We are super excited to be open again. Thank you for joining us online and in the studio! We love seeing and working with you! In addition to continued virtual classes all summer, we have a great line-up of in-studio classes! Here’s what to expect.

New Class Times: Monday – Saturday 8:30 am, 10 am, 2 pm, and 5:30 pm. Private lessons will be genuinely private, taking place before and after classes.

New Layout: We have just 4 Reformers in the studio now for an even more customize and personal approach.

Purchase your props from us: Purchase Foot/hand loops for Apparatus classes, and optionally a Foam Roller or Magic Circle for Cadillac class.

Wear a mask upon entry and exit, but decide whether to wear it while working out in your social distanced Pilates area.

Choose your Pilates Membership. While we honor all previously purchased packages with said terms, monthly memberships have replaced series packages. Decide the number of classes you plan to attend per month (4, 8, 12, or 16) and select the appropriate membership level. Monthly memberships of 12 or more receive a free personal training session with me!

Bring a water bottle and leave any unnecessary items in your car.

Stay socially distanced upon entry and exit from the studio.

Stay home if you have any symptoms related to and have not knowingly been exposed to COVID-19.

Disinfect all equipment after use.

Download our new waiver and bring it with you to your first class. New Waiver

We are super excited to welcome you back to Evergreen Pilates!

xoxo,

Lauri

This month, I discovered the Slackline. A two-inch-wide length of webbing that you tension between two trees in your yard.
The first time I stood up on the line, it began to tremble as if an electrical current was running through it. My leg started to shake wildly. Immediately I was flung off. Ouch! The ground is hard, unforgiving. Better learn how to fall off. I got on and fell off. On, off, on and off. Learning to stand on the line without the help of the tree was first. Balancing over one foot was second. Why was this so hard? Would I ever get across?

Slacklining is a simple and elegant metaphor. Focus on a single point in front of you and make a step by step commitment to it. Look around; you’re off! Look down; you’re off. How often do we derail ourselves from our goals because we don’t stay focused? Instead, we look at the flowers, the hummingbirds, and the people in the yard. Or worse yet, we let our fears and doubts bring us down. Either way – we’re off!

Two months ago, Evergreen Pilates “stepped up” and became a virtual studio. We learned to walk “online.” And just as we have found our balance. its time to transition again. Next month we plan to host virtual and live in-studio sessions. To support us, we’ve hired COVID Consultants, a team of board-certified Infectious Disease physicians and infection prevention specialists, whose goal is to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Last week Dr. Lerman came to the studio and performed an onsite inspection and created a customized “Recovery Readiness and Maintenance Plan” for re-opening Evergreen Pilates! By implementing their protocols, we feel confident that our studio will be ready to re-open! One step at a time, we’re focusing on our new direction. Together we’ll get to the other side. We’re grateful to all of you for your support and look forward to seeing you both on and offline.

xoxo,

LauriCOVIDConsultantsCertificate

This week I joined in on a couple of classes at the studio. I kid you not when I say I felt like I was at the studio taking a real live class as usual. The teaches did their thing, offering inspiring demos, spot-on cues, specific personal corrections, and lots of encouragement. I saw familiar faces and smiles, heard the usual laughs, and felt my abs fire up as I busted out exercises I haven’t done in 5 weeks. Yes, I felt like I was at the studio until every so often someone’s dog would lope across the room, climb on top of the owner, lick their face, and then be gone. Or a cat (I won’t mention names) would prance across its owner’s laptop, “purrfectly” obscuring the screen with its furry body. Puppy-lates and kitty-lates is hilarious! Think about it, for the first time; you can take LIVE class and have your pets with you! And while we’re at it – you can have your kids! Is it just me, or is there something adorable about seeing my 8-year-old son pumping his little arms and lungs while doing the Hundred? When you take a class with me, my third grader is bound to make a cameo appearance sometime in the workout.

I’ve had a lot of people thank me for the virtual classes and ask if we’ll continue once we reopen. The answer is YES! Virtual classes are fun; they are effective and super convenient. I’ve seen people exercising on their decks, living rooms, bedrooms, lofts, and even bathrooms. You get to exercise where ever your heart desires and have your pets and kids too! If you’ve not tried a virtual class yet, we’re offering $10 off your first lesson. Give it a try. Connect with us. And don’t worry, you can choose to be seen or to be invisible. When’s the last time you could do that anywhere? Just another perk of taking a virtual class.

Walking is something that people have done from the beginning of time. It was a requirement of life as much as breathing and eating. Now people plan their walks, count their steps, monitor their heart rate, calculate how far they’ve gone, and how fast.

I walk all day – up and down the stairs, around the grocery store, in and out of buildings, and inside my Pilates studio. A few times a week I actually “take a walk”. If the sun is shinning and the wind is calm, I praise the Almighty.  I love to walk, yet I have to plan it. Then there’s the question of… do I take my phone or not? I have little kids, so of course I take it. I’ll be no more than a few paces from the car, when I hear a metallic chime go “ting” followed by another. By the third “ting” I’ve given in to checking my texts – while still walking! Sound familiar? When I was three years old my grandfather used to take me for long walks. My mother said I’d come home exhausted and hysterical. Walking doesn’t have to be a big deal, it just has to be purposeful.

Maybe you’re someone who takes walks regularly. Maybe you’re the guy strolling the Lake or trekking the Meadow rain or shine – snow or sleet. Maybe you’re the lady power trooping to King Soopers – and back! Or maybe you only walk inside King Soopers because you have to buy groceries. I won’t tell you where to walk, how often, or how fast. Instead, I want to talk to you about how you walk, more specifically your gait. Gait is defined as the way in which you walk, step, or stride. If you’ve had injuries, played sports, have a scoliosis, or lived at all – it will affect your gait. Your gait is like a fingerprint – unique to you alone. Every movement you make tells a story of your life.

We all know the importance of walking for cardiovascular health, but did you know that walking tones your body, strengthens the core, and improves your balance? Walking is a full body activity – and it’s free! So breathe the fresh air, hear to the birds sing, just don’t text and walk. I want to give you 5 Tips for improving your walk. Practice one at a time, then layer them up. Follow these tips and you’ll improve form and function, and reduce friction on your joints. You may even notice any usual aches and pains relenting. Are you ready to say goodbye to head bobbing, back swaying, and hip twisting forever? I want you to have the gift of walking freely and joyfully for the rest of your life! Like all things, it’s easier to improve your gait when you actually dedicate time every week to doing it. Are you ready to get started?

Five Tips for Better Gait

1.  Stand Tall – Stack your spine and imagine a vertical plumb line up from your ankles through your ears. Visualize your torso like a slinky spring with your coils neatly stacked. Maintain a vertical torso while moving forward.
2. Point your feet and knees straight forward. Think about the tires on your car. How well would they wear if they were angled sideways instead of straight forward? Don’t allow your feet to duck out, your ankles to collapse inward, or your knees to roll in. Align your feet, ankles, knees, and hips forward.
3. Engage your Core – Walking requires moving your center of gravity fluidly in a linear line through space. A lot of times we sway our backs (hyperextend the lumbar) or flatten it out altogether. Neither is good. Like a slinky spring, don’t allow the bottom coils to get curved. Engage your core by drawing your navel to your spine to support your back.
4. Propel yourself forward. Think of how a paddle presses through water in the opposite direction to move a canoe forward. Walking requires pushing in the opposite direction to create propulsion. Most people practice falling forward instead of walking. Lead by pressing your foot and leg back to propel you forward. If you have ever skated, it has a similar feeling.
5. Pump Arms in opposition to legs. Pumping arms balance out the movement of the legs that creates a tendency for the hips to twist and impact the spine. Remedy this by reaching the opposite arm backwards from leg that is moving forward. Avoid holding your arms tight by your sides. Instead use long arms that are not bent and imagine pushing ski poles behind you. Like the legs, propel yourself forward by pushing backwards.

Bonus Tip: Beyond a doubt, stretching the hamstrings and quadriceps, while improving lateral hip and core strength will improve your gait. A great way to do this is by practicing Pilates. Pilates seeks to uniformly balance the muscles of your body, improving joint range of motion, strength and flexibility. For more useful tips, please check out my book, Pilates for the Outdoor Athlete. If you are interested in a Complimentary Pilates Consultation, please call Evergreen Pilates: 303-679-1664

Walk with Lauri at Evergreen Lake: Thursday April 26th 10am
Learn fun and practical tips for improving gait and maximizing your walking experience.

If you’re joining us for our Spring Challenge, we have a nifty worksheet to track your progress.  You can download it here, or stop by the studio for a copy.   While you’re at the studio, pick up an  “Evergreen Pilates Pocket Journal”.   Enjoy it however you wish!  Journaling your goals, plans and insights can be a powerful tool for making your “Return to Life” a reality.   See you soon!

“As a man thinks, so is he.” – Proverbs 23:7

When I was introduced to Pilates back in 2001 I had no idea that it would change my life.  After a few months of practicing the Method I noticed some remarkable changes in my body and mind.  Namely that my elbow tendonitis had disappeared, and that I was less anxious and happier.  My mentor, Richard Rossiter said, “Pilates is a Lifestyle.”  At the time I thought it was just a romantic saying people said about their passions.     But after all these years I’ve realized that it’s true.  Pilates is a lifestyle.

In Joseph Pilates’ book, Return to Life, he defined Pilates (Contrology) as the complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit.  According to Joe, one of the main purposes of doing Pilates was to “gain mastery over your mind and complete control of you body.”  It is well know that our thought life determines our words and our actions.  Gaining mastery over our mind has enormous potential to improve the quality our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Joe also said, “Contrology steadily increases the normal and natural supply of pure rich blood to flow to and circulate throughout the brain with corresponding stimulation to new brain areas previously dormant.  More significantly, it actually develops more brain cells.”  Seriously!

Modern day neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf and author of the best selling book, Switch on your Brain, confirms Joe’s assertion from nearly a century earlier. “The brain continually changes in response to mental and sensory signals throughout the human life span.  This process has now been termed ‘neuroplasticity’. It was once thought that, as adults, we had the full complement of nerve cells (neurons) and that we basically lost neurons until we died.”  Dr. Leaf goes on to say, “Toxic thoughts trigger negative and anxious emotions, which produce biochemicals that cause the body stress. They are stored in your mind, as well as in the cells of your body”.  

Here’s where I believe Dr. Leaf’s research and Joe’s Method collide.    Joe’s assertion that, “Change happens through movement and movement heals.” is indeed a fact.   By breathing deeply, articulating our spines, making space for organs to function better, articulating our joints through their healthiest ranges of motion and visualizing new possibilities, we feed our bodies fresh sensory input, remove toxic thought patterns and allow new thinking to emerge for greater physical, mental and spiritual well-being.  Yes, I believe that all of this can happen in a single Pilates session.  But like anything, repetition and reinforcement is the key to lasting change.

When I teach Pilates I use a lot of imagery focused on allowing the body and mind to easily communicate creating an ideal environment to tap into the brain and body’s amazing capacity to change, adapt and heal.  Additionally, breathing is at the heart of my teaching.   Joseph  made statements such as, “Breathing is the first act of life and the last, and that we must learn to do it well.”  With an emphasis on breathing deeply, we stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system which focuses the mind and calms the body.   Deep breathing flushes out the toxins in the body and brings new oxygen in.

In our time together, you’ll also notice a lot of affirmation, and opportunity to explore and discover new ways to feel and live in your body.  You’re body is not stagnant, and neither is your mind.  You are capable of transformational growth.  I don’t care if you are 17 or 71 – you are capable of transforming  your mind, body, and spirit!

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  – Romans 12:2.

Pilates is a lifestyle I live, breathe and love.   It goes with me whether I am rock climbing, working at my computer, or cleaning my house.    As your Pilates coach I will guide you beyond old patterns that may no longer serve you and into new possibilities that make you thrive.   17 years ago my mentor, Richard believed in me and the Pilates Method – I am eternally grateful!  I want to do the same for you.

If you have never tried Pilates, or just need a fresh start, I invite you to come in for a complimentary consultation with me.   Please contact me at  303-679-1664  pilateswithlauri@nullyahoo.com

In Gratitude,

Lauri Stricker