I've started taking some Pilates classes at a Pilates and yoga studio not far from my house. Classes there are normally prohibitively expensive, but they ran a couple of special internet deals at the beginning of the month that made it unbelievably affordable, so I jumped on the bandwagon.Last week I took my first-ever class using the Pilates reformer machine and also took a mat class, both Level I. I've been doing Pilates for years on my own, using various workout videos, so I was familiar with most of the mat moves; however, the reformer machine was certainly a new experience. (FYI, my favorite at-home Pilates workouts are Cardio Pilates with Ana Caban and 10-Minute Solution: Rapid Results Pilates.)
I'm so used to considering myself as non-athletic, an exercise novice, struggling to stay fit, etc., that it never occurred to me to sign up for anything but Level I, even for the mat class. Only very slowly did it dawn on me during that first mat class last week that I'm not a Pilates beginner after all. I didn't need to do the beginner moves and, in fact, I was able to do all of the "more advanced" modifications that I tried. Huh. (I'm still not very flexible though.) At another mat class tonight, I did the advanced modifications on all but one of the exercises, without a problem. Quite astonishing!
Not a Pilates neophyte after all. Ready for Level II. Amazing!