The year is 3014 by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

I can’t STAND for this anymore by Tony Riddle



I have had a few comments on how extreme I can be, specially after sawing my sofa in two at home and throwing it away. I always have to explain that it is my choice and just because I am different, this doesn't make me extreme. 

You too might have a different opinion If you actually did your own research into the affects of seated posture and how detrimental it is to your movement system.



Imagine this scene:



The year is 3014 and you are at a seminar about mother natures amazing ability to heal and how Man potentially threatened their own existence.



You are in a completely clear glass room, yet can still take in the surrounding trees and beautifully natural scenery. You are able to absorb Vitamin D and smell nature, but yet protected from the harsher elements. There isn’t one chair in the room and all of the participants at the seminar are either kneeling, squatting, or striking thinking poses, it’s ground transition central.



The lecturer is presenting you with facts that Man became so obsessed by technological advances that they neglected their own complex design and threatened civilisation as we knew it..



He explains:


“There was once a time when humans were controlled and propaganda was rife. An uprising had occurred for returning us back to nature, but those involved were cast out for being too extreme. The organisation had threatened their world and the fear of loosing their comfort and their highly addictive food groups had created a huge emotional reaction. The organism had become weak and easily manipulated. They were addicted to a lifestyle that was creating sick victims and they were given false hope of magic cures.”


“Cancer was a very different disease back in 2014 and people didn’t understand that there was no cure as such. They piled money into charities, huge amounts of money, when all along those organisations knew that the only cure was prevention. They knew you had to return back to a natural lifestyle, start moving naturally, eating natural organic produce, sleeping correctly and have proper spiritual connection with our Mother.”

“Instead they carried on, compromising their organism, disrespecting themselves in a form of self hatred. Their most common form of surgery was the gastric band. The band was fitted so that they could keep eating their industrialised food groups. Some were so over weight that they had to use a form of transport to move 100m”.



The lecturer shoots a huge image of a chair into the sky with his 3d projector and the room gasps!


“ Yes this is a chair, along with the industrialised food groups these were the main culprits for of our demise”

“Today you can squat anywher and there are no chairs, but back then you didn’t even have an option, you had to sit. Even when studies showed how detrimental seated posture was to the health of the organism, you still didn’t get a choice. There wasn’t even an area to squat in! Before they took smoking out of restaurants you had an option to be on the smoking side or the non smoking side, but when sitting was compared to be the new smoking in terms of health issues. They still had no option, but to sit and frowned upon If you were to squat.”


“We had taken away all of what we are capable of today, the chair was creating a stagnant race. Our ankles, knees, lower backs and our posture were all affected by this beast. We had literally become sitting targets and it was of little wonder why we had become so threatened as a species. We had done to ourselves what no other species would have dreamed of doing. We had fed ourselves fake indigestible food groups that were unrecognisable by natures design and then taken away our amazing and unique ability to mimic movements of mother natures animals. Loosing site that no other animal can impersonate another the way we can.”

“We can become the Duck, the cheater, the lizard, the fish. A fish can only be a fish, a cat a cat, a lizard a lizard. Instead they would sit in a chair that had no overlapping advantages into any of our natural movement patterns.”

“Yes this is hard to believe my children, but it is true. We now take for granted our great movement equality, but believe me; most couldn’t even walk or run correctly and had to be coached in how to move and eat”

“When they finally invaded we didn’t stand much chance, with the inability to move or defend ourselves and the lack of basic survival skills we were sitting ducks.”


“Our only saviour was that small minority that hadn’t fallen for the Bull Shit and had chosen to move and eat how nature had intended. The very people that our anscestors had cast out for being extremist would come to our rescue. They were once looked at as if they were crazy for playing out in nature, whilst the other kids were locked in their cage like bedrooms, disconnected from one another. These uncompromised 'WARRIORS" were preparing themselves for an event such as this. You see they knew, if you take away mans ability to defend himself, or move then they are weak and vulnerable, this is how you bread a nation of worriers."

"It had taken us a long time for us to make the change, but once the big ego's finally put their hands up admitted they were wrong it was a inevitable that the change had to occur. We soon realised that we had become both the slave and the slave master. The New Nature Order hadn't wanted us to revert right back to hunter gatherer roots and forget all about the things we had been successful with, they just wanted to drop all the things that were draining our planet, both spiritually and weakening our our defences. They had given us the true meaning of a "SELF DEFENCE" and that is when it dawned on us, that the "Creating Warriors not Worrier" approach wasn't about creating an attacking army".


"If anything, we have learnt that it is O.K to make technological advances, but we must maintain our connection with nature. Nature really does have the answers. We are smart, but only when we are nature smart"!

Tony Riddle  A.K.A @theprepdoctor

Bring back Public Hanging In 2014! by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

Get a grip!

By Gloves Club Founder Tony Riddle.

I look to my children as my educators in movement. They never seize to amaze me, they teach me every day and I get to pass this knowledge on to others. That's right, It isn't just us, that educates them, our kids are our educators too!
They crawl, squat, jump, lift, carry, throw, balance, walk, run, hang and climb all with ease and great skill, fearlessly I would like to add.

In return, I have to encourage, not discourage their movement practice.  I have to show great examples of this too.

If I don't, who will?

Some compromised, frustrated PE teacher who has been entrusted to look after the physical health of my child, that's who!

Well not on my watch!

The irony is;   I go off and study with the best and re-learn the very things that my kids have inherited from me and are already naturally skilled at.  This is what I class as my duty as a parent and a tribal elder, if it is something I have lost. I need to go out and gain the skill to coach them.

In a world obsessed with the intellectual mind.

We of course want them to do well academically, but to take these beautiful movement systems away with "Sit down, Don't move, Absorb this, Get down from there, Come away from the edge and Be careful of that, along with the usual chorus of of fear based crap" is a bloody outrage!

If like my daughters, you were carried around in a sling you would have learnt the pushing, pulling, grabbing and extension reflexes early. If you were kept in a baby carrier, a buggy and a car seat you have had these systems taken away. Bam! that's the attachment theory right there!
We could even be so bold as to call it "the movement connection theory" or "the movement disconnection theory". depending on where your base camp is.

Movement that should come naturally to us all

A baby/toddler will learn to grab and grip earlier than anything else. They will climb earlier than many of their other locomotive skills.  Brachiation is fundamental to us; hanging, pulling, climbing are all just as fundamental to us as running. We were in fact tree dwellers and climbers before we became runners.  (if you believe in evolution like I do ) Yet most can't hang on a bar and hold their own bodyweight in their hands due to their lack of grip strength  for more than 20 seconds, and this is where reductionism has its place. You need to know the code to break the fear and build the layers and strip the movement right back. Look at the end result and be able to trace all the way back to where the individual is compromised, have the unique set of Liam Nielsen skills to select the 20% input towards the 80% of output, and not get caught up in selecting BS movements like the Lat Pull down that have no over lapping theory to that end result.

If you put your fingers out to a baby they will grab and grab on surprisingly tight and won't let go.  If you lift them up, they still won't let go, their vice like grip will remain. You can literally walk around the room with them "ATTACHED/CONNECTED" to you.  I am talking about a baby here. I am not talking about an athletic type, who can lat pull, morning, noon and night, but can't hang for shit and marvels at James bond hanging from an elevator for all of 12 floors!

In fact for a large proportion of the zoo it's like an emotional bomb going off in their head to even think they could carry out what should be natural to them. Don't forget a lot of people have been containerised for so long it would be irresponsible to coach them without the correct prep work. They have lost the "HOW TO" but it doesn't mean they don't have the desire to, or the hardwiring (inherent knowledge). It is more the case that the only perception they have had of exercise is to sit in another container pushing levers like a chimp in an experimental lab. "Push this handle 15x and you will receive 1 muscle group and a protein bar."

Shoulder injuries are just as rife as knee and lower back problems. It's time we all got a grip and started hanging around a different kind of bar! We can blame the compromising chair and footwear for a multitude of sins, but the lack of hanging and climbing is just as detrimental to our innate movement system. That's "innate" not "inept"movement system!

Time to Take The Gloves Off and Toughen UP.

Climbing specifics:

Prep the hand with specific hand and wrist  prep drills as this is where you need to recognise bodyweight. Re-educate the grip and grip strength. Prep the shoulder and the scapula from its zoo cage so that the individual who can't lift his hand higher than his shoulder to change a light bulb can then hang, can then pull with a straight arm, then pull with a bent arm, can then muscle up, can then gymnastic ring pull up and finally can learn how to climb. Yeah, who would have guessed it,  hanging on a bar is actually a micro skill of the macro skill of climbing.

Yes squat, yes go barefoot, but please don't neglect a good hang out with your mates!

Gatekeepers, Code Breakers and Deconstruction. by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

by Tony Riddle A.K.A, The Prep Doctor

Coach Ben Medder and I were out doing our usual walk to hunt for food today and were discussing what it is that we do. I'd said that I had hit a bit of a cross roads of late as my coaching method is forever evolving and new techniques are developing, but I always revert back to my filter. Pick up a new training method, learn it, have an affair with it, some sordid, some not so sordid and then return back to my wife for a strong maintenance level,  incorporating my prep and mobility system to make it more refined.

That's enough about me, but how about the client? My conclusion is that I am having to break the code to each individual I see. To be able to coach them out of the containerised zoo and unlock the gates to give them freedom of movement and freedom of mind before they become a specialist or generalist.

The average Joe has spent most of their lives being told, "Don't do that, be careful of this, oh that's too dangerous," and for their first years of their lives carried around in a car seat like they are the latest fashion accessory. Locked in a cage when underneath it all,  they have a very sophisticated movement system crying to get out. We are designed in our earliest years to shuffle, roll, crawl, grab, kick, reach and extend. This is then carried into later years with sitting for prolonged periods of time, locked in another posture in yet another container preventing them from carrying out what they are designed to do: squat, crawl, balance, stand, walk, jump, climb, swing, run, carry, throw, fight. It is of little wonder why people have such difficulty moving. To do something you have been prevented from doing for so long is bound to stimulate the internal lion. Weight loss is no different on the emotional spectrum. "Oh you fell over, poor you, boo hooh, have a chocolate bar, "and bam, your cuddle that you needed at an early age became a chocolate bar and for the rest of your life the moment you need a hug you reach for the Snickers!

So what is it that I actually do?

It's great to be able to perform handstands, ring muscle ups, Olympic lift, fight,  barefoot run, crawl around mimicking various animals and turn paleo, this has been the easiest part and without blowing my own trumpet, it comes 'naturally' to me. The hardest thing in the world can be taking the most compromised and containerised clients and converting them into the great movers and eaters that Mother Nature had first designed them to be.

Yep, you have to walk your talk, whether you are a generalist or a specialist, but what's the point if you are a coach and can't find the right code to release the human from the cage to convert 'them' into the generalist or specialist? Aren't you simply adding to the problem, don't we want to actually heal people and get them out of the zoo? It comes with a huge responsibility to get it right, to use the right filter and select the right cues, this shouldn't just be guess work, you're playing with someone's life you selfish fuck!

Most that come to see me fit into one or more of these categories: Injured, have niggles, are over weight or are generally fearful of movement. Well, no shit Sherlock, what a surprise. A life of being told "not to" and then we come along and say "do". Without the right information it would be virtually impossible to get them to bust moves like a couple of my own movement influences Erwan Le corre and Ido Portal without emotional turmoil.

 Broken

This applies to all, not just those that are already broken:

Cross fitters

Barefoot runners

Boxers

Fighters

Climbers

Dancers

The list is endless, but with each of the above you have to consider how long you will get away with what you are doing before someone comes a knocking at the injury door. I have coached lifters, barefoot runners, cross fitters, and all with terrible mechanics but sadly they only come to me when they are broken. Wouldn't it be better to serve your apprenticeship and get the tools to prep correctly and teach yourself and then others before you and the discipline you teach gets a bad rep? Or are you too impatient to get it right?
Unless of course you were lucky enough to grow up in a barefoot climbing colony and have the fundamentals already!

It's all in the "HOW TO"

In fact for a large proportion of the zoo it's like an emotional bomb going off in their head to even think they could carry out what should be natural to them. Don't forget a lot of people have been containerised for so long it would be irresponsible to coach them without the correct prep work. They have lost the "HOW TO" but it doesn't mean they don't have the desire to, or the hardwiring (inherent knowledge). It is more the case that the only perception they have had of exercise is to sit in another container pushing levers like a chimp in an experimental lab. "Push this handle 15x and you will receive 1 muscle group and a protein bar."

Movement that should come naturally to us all

Climbing has been equally important in evolutionary terms as running and yet most can't hang off a bar for more than 20 seconds, and this is where reductionism has its place. You need to know the code to break the fear and build the layers and strip the movement right back. Look at the end result and be able to trace all the way back to where the individual is compromised, have the unique set of Liam Nielsen skills to select the 20% input towards the 80% of output, and not get caught up in selecting BS movements like the Lat Pull down that have no over lapping theory to that end result.

Climbing specifics:

Release the hand with specific prep drills as this is where you need to recognise bodyweight, educate the grip. Prep the shoulder and the scapula from its zoo cage so that the individual who can't lift his hand higher than his shoulder to change a light bulb can then hang, can then pull with a straight arm, then pull with a bent arm, can then muscle up, can then gymnastic ring pull up and finally can learn how to climb. Yeah, who would have guessed it,  hanging on a bar is actually a micro skill of the macro skill of climbing.

Flogging dead horses in search of the unicorn when all along the most prized Pegasus had been hiding underneath the invisibility cloak!

I agree as coaches we should all learn the macro skill to be able to demonstrate, but please ensure that you prioritise gaining the knowledge in learning the skill of how to break the code and deconstruct using the appropriate micro skill network; the gateway to real results and one that will keep clients moving for the long game, not the short quick response.

I will end with the words of  Liam Nielsen: "What I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."

It's Not Bragging If You Can Back It Up by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

by Gloves founder Tony Riddle

Kenny Weldon is an old school boxing coach who has better results than anyone. Kenny doesn't wrap anyone up in cotton wool and wouldn't hesitate to put them straight. His knowledge was passed down from his grandfather to his father, and finally to him. He speaks with conviction, confidence and is committed 100% to the truth. He doesn't pull any punches (excuse the pun), but this is what makes a good coach. It's the truth that has been passed on from generation to generation. I had the benefit of 7 days with Kenny and yet it would take 10,000 hours to master his knowledge.

You don't make friends this way

There is a problem with this approach though, and I'm sure Kenny wont mind me saying this: you simply don't make any friends, it's lonely out here, people either think your mad or a genius. When you surround yourself with the anti-BS crew then it's so much harder to communicate any other way than to be frank with people, with the usual response that "he doesn't pull any punches" or "he could be more personable" or even "arrogant twat" when the truth of the matter is I can't tell you another way than this. This I believe is what we call integrity!

I started out as a Pilates practitioner, before it became the global marketing model that it is today. Now we have piloxing, Yogalates and other diluted products that will have Joseph Pilates turning in his grave but hey, what does that matter when all you can see is dollar $igns fla$hing before your eye$!

We are starting to create a picture here; a coach is someone that should be honest, speak the truth with conviction, is consistent and committed to the cause. How many people do you know with these attributes in a financially incentivised world? Financial gain has become more important than anything else. So the purist becomes even more protective of their own model in fear of someone else reducing it down and repackaging it to make a quick buck!

As a result there aren't many coaches with these values alive today as they are mainly recognised once dead, taking their knowledge and philosophy to the grave in fear of someone taking it from them.  In the process of wanting to educate, they get lost in protecting their intellectual property and there we have it, it's lost and from what little documented information is left, the truth gets reduced down until unrecognisable.

Return to Life

Joseph Hubertus Pilates was a movement coach, and his philosophy was 'Return to Life through Contrology'. He would look at the decline of health in a modern world and change one's health with a whole education in movement, breathing and diet. I taught this method for 10 years, until I met Dr Nicholas Romanov, an outstanding movement coach who educated me in the natural laws that Joseph Pilates had written about in his only two publications. It had all come together, it was that moment for me, that Eureka moment. I now have my coach's anti-BS filter and nothing gets past it.

To have the knowledge you must also have the skill to communicate your method. Dr Nicholas Romanov is a genius, but one that sadly gets lost in translation. He is incredibly protective of his work and lives in fear of it being taken. I once set a meeting up for him at Speedo. There we are, in the board room with the director of the Speedo aqua lab and Nicholas wouldn't allow them to take his model to their scientists in fear of them stealing it. This could have been worth millions to him and could have given him the recognition he deserves, but no, he walked away, not willing to drop his label of POSE. You see he wasn't interested in the millions this could have landed him. It isn't about the money.

Old school coaches were purists, and people back then were generally less sensitive and could cope with the truth. Today people have high expectations and lower self esteem and can't cope with the truth without breaking down. Generation LAB BRAT is upon us and it now takes a special pedigree of coach to coach the mind and movements of the modern human.

A trainer firstly needs to recognise that sitting someone on a piece of equipment and rep counting and naming Greek DJ's isn't coaching. In fact it is feeding and fuelling the fire of the weak and de-conditioned. You might as well give them a Snickers and a can of Coke on their way out and be done with it.

Personal trainer or coach?

Is there something different between a personal trainer and a coach? Here at Gloves we believe so. A personal trainer generally gives a client what they want and are governed by the zoo. Sit down and train those Greek DJ muscle groups, brachioradialis this and pectorals that. Well in the coaching world it is different. We give you what you need, yes the Greek DJ's are important and should be an integral part of your own knowledge and if questioned you should know your origins and insertions backwards. But your client doesn't need to know them, unless of course that's all you have! You are more like the dodgy mechanic making "dodgy wheel bearing"comments. 

Personal trainers are not osteopaths, they are not physios, (don't get me started on physios - don't think they know what they are. Is it acupuncturist this week or Pilates practitioner next week?). What they really need is the result. The intellectual mind has no idea how to move the muscle that you are referring too, as it lives in the future. By the time you have made the conscious decision, the window has changed. It's the escalator theory. Step on the escalator and it's not working, you have an immediate reaction - why didn't it move? Your mind predicted the movement based on previous examples of going up the escalator. This is called predictability. If you really want to discover more it's called Bayesian theory.

Aristotle: Thoughts, desire, action

Create the right thought, you're the coach -  that's your job. You are there to change their perception and create thought, don't just leave them hanging onto what the fucking DJ's name is. In the morning who cares, it's his set (repertoire) that played out. There is nothing more satisfying than having the ability to analyse movement and have the correct filter and prep work to correct and alter the compromised habitual modern day movement system, without trying to apply the zoo model of impressing someone with your repertoire Greek DJ's.

Well this is your chance. Our ultimate game is to change the industry and actually help people. Eventually we are looking at grass routes and educating the young and keeping their own amazing movement systems developing so that we don't have to be part of the same zoo system. Keep rehabbing them, that's a "business" we don't want. In the meantime it is the job of the elder -  something that we refer to as the tribal elder - to make that difference. We need more elders to make a difference. A shift in paradigm has to start with as many adult voices until it becomes loud enough for the hard of hearing and compromised to hear.

Sharing the knowledge

We have developed our Fundamentals Coaching System and have launched courses for Personal Trainers to have the access to our coaching knowledge. There's no point in us holding onto information as we want to see a change in the industry. Technique is king, the wider the foundation in technique, the higher the physiological pyramid you can build and the masses will start to listen. Help us make them listen, don't just think, let's start to act. So if you want to learn the repertoire to teach your clients how to, crawl, run, jump, balance, climb, carry, lift and hit to become healthy, strong and injury proof then this is for you.

Level 1 includes:

• How to apply Natural laws as your filter to minimise the risk of injury
• Bodyweight prep drills for good hand and foot mechanics
• How to use video analysis in your practice
• Posture and alignment drills for running
• Locomation fundamentals
• Boxing fundamentals and hand pads
• Plyometrics for rehab
• Lifting mechanics
• Gymnastic strength drills

When: 16th &  17th November 2013

Time: 10 am - 6pm
Location: The Gloves Club

Price: £300 for two mind-altering days

Those that we feel competent in teaching our model will be certified and their details placed on our website as a Gloves coach with access to future education.

Book now

Domesticated Hunters, Zoo Humans and the Lab Brat! by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

By Tony Riddle, Gloves Club founder

200,000 years ago, Hunter Gatherers and our Natural Habitat.
10,000 years ago, Farming and the Domesticated Hunter.
250 Years ago, the Industrial Revolution and the Zoo Human.
113 years ago, the Pharmaceutical Century and development of the Lab Brat.
1900-2000 The Pharmaceutical Century.

The advances that were made in the 1900's when Karl Landsteiner discovered the first human blood groups O, A and B, and when nutrition and metabolism were experimented with, have turned us into Lab Brats.

Hunter Gatherer to what??!!

At present there's lots of talk out there about the Zoo Human. I too have used this phrase in my own practice, but on reflection we are far, far removed even from the Desmond Morris'  Human Zoo of 1969. At least zoo keepers (to varying degrees) try their best to replicate the habitat and food groups of the Zoo Animal. Animals that are kept in captivity, but used for scientific experiments such as food testing, skin testing and psychological experiment do not have the same luxury as a Zoo Animal.

The experiment starts for us from the moment we enter the birth canal. Childbirth that is meant to have a short transit time has turned into a pharmaceutical and surgical experiment. Women can be drugged up to the eyeballs, lying on their backs pushing up hill (thanks to Louis XIV) with green gowns surrounding them and for most of you this would have been your entry into the "lab" too. This isn't natural. Natural is a woman falling back from the tribe, squatting and returning back to the tribe all within a couple of hours, both mother and baby bonding with the tribe. Needs met on a spiritual, mental, social, physical and psycho-emotional level.

What has come from Lab experiments is that we can use this research and make comparisons between what is natural and what is not, but do we learn from it?

Let's take William F. Windle's primates that were  put through the same surgical and pharmaceutical experience as the St. John's wood house wife. He noted that the mother never connected with her young, she had missed the window to attach, the infant showed little recognition, had to be resuscitated and showed little movement for 2-3 weeks. The complete opposite can be said for the infant monkeys that were studied in nature. They showed huge capabilities and within a few hours could cling onto the mother.

What would be the best foundation for life? Surely these experiments are in place for a reason, but why aren't they common knowledge? Why instead are you programmed to think it is perfectly acceptable to induce both the mother and the unborn baby, and be at the hands of the fear based regime? Well it's all in the memes. If you are told from the moment you open your eyes that childbirth is a two hour spiritual experience, then it will be. If you are told and programmed to think that you are going to be screaming for an epidural the moment you get in the car park and it will be like giving birth to a watermelon, then the chances are it will be.

Attachment and needs

The emotional brain is already evolving in the last three months in the womb. To think of it all starting in the womb, that environment has to be then free from chronic stress, toxic food choices and negativity too.  The mothers heart rhythms have to be calm, food groups selected natural, and sleep wake cycles adhered too. It's tough to achieve this in the Lab, but not impossible. You just need to remember the Lab Brat experiments and that you have a voice, common sense and the ability to sift through the BS and not get uploaded with the wrong programme like so many have before you.

Re-Mastery: It wasn't just meant for dance. by Tony Riddle A.K.A @theprepdoctor

 by Tony Riddle, Gloves Club founder

Recently I ran a campaign through Facebook for pilatesrunning.tv All in all this was a great success, apart from the odd strange comment every now and then, but hey that’s social media right? As Gloves coach Ben informed me, "Tony its rather like promoting your business in a bar."



What really captured my attention was what seemed to be an invitation to a Pilates conference. The particular conference is being held near my home town Windsor, so as you can imagine I was delighted! Now this might have been a touch of arrogance on my behalf, but all the same it led me to post back asking if it was an invitation to present. To which they replied "This is a classic Pilates event that. We aim to keep that way."

From boxer to gymnast Joe was so much more than portrayed today 

Well! I didn't realise that you had decided what is classical. Really, this is only your interpretation of what is classical. They are advertising Pilates for men - yeah that's classical. Hopefully you're referring to Joseph’s head wrestling, acrobatic hand balancing and boxing systems then if you really want to get men interested? You have to look at what the great man trained in himself, right? 

It still amazes me how pretentious practitioners can be with the labeling of "classical Pilates". Do they know what classical means? It would be impossible to find a classic Pilates method taught in the way the great man had in his own thoughts, as it was his whole philosophy.

The same could be said for Georges Hébert’s méthode naturelle. We now have descendants of his model: Parkour, Free Running and the closest to it by far, Erwan Le Corre’s MovNat. The difference is that these systems are not called the Hébert’s method and therefore aren't claiming to be classical ambassadors.

If you take Joseph Pilates original model of Contrology, before his practice had switched to the rehabilitation of ballet dancers from the New York City ballet it looked, and I'm 100% sure would have, felt very different. The classical work as far as I am concerned can be seen from rare footage of Joseph outside in the natural environment showing great awareness of body weight with not a leotard in sight.



From head wrestling to boxing,  Joseph Pilates was the great movement master coach who had many systems of movement which today have either been forgotten or misinterpreted. You only have to read Return to Life or Return to Health through Contrology to know the system meant so much more than is being taught in Pilates studios around the world.

Unfortunately bodybuilding isolation exercise has entered the world of Pilates, the same as it has with the strength and conditioning minds of modern movement coaches today. This is a general practice of developing muscle for muscle's sake which looks great in the mirror, but sadly doesn't equip you with the ability to move like Joe!



Not a movement you would see in your average Pilates studio!

Thankfully there are many other systems from his era and from the same school of thought that are now seeing a huge revival: body weight exercises, old school lifting techniques, old school running techniques, animal movements, gymnastics, Strong Man exercises and hand balancing are all becoming mainstream, and I think the granddaddies of these great disciplines would be pleased. There are some really fantastic systems coming through, systems that are being taught by coaches and teachers with a great understanding of the fundamentals.

Systems like these are inherent. We really do have them in there, somewhere, just waiting to be unleashed. In fact, we all have a far better natural understanding of movement until that sad day comes, when we're introduced to a chair or take our first class at school and sit down for long periods of time and become non movers!



Classical?

Movement is a skill, whether that's running, walking, climbing, balancing, throwing, jumping, lifting, carrying, swimming, defending or crawling (quadrupedal movement). In fact we shouldn't really stop there. Sex, child birth, breathing, digestion, even bowel movements require skill, skills that seem to be slowly taken away until we are no longer capable of our own survival. But not only are they skills, they are also fundamental needs, needs that are nearly all neglected. No wonder there are so many pissed off people out there. Perhaps if we started to put as much focus on the fundamental needs of movement as we do on all of our other needs, we would be much healthier and happier.



As much as they try we can re-learn. We can eat naturally, move naturally and as a result digest and poop naturally. We can squat correctly which in turn can help us stand, walk and run naturally, but again as these are skills they have to be coached back in to our system, and this requires a coach. We should look at coaches as tribal leaders, ones that can educate us in our fundamental needs to become more skillful at being Human again.