I love that as a Pilates personal trainer, I get to have relations with all different type of people. Had I stayed in the dance world, I probably wouldn’t ever interacted with my clients. Everyone is special, unique and I love interacting with their individuality.

One every special Client of mine is Therese May, (you can read her amazing testimony in the testimony category) she is a world known Quilter. You can check her work out here.  I am a very proud owner of a quilt she made for Tally. Taliah loves looking at all the amazing patterns.

Therese even signed it for me

What a life long honor to have that.

The first weekend in May was her open gallery. So, my mom and I went to visit her.  There was such amazing art there, and of course I didn’t have my camera. Luckly, Therese had her’s so I got to get a picture of  her in her Art corner.

Then of course I had to get a picture with her… I mean come on, SHE FAMOUS!!! Her art work is in books and galleries around the US. Therese we LOOK GREAT !!!

Therese was so sweet  she took a picture of me and my mom.. Thank you, Therese, because I don’t have many.

What an awesome and great time my mom and I had. I ended up getting a piece of  Therese’s for Tally, it’s a lady bug which I will get framed, supper cute ( picture to come)

I am updating you on how my back SI joint is feeling… FABULOUS!!!! I am so very very happy

Last Wednesday I went to my Chiropractor, got  an adjustment, and she said that I looked great  because I held my last adjustment much better. As I had said before, with chiropractic care and my Pilates fundamentals, I am getting the stabilization I need for my pelvis to come back into place. I started walking last week Sunday. I am only doing a mile and at a steady peace. This week I will bumping that up-

I enjoy hearing all of the compliments, with how well I look. I still need to lose 10 pounds to get back to where I started and would like to take another 5 to 10 more off, because that is where I’m happiest. The question I get…. “how are you doing it?” So, I thought I would tell you. I am just doing the good old…. “that makes sense…”  I’m not going to play like I don’t know what I am doing, I grow up in the dance world, and not that they are all the healthiest of people, but I have learned a lot with hard nots of life. First thing first- I workout and I love working out.. I’m also not a sitter, for the most part I am always running around. So, something I got myself is a pedometer-

It’s cute, fits on my hip and nobody knows about it …well, now everybody knows about it… Basically, you should be doing at 7,500 steps a day and the goal to lose the extra calorie is 10,000 steps. It keeps me on track and throughout the day I’m looking at it every so often to know where I am.

Second thing I got myself was

oh yes I did! These shoes ( not sketchers bran) have been around. I have to admit, I was like… those are ugly, not fashionable, and way to expensive. Well, Sketchers came out with them…. and all of a sudden they are cool and hip….so I got me a pair! I didn’t  just get them because they work your all of your legs and force you to connect, but it says it’s great for your back. Hey, when I’m in pain, I am a sucker to try anything. My body is my job so I am going to try anything. Well, I’m not saying that it helped with my pelvis, but it also didn’t hold back my recovery. I LOVE THEM! I like how they really force me to use my gate correctly, I hold my pelvic floor, and I do feel my legs working. I did follow the directions and not start out walking in them all day, I ease into them.Then of course, I am doing my Pilates. I wrote out a 6 six week plan, doing a full body workout- Focusing on Pelvis stabilization.

Then of course I am doing my Pilates. I wrote up a six week plan for myself. Focusing on Pelvis stabilizations with a Full body workout. My goal is to walk three to four times a week and do Pilates workout four days a week. That is a realistic for me.

Then as far as what I’m putting into my mouth. Well, I have done it all… I stopped eating before, I counted calories, I watched my fat…. I ate very little…. I ate three square meals….What worked best for me was…. NONE OF THESE THINGS!  I eat 5 small “meals” a day. Now, some people think that is too hard to remember, Friend- I have that schedule in my blackberry That way I don’t forget, which does happen to me btw. I am not by nature a junk eater…never have, I also not a soda drinker, and I also am not a bored eater. I don’t eat much carbs, I am more of a protein eater. So, by nature, I eat very healthy, so, that is one thing I have going for me. 

Some other things I do that help me out…. I don’t go buy new clothes… because I want to fit in my old clothes. I weigh myself about once a week ( I have read that studies show people lose more when looking at it everyday, but that would DRIVE ME CRAZY!). I don’t get down on myself, if I miss a workout, or a walk that I wanted to get in. I am not in a race to lose this weight, because that isn’t healthy. I keep my jeans out as a goal. I talk to my jeans lol. I pray that God will keep me focused to lose what I need. I don’t buy crappy food. If it isn’t healthy for you, you won’t find it at my house. I don’t keep unhealthy frozen food in my house either.

Now you have what I do… what about you? Remember that goal you had in the beginning of the year? Are you sticking with it? Do you need to re-focus yourself? Well, that is the great thing about workingout and eatting healthy… Changing your lifestyle, you can ALWAYS start back up!

I had this really great idea…. then I realized that my body had a different idea. Has this ever happened to you? At six week post delivery, which would have been Monday, I was going to take a picture of myself…..

And here you have it…. no, no just kidding-

I was going to take a picture of my whole body and start my “get my old body back” routine- ya, well, that didn’t happen.

When I get a new client, who is injured or in pain, I sometimes think that maybe they think  don’t know what they are going through, due to the fact that I do Pilates, look fit and have knowledge. Well, I am here today to tell you- I have been there. As I’ve said in the past, I have had my Sciatic nerve pinched before…and now I have had a lot more.

After having this sweet, cute baby

I took 4 weeks off… I thought, since I took 4 weeks off with Noah, I would be fine to do it again. Yea- well, then you have these voices in your head, after the first physical issue…. “you are not that young anymore…things won’t just bounce right back…. YOU ARE OLD!”

As those hormones were working  to bring my wide ribs and hips back into place, I was really affected by it….and by doing nothing exciting.

My first problem, my rib. At about T6 (thoracic number 6) is where I went out of alignment. Oh man, was I in pain! I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t hold Taliah very well… it was all bad.

I’m not going to lie, I went to my chiropractor and got adjusted, but  I also went  back to my Pilates fundamentals. WOW those simple exercises that you learn in your first session are miracle workers! Luckily, I had two weeks to recover before getting back in the studio with clients.

 The big day finally arrived to get back to work, I feeling fine, I really took to heart not to start working out for six weeks. I had no intention to do so.  Well, in my first session, I demonstrated this every simple exercise, and POW- my SI joint got whacked and my sciatic nerve was pinched!This is a good picture of where my pain was- in the middal of my glute, and down my leg. This picture shows bones, which my bones other than my SI joint was not affective.

For the past two weeks, going now on three,  I have been seeing my chiropractor and doing my fundamentals, pelvis stabilization exercises. And again, they are working like a charm.

So, sadly, because of this speedbump in my road, I can’t start my “get back my old body” reutine. But once I do, I will share it with you.

I hope this helps with anyone who is in pain, and not sure if Pilates will help them. I stand behind my practice 110%.

Exactly? Well, It like NO OTHER exercise method …. and on one level it’s more that just an exercise routine. It becomes a way of life, it’s an understanding of one owns body and a restructure of misalignment within the body. It’s also has more than just one reason for doing it. Reasons being, just a name a few:

• Strengthen bodies in all levels
• stabilize misalignment’s
• gets you out of pain
• create a longer line in body appearance
• increase flexibility
• become more mindful in everything you do

When you first walk into a Pilates session, you begin to get taught a new way of thinking of how you are going to go about “this exercise”, you’re taught a new way of how you are going to stand walk, breath, and even work at your desk. I would say that for about the first 5 to 8 sessions, you are A) totally confused and wondering “why the hell would I care about “that”?” and B) Wow, I felt like I did absolutely NOTHING and my muscles felt something!? By the time your 10th session comes around, you are getting the fundamentals are NEVER going to change, you feel great from doing these silly breathing, lifting the pelvic floor to move, and weird rolling bridges. You understand balance and all these little muscles you didn’t even you had work.

Often I get the question: Why can’t I just get into a trio or semi-private? That is a GREAT question by the way- the ANSWER is: because you don’t know or have the fundamentals down. It would be like doing a type of activity that requires technique- You wouldn’t throw somebody in with the Olympic swim team, just because they know how to swim, right? There is a type of understanding and technique that the Olympic swimmer knows that someone who just have been taking swim lessons at the neighbors pool wouldn’t know. Could anybody come to learn technique, I think on some level everybody could.

As I say often, Pilates, the fundamentals of it, the understanding of it, the core base of it, amazes me in what I see in my clients all the time. Sure, I want to give myself credit, because it is I who gets your program together and teaches you the exercises, but it is the pure fact that I sick with the fundamentals, the understanding of what I was taught and what your body is telling me that Pilates works so well.

If you want to learn more about the history of Pilates click here!

I haven’t blogged in so long! Every so often, I live through a moment and think…”I need to blog about that”… then life happens and it sneaks away- Well, I am here to catch up! You might have noticed that the blog looks different.. that’s cause it is. To the left <——- you can see new links, you can now pick whatever you might want to read about, Personal, Pilates, Body, and Testimonies. I hope this makes it easier for those who stop by and want to know about myself, my clients or Pilates.

 This is my second week back in the studio! Peter and I added a new addition to our family, on Feb. 22. Her name is Taliah Rose….

She is just as sweet as sweet can be! A very good baby. Taliah is very strong- I mean, she has been doing Pilates for nine months in the womb, so we couldn’t expect nothing less. She is beautiful and everything else your baby should be.

The thing about this picture is that there is one of me yawning, I took one of Noah and now Taliah has one…it’s all in the family

Look at how well she lifts her head….just a month old… That’s my girl, lift that pelivic floor honey

 I have to say that Noah is one proud big brother! Here she is just a week old, and he wanted to hold her so badly. Two quick cute stories:

1) I told Noah to check on her, she was upstairs, he says” sure mom!” next thing I know I look up from the kitchen sink and he is bringing her down the stairs…. I want to scream OMG!!! what are you doing- but I held back, instead I very calmly say, ” honey, will you help Noah.” … Noah very confidently says, ” I have it mom.”

2) Since he was becoming a pro a picking her up, we started telling him, “get her head, get her head…” so, one night my mom came over to visit- she starts to pick up Taliah and Noah says to her, “Oma, get her head, Oma get her head.” 

Noah is such a BIG help to me. I was  asked while pregnant, if  I thought Noah would be jealous- No way, his charator is so thoughtful. I get told all the time about how thoughtful he is and how he can put others before himself.  At the age of 7 he already has Christ like qualities. I pray that Tally becomes the same way.

It amazes me how we start out like this- and how our bodies grow.  When I look at Noah’s ears, hands and feet, then look at Taliah’s it’s an AWE moment.

Here we are right after I gave birth. Noah was just sooo in love with her from the moment he saw her. He couldn’t stop looking at her. We are just all so in love with her. I really do feel she completes our family even more… Still to this day- 5 weeks later I just feel soo blessed.

Here is Miss Taliah at a week and a half old.

I wanted to give a little history about how I ended up finding out about Pilates. I did not have a clear direct path to it, but through avenues and byways I got there. As you know, I was a dancer. In high School, I went to Lincoln High here in San Jose, I went there for the dance….of course musical theater played a role and so did women’s choir. When I was a freshman it had already been discovered that I had one leg longer than the other. This is not uncommon among the general population. Because of this problem I have uneven hips. So, one day I was doing a forward hamstring stretch, i.e. leaning forward with my chest towards on thighs. When I came back up, the pain is/was indescribable! It was horrible! The pain was like an electric shock that went from my low back, in my glutes, and down my leg. It was so bad I was flat on my back, couldn’t walk, and my big brother had to carry me into the car and up to the Chiropractor’s office. Praise God, my mom believed in Chiropractic care, after the first adjustment, I felt some release. The chiropractor told me, if I wanted to continue dancing I better learn how to use my core, (my pelvic floor) to support myself. I was pretty much all glutes and quads back then. I worked out HARD CORE back then, but I was using all the wrong muscles. It took YEARS of chiropractic care and with the help of AWESOME dance teachers at UCI that I haven’t had any SI instability that set me back like that did.

Without getting overwhelmed I want to lay it out for you what this SI joint is and what it all about and of course how you can help yourself-
So, here is where you might feel the on set of pain. If you still need a better idea of where it’s located on your body- you can see these joints as the two dimples on each side of your low back, at about the belt line. There are many reasons why the pain might be set on, but there is no ONE reason as to why pain happens. It can come from

• degenerative arthritis
• leg length inequality
• pregnancy
• gout
• rheumatoid arthritis
• psoriasis
• ankylosing spondylitis

Also, basically any thing that alters normal walking pattern.

• leg length inequality
• hip
• knees
• ankles
• foot

It can also come from lack of movement in the joint or two much movement in the joint. Really there isn’t too much movement that even happens in the joint. As you can see, this joint holds all of the weight of your body. So, hate to break it to you, if you are overweight, you are more prone to having low back, and SI joint pain. Hormones that are released at the end of delivery causes the joint to become more flexible. With multiple births for one mommy, this can lead to arthritis in the SI joint. That in turn causes stiffness and less movement in the joint.

Here it is! What your pelvis looks like:) Your Sacrum (AKA spine just above your tailbone) is being connected on both your right and left side Ilium ( AKA your hip bones) with the Sacroiliac (AKA SI joint). The SI joint are VERY STRONG ligaments, which is covered by cartilage, it is a fairly large join in the body. The SI joint is what connects the spine to the pelvis. This joint is what you call a synovial joint, similar to knee, hip and shoulder. It slides, tilts, and rotates.
When in pain you may feel it in your low back, back of hips, groin, or thighs.

Some general ways that if you have experienced this pain, to get out of pain or to deal with it are:

• Anti-flammatories
• limit activity
• Physical therapy
• a Sacroiliac belt
• injections
• fusing the joint surgery
• PILATES!

The key is to stretch and strengthen the muscles around the area. Your core, glutes, thighs, muscles around the hip, and back. Lucky for you Pilates touches all these areas.

To end my story of my history with Pilates: I continued to go the chiropractor all threw high school, about once a week- as it felt better I could limit the once a week to maybe once every other week. I had to use a lift in my shoe. As I went off to College, I would still have the on set of pain at really any given moment- the only thing is, I just didn’t know when it would come. As I learn more about it, I could say it may have had something to do with my plantar fasciaitis…. maybe? With my GREAT teachers at Irvine, they really taught me how to lift out of my hips while dancing, use the correct muscles, not my glutes and quads for everything. I was however still going to Chiropractor, till I had Pilates one quarter. I hated it at first, it was so hard for me to find my “neutral spine” I didn’t like the way it shaped me, and it was just weird!!! But as I used my fundamentals of Pialtes in my dance classes, I never really had SI pain. Yes, it came by, but it was more due to stress, and just back in August, it flared up, but that was due to my own stupidity: Note to self do not pick up your 46pound son, during the first trimester of your pregnancy. Also, I am always going to be prone with my leg length issue, but with practicing Pilates daily as my most blessed job, I am keeping my SI joint stable. A good Chiropractor on hand is always good too.

So, if you have SI pain, give Pilates a try, the only thing you have to loose is pain

WOW what has education done for me!? A TON and if possible,( if I had endless amount of money) I would go back and learn even more. All in good time with the growth of clients this will be a possibility….Enough of my bibble babble…my point being without educating yourself you will NEVER know. (Noah first day of Kinder, 2008)

Not too many people when calling me up ask me educated questions about my studio or my background.

(niece, Haylee, calling asking educated questions )

After getting off the phone, I wonder, did they see my bio? Or are they mindlessly calling for the classes and prices? I’m sorry to have to admit, but I seriously think it’s mostly mindless wondering for classes. I come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons…. I’ve had clients say things to me like, 1)” Yeah, you know maybe after so long of doing this I could go and get certified.” 2) ” Oh, you graduated from college,… where did you go?” 3) “Well, at the gym I can get a free mat class.” ….

Second, If you want real Pilates go to a Pilates studio NOT the gym. Sorry to be a diva in the next statement, but I’m practicing my freedom of speech in my next sentence….. The gym group instructors are weekend get-a-ways. How DO YOU know? You may challenge me with: I have had too many people come off the street and in my class who say, ” WOW this class is NOTHING like my gym class.” ” Thank you for explaining to me how to sit up tall.” and my favorite, ” WOW! you really know what you are talking about!.” or last but not lest, ” it feels totally different here.” At a studio you learn how and what you should be doing vs. just doing the exercises. If you do look into your gym find out where they got certified from…if it was there own certification chances are they don’t know REAL PILATES.

Thirdly, Find out what the instructors background is. You want somebody who has a body knowledge background. For example, mine is dance, I danced all my life and I’m educated in it. Look for somebody who either was big in some type of activity all their life or has a physical therapy background….. and what is their education background. I got my degree in Dance at UC Irvine. And last thing that I like to look at is the instructors body- are they overweight? Do they look like they practice what they teach? How do they walk, and stand. Is that what you want to look like?

Some food for thought-… take minute and think about all that you read. This is your body, you only get ONE and you want to do what is BEST for it, right? Here is something to think about when picking your studio and instructor….. true story: After leaving her other studio after taking Pilates for 10 years there…. she came to me. After her session with me she was amazed at how different her Pilates session was with me. She feels things differently, her understanding of the exercises are better and she now knows the dynamics of all of it. The instructor that she had, had no real physical activity background, she was certified from a good Pilates program, but didn’t further her education, her training was very much like a gym where, there was no rhyme or reason and form was never checked. Pilates is a method of movement yes, it will make you look great, feel great and give you a whole new body, but you want to find the best place to do at.

(Peter, Noah and I at Noah’s Kindergarten graduation)

Now you are educated in finding the Pilates instructor and after 30 sessions you will have a whole new body and you will confidently be able to pose for your next picture!

Today, I want Carol, to tell her story. Carol came to me, and wanted to do a mat class series. Not knowing what all she been through, I put her in a Thera-band Mat class. She did alright, but I could just see that she really needed more. So, finally, I asked her what her history is all about. I knew right away she needed way more then just a Mat class. She needed some one on one time and she needed rebuilding of her Muscles of her whole body. My heart went out to her. I wanted to help her, and with that I came up with the injury plan. With Carol, I mostly work on her core, balance and leg strength. Here is Carol, to tell you her story in her own words.

I used to be an active healthy person until a spinal fusion set me back. Nerve damage caused loss of signals to my abdominal and leg muscles. My muscles atrophied or shriveled up at a rapid rate. I was as weak as an old woman in a nursing home. Yet I needed to go back to work as a nurse! I knew it was important to not only get back in shape but strengthen my muscles to prevent future back injuries. My surgeon suggested pilates.

Carol Cherico RN BSN