The Bitterest Pilates

As a keen patron of the expensive, fashionable and only anecdotally efficacious health solution, Blogmarch is a regular feature at some of London's most exclusive pilates salons. And it has done lots of good to what was once a sadly neglected spine (as for what were described by one pilates instructress as 'bum pads', no more shall be spoken).

But an incident at the end of today's frenetic 90 minutes of imperceptible squeezing and arguably imaginary internal spasming brought an aspect of the art, as it is practised today, into sharp focus.

Central to the philosophy of pilates is the low ratio of instructor to athlete. Although the idea is to give the practitioner confidence and knowledge enough to manage their own routine, the result is that he or she is very much in thrall to the expertise of the teacher, and to the way they interpret the art. 'Where's my one?' I often find myself thinking, having completed my latest set of unprovable clenches.

Later, on my way out of the salon, I noticed an exchange between my teacher/expert/advisor/one and a member of the public. Said MoP had wandered in off the street, and was after a leaflet to take home to her husband. 'Now, here is the leaflet' said my one. 'Now, sit there and just calm down.' She didn't say 'calm down' in response to a particularly jittery manner on the part of the MoP. The one fluttered her fingers as she said it, as if to make clear that she was simply dispensing some free lifestyle advice, as well as leaflets. The MoP seemed a little confused, as if she was thinking 'is this part of it?'

And therein lies a problem with one-on-only-a-few exercise techniques. In surrendering your body over to an expert for a course of pilates you potentially open yourself up to a whole kitbag of your particular one's other philosophies, many of which with little to do with the beliefs or practices of Mr Joseph Pilates. Because your knowledge of pilates is less than the one's, you have no choice but to entertain (however briefly) concepts that owe more to the heterogenous belief system sometimes known as 'all that other shit'.

It starts with Orinoco Flow on the studio stereo and before you know it you are on to mystical breathing, reiki, third eyes, ear candles, auras, chakras, bioresonance, ionic bracelets, Bosnian pyramids, sonopuncture, the Michigan dogman, morphogenetic fields, breatharianism, kotekas.

It can be relatively boring but benign. An old one of mine used her authority to pronounce on the relative values of various sorts of jogging bottoms. As far as it related to Pilates, fair enough. But this one's obsession with American Apparel (or appar-ay as she knew it) went far beyond. It was an abuse of power.