My First Pilates lesson in the Dominican Republic

So I took my first Pilates lesson that was not online that is, since living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The teacher, Virginia, asked me if I wanted the lesson in Spanish, English or a mixture of both. My first reaction was to have her teach me in Spanish, but then I thought better of it and said maybe she should try both. Luckily, she was teaching me Pilates and not how to cook or something I was less familiar with doing. I was able to figure out what she wanted me to do by the inflection of her voice, where her eyes were looking and when I didn't get it, she just moved my body where she wanted it.

She took me through an advanced reformer workout and somehow I managed to go through all the exercises in the routine, even though I was at least 5 minutes late (You can blame that on the driver who forgot about me.) Her equipment was very similar to the gratz equipment that I had learned on, but she told me that her husband had hand crafted all the wood pieces according to the standard dimensions since shipping things here from the U.S. is so expensive. I loved the feeling of the carriage and the springs, not very smooth, like you really had to work the equipment (And I definitely feel it today.) It was like going back in time for me when I was able to work out in the studio where I was learning to teach, all good memories and quite nostalgic for me.

Despite my familiarity and 6 years of practice with this method, she was still able to surprise me and throw in some pretty cool variations. I've never done short spine right into a frog with my hips up in the air. It was delightfully challenging and my hamstrings are talking to me today. And just when I thought I was going to impress her with my advanced corkscrew, she made me pause, hips up and twist my ribs to one side. It was super hard yet super fun.

What I thought was so cool, was that I was so familiar with the routine; even here in a place that is so different in every way, I was able to follow along and work harder than I have in a long time. And despite the fact that I've only traveled to other Power Pilates Affiliate Training centers in the U.S., I feel pretty confident that I would get the same quality of workout in Greece, Italy , or Brazil.