the movements I choose to encourage the male population to realize Pilates is for them. Um, to make people, especially now with social media, people that feel that their bodies can't move in Pilates or they don't look like the people they see online, um, or that they have an injury, that they sh can't do certain things. I really want to change that image that this is literally for everybody and everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:52

You know, I saw that uh uh recently an article where somebody from who was an influencer, a Pilates influencer, um, uh was saying that she wished Pilates was for people who had injuries or pain or for older individuals.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

That makes me so sad.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:08

And and my heart broke. And I thought, oh my gosh, there is absolutely a generational divide that seems to be happening because so much good information is online, right? Right, right, right. So so my my hope is that the good information meets meets some of this misunderstanding or misinformation.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:26

I think it's the sensationalism too. I mean, you know, uh I I think doing fancy things on equipment and making it look like the craziest stuff also discourages a lot of people where the foundational principles and the foundational movements have a lot of value, but don't aren't clickbait. Well, they're not they're not sexy per se. Yeah. Um but they're sustainable.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:47

They're well, speak about longevity and sustainable movement. Yeah. Um, um, what's one habit that you do frequently that complements your Pilates practice?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:59

No, one. Well, I definitely cross-train. This is something new for me. I started heavyweight training, um, and I I love the combination. I also do red light therapy, and it's totally a placebo effect to some degree and absolutely amazing in other degrees. I tend to push myself a little harder, knowing that the red light's gonna take care of it all. You know, so uh sleep is very important in New US for one habit. But I think I uh habits, I think 40% of our life, 50% of our life is habitual, leaving room for the novel. And I try to set up certain habits that set me up for being able to move well, feel good, and um be agile enough for the novel.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:45

Um so it's more like you have pillars, right? Some pillars of your markers for health for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:52

Um, okay, uh, one to three books or podcasts you recommend for.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:57

I do have some books, but I'm gonna pull it up so that I say people's last names correctly. Um, so uh talking about proprioception and movement, but also on the neurological side, if people are interested in building on that. There's a really cool book called The Brain That Changes Itself by Dr. Norman Deutsch. And um, it's little short stories, so it's easy to read. It's and it has, it is quite literally mind-blowing uh what the brain is capable of. And I think it really shows people what's possible. Talking about the novelty aspect, um, play, how it shapes the brain, um, by Stuart Brown. Um, amazing, amazing book on the importance of play at any age, uh, how it the chemical rewiring in the brain takes place, um, all those kinds of things. So for people that are fearful of expanding out while still staying true to the principles and the nature, it's a really great book. And then Introsception, how I feel. Speaking on this topic, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher her name, but it's Kara Kusinski, K-O-S-C-I-N-S-K-I. Um, Introsception, how I feel. Love those books. I think it touches on the topic matters that we kind of spoke on and expands out in a more in-depth perspective.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:18

Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna download all of those before I leave the studio today. Um, Misha, could you tell our listeners where they can find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:25

Yes, absolutely. So I have a neurological-based website that does a lot of um CECs for instructors, has just launched um a professional membership to learn more about how they can incorporate brain training into movement practices, focusing on application and implementation, but also more of a handholding approach, and also has workshops and um free courses and all those kinds of things. And that's on brainbody approach.io. And it's you, the letter U, T-E-A-C-H dot IO. So brainbody approach at uteach.io. I can be found on Instagram at brainbody approach or centralcore pb, um, like peanut butter uh for Pismo Beach, Central Core PB. Um, and I also have a YouTube page which they will be able to find through any of those links and any of those contacts.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:20

Oh, fantastic. Misha, I can't thank you enough for this conversation. This was uh very enlightening. Uh thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:27

Oh, I'm so happy, Joy. I really feel the privilege and the honor and just getting to meet you. It's been really, really wonderful for me, very special. Fantastic.