Barbara WintroubOMG! I had a few eye opening situations recently.
First, in my area is a new Pilates Studio that is doing teacher trainings for a bunch of money. I ran a teacher training studio for 17 years as a PMA gold certified member.
As a matter of fact, I attended the first ever PMA meeting in LA.
I stopped by the new studio to meet the teacher, trainer, owner, of the studio. They had 5 reformers in the studio, that’s it.
How do you teach a 450+ hour program without full equipment?
A student walked in for a class. The teacher said “you really look fit so I’m going to give you a great workout.”
Excuse me, the new client had terrible posture and there is no way you know how stable they are even if they have muscles. I could not believe what I was watching. The teacher had no ability to cue, no flow and no idea what she was doing, in my opinion.
This training program says they follow the PMA guidelines so I looked them up on the PMA web site. They are not listed as a member but they were trained by a member who pays a lot of money to the PMA. Also, the trainer doesn’t state where she was trained giving me the idea she is not a certified trainer.
I was trained by Marie Jose and Balanced Body and I’m proud of it. If someone doesn’t list where they are trained, they aren’t! I complained to the PMA about the whole situation and here’s their reply…
“We can’t police everyone and have control over what they say and do”.
WHAT!! They are the governing body who CERTIFIES teachers. Sell Out! I will drop my membership because they are a worthless, do nothing organization.
Second, I heard about this new Pilates type program with jump board, chair and reformer workout. I YouTubed and Googled them.
Oh my! For only $4000 you can be trained in this program in 10 days or so. And you only have to do 20 hours of practice, self training and student teaching.
What!? I did hundreds of hours of all that which I find is truly necessary. What you learn on all this equipment is just a few exercises and that’s all you teach. There are hundreds of exercises on the reformer and many more for the chair. You are only learning a few of these exercises because that’s all the time you have in class.
Welcome to 2016. I realize the times are changing and the needs of clients are changing but poorly trained teachers and poorly thought out training programs are running rampant. I look to the future having more business from injuries than I can handle.
BUYER BEWARE!!