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edg176
30th October 2001, 22:39
Hello,

Lately I've become interested in Pilates, not to "tone up" but because they seem to talk a lot about strengthening the core "postural" muscles.

I went to a free introductory session and found that it was interesting, especially the fact that the instructor concentrated on moving from the center--a concept I have heard over and over in everything from bagua to eskrima to aikido to wado-karate.

Has anyone here tried using Pilates to help them be more aware of their center/hara? Has it worked?

This is sort of a tangent, but...a few years ago some of my friends were heavily involved in Wado Karate. A master instructor visited their dojo and told them they were moving "wrong"--he said they needed to originate all motion from their center. They changed their training program and after about a year of that all of them move very differently, in a way I've never seen in Karate.

So I'm really curious to hear about other people's experiences.

Tim Fong

pete lohstroh
31st October 2001, 20:15
Tim,
I was having some back/pirriformis problems so I tried pilates. I found most of the exercises to be very familiar and effective. However, some of the Pilates exercises were giving me severe groin strain so I discontinued them in favor of Hatha yoga which I feel compliments my budo taijutsu training.