Beyond the Reformer

Rael Isacowitz: The Basi Block System, Industry Standards and Crediting in Pilates (PART 2)

• Nic Lenny • Season 4 • Episode 50

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Welcome back to Part 2 of this conversation with Rael Isacowitz, founder of Basi Pilates, where Nic and Rael go deeper into the evolution of the method, the role of equipment, and what it really takes to become a great teacher in today’s industry.


Rael shares the story behind designing Basi equipment and how it was created to reflect both form and function. He breaks down the Basi block system, explaining how structure can actually unlock creativity in teaching rather than limit it.


The conversation also explores what it means to continue learning as a teacher, from Rael’s legacy programme to the importance of staying connected to your own practice.


To finish, they have a powerful discussion around standards in the Pilates industry, the challenges of accreditation, and why crediting others in this work is essential for growth.


Timestamps

00:00 Welcome back to Part 2

01:19 Designing equipment with both form and function in mind

05:59 How the Basi equipment first came to life

09:08 The origins of the Basi block system

13:49 Why structure actually fuels creativity in teaching

15:14 The idea behind marathon mat sessions

19:21 The legacy programme

26:08 The difference between advanced work and performance

28:25 Why Pilates needs stronger standards

30:02 Attempts at accreditation in the industry

35:32 The importance of crediting

40:44 Changing your mind and evolving as a teacher

44:49 Favourite exercises and staying connected to the work

47:21 Why teachers often overdo it in their classes

48:54 Habits that support a long career in Pilates

52:34 Community and relationships in Pilates


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Share this episode with a fellow teacher or studio owner who would benefit from hearing this, and if you haven’t already, we’d really appreciate you leaving a rating or review. It helps more people discover the show and be part of this community.


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Connect with Rael:



Get 5% off Balanced Body Pilates equipment with the code SOUL PILATES 

SPEAKER_00

Coming up on today's episode of Beyond the Reformer.

SPEAKER_01

There cannot be creativity without structure. We need structure.

SPEAKER_00

I heard you talking about marathon mat sessions.

SPEAKER_01

I wanted to take people to a place in the mat world where they had never been before.

SPEAKER_00

Today on Beyond the Reformer, I'm joined by Rael Zakovich, the founder of Bassi Pilates.

SPEAKER_01

You ask about the legacy program. I want you to hold this in your hand. Wow. 25 pages or more had been lifted verbatim from my book, Pilates Anatomy. With no credit given, you cannot be a student without humility. And you certainly cannot be a teacher without humility.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to Beyond the Reformer. This is part two of my interview with Brielle, the founder of Bassi Pilates. We chatted in his office at Bassi HQ in Newport Beach, Orange County, California. Dream trip. This is definitely worth watching on YouTube. You get to see him, see him in his office. And as I mentioned in part one, if you haven't listened to that, please go back because he says so much that's amazing. But as I mentioned in part one, this was just one of those conversations where I couldn't clip it at an hour. I just couldn't. It was too good. He just shares so much in a way that I personally have never heard shared before. So if you're interested in the longtime story of Pilates, not just Rael's story, but you know, he's been all around the world and everywhere he's been and what he makes of where Pilates is at today. I also found it fascinating how he talked about his equipment. And this is the episode for you. Before we begin, could I kindly ask that you like, subscribe, or follow wherever you're listening or watching this podcast? I say it every week. You're bored of me saying it, but it really helps this podcast to grow, and I would be so grateful. Alright, that's enough of me. Let's get going with today's conversation with Rayel. We're sat in your gorgeous studio, and as we walked in, you've got all your beautiful equipment here. Tell me about the story of you creating the Basi equipment.

SPEAKER_01

First of all, let me tell you my philosophy on equipment, on Pilates equipment, as opposed to, let's say, equipment that you would find in the gym. Pilates equipment for me is an extension of the work of myself. It's partnering. Years I partnered in dance. And when I work on Pilates equipment, it's like I'm working with a partner. There's a give and take. And that's why I just can't even imagine getting onto Pilates equipment with my shoes on. Or with, you know, whereas in a gym, you know, you're there, you get on, you can jump on with your shoes, you push weights, leg press, whatever it may be. I just can't even think of that with Pilates equipment. There's a certain reverence, and that reverence is because it's alive, it's a partner. Working on it for years and years and years on every different type of equipment, some great, some not good at all, some well-made, some homemade. I just saw there was a need for Pilardi's equipment that in a way would be an extension of our education and a bringing together aesthetics and function. So the the nucleus of our equipment is the F2 system. And F2 stands for form and function. Because when I started working with the uh designers, I said I do want it to be functional, and there's certain things that I felt the equipment has been lacking for years. Some things where I felt it doesn't allow you to get into positions that are the right positions in terms of alignment, in terms of ergonomics. They just, I felt there could be improvements in terms of comfort, in terms of you as a teacher having to change springs all day. And there were many things like that. So it needs to be functional, it needs to have be an extension of our education, but it also needs to be visually appealing. And it is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. I mean it stands out, doesn't it? You know, when you look around, it I mean it has its really it's a really beautiful look to it.

SPEAKER_01

Like I I'm just allergic to certain things. Like one of the things that I don't like, and I hope I'm not insulting anyone, but I've just got to speak my truth. Drilling through poles and putting eyelets in. I said no holes, no eyelets. There will be cuffs that can be moved. We need connecting points for springs, but it's all going to be designed and it's all going to slide up and down so that you can have infinite adjustments, but no drilling holes and screwing in eyelets. I wanted it to have a tactile feel. So all of it is aluminum grade, aircraft grade aluminum. So it's got a certain feel to it. The wood has a feel to it. The aluminum has a, or aluminium, as we say in countries that we grew up in, aluminium has a certain feel to it. And other than the crossbars, I didn't want any chrome. Because chrome is very slippery.

SPEAKER_00

And when you such a good point when you're doing all the hangings. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

When you are hanging so there, the aluminum wouldn't have been strong enough, so I used stainless steel. Because it you think, well, it looks the same. I mean, it's like a shiny metal. No, there's a big difference. Chrome is slippery, and the stainless gives you a far more of a grippy feel. Every single feature on that equipment was designed with art and science in mind.

SPEAKER_00

How did you sort of sit and think about? I'm, you know, okay, here's me, Nick, I'm gonna go and create my own equipment right now. You know, I'd be honest, I'd be like, what would I, how does one sit and think about what they would like to do differently? Do you think you've got a mind that works a bit like that that will all my mind never stops.

SPEAKER_01

You met my wife out there. You should have asked her what it's like living with me, with a mind that never stopped. It it and I've got to live with myself, you know, all the time. My mind is thinking all the time. It was not like one day I'm gonna create my own equipment at all. It was a process of years, years. And I've got to give great credit to uh Jingis Hahn in Turkey, who founded Bassi Systems with me, and to his father-in-law, who happens to be into manufacturing. A number of things fell into place, but he was one of my students initially, went through our program, and I would always speak passionately about I wish the equipment did this, I wish the equipment did that. And then I was in Turkey teaching, a particular distributor of equipment didn't want to provide us with equipment from a manufacturer. And Jingis Ayan was driving around Istanbul picking up equipment from different studios so that I'd have enough equipment at the conference to use. And at about one in the morning, we were on the phone and I said, this is enough. We need our own equipment company so that we can have conferences and have equipment and aren't relying on driving around cities, picking up equipment from studio owners that we happen to know to loan us equipment for the weekend. But the ideas of the actual equipment had been germinating for years. And Jingis Hahn's wife happens to be an industrial designer. She was just fantastic to work with. Her name's J Lan. And the team just fell into place. His father-in-law, J Lun's dad, incredible businessman and manufacturer, and I learned so much from him. And then the engineers he put us in touch with were all just open-minded, seasoned. They wanted to learn what I wanted. And I had ideas, but I'm not an engineer.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think that you always have to have that, don't you? Like the right connection who then gets you the right connections. So it's often hard if you don't kind of have that first connection. You're like, well, who do I go to?

SPEAKER_01

My son and wife, who, my son's an aerospace engineer, and uh my wife, who you met, they're always saying, You should have been an engineer, you know, you should have been an engineer. I would have loved to have been an engineer, but I don't have the knowledge. I needed to work with engineers who could take my ideas, feel my passion about these ideas. I wanted to impress upon them the importance of these little decisions, and then take that and translate it into equipment that could then be manufactured.

SPEAKER_00

I recently did an episode on the podcast around class planning. I had so many messages about it where people were like, wow, you've made this feel so much easier. It's I I'm Polestar Trained, just kind of lent into how I had been taught. You obviously have the Bassi block system. I'm really interested to hear about that because I feel like, like I said, I was getting so many messages about teachers who maybe aren't doing such in-depth trainings are getting very burnt out from class planning because there's, you know, where could you go with this? Tell me a little bit more about the block system and what what got you there and your very busy mind to come up with the idea.

SPEAKER_01

Well, just like I said, the nucleus of BASI systems equipment is the F2. It's this this cam that rotates, it's it's an incredible system. The nucleus, the heart of BASI education is the block system. So the block system also developed over time, kind of through the 80s, and then in the I had an event. I'd already moved to the United States, but I was invited to teach in Australia. And it was Pilates was still relatively small, but I gave a, we didn't call it a retreat, but it was a retreat. We all lived on this um little island called Strathbrook Island, South Strathbrook Island, just off the coast of Queensland. And one of my dear colleagues and friends, Shauna Hall, had a studio at the marina, a place called Runaway Bay. So each day we would take a ferry out to the island. We all stayed on the island. I gave a matwork class every morning on the island, have great breakfast, and then catch a ferry over to Runaway Bay, where Shauna had a studio right at the marina. Beautiful situation. I just loved it because you grow so much when you're together for three, four days, you know, intensely, all day, every day. So I was explaining to them how I come up with sessions, how we run our studio, how I would run the studio, how I could work with certainly three, maybe four people at the same time, give them each a customized session, but all of them are doing different things. How do you do that? How do you keep these people rotating? How did I give so many sessions in a day? I said you 65 to 70 sessions in a day. But no group classes. How do you do it if you don't have group classes? Well, the block system. Everyone was doing their own workout, everyone was getting like a private, but you need instructors that know the system. So they think, how do you do it? Explain it to us. So I went back that night and I drew it on a piece of paper with blocks, and I said, There's a warm-up, and then there's footwork, and then there's abdominal work, and then there's hip work. And I went through the blocks and I said, these are the blocks of the session. What you put inside those blocks, it's up to the needs of the person you're teaching and your own creativity. But you know that at the end of a session, you've got these blocks that you fulfill. And I said, let's call it the block system. And that was it. So it was just came out of my desperate need to explain to people how and to this day, Nick, to this day, and what's it? I don't know, how we were 1991 and we're in 2026. I'm not good at doing the math, but however many years that is. Many. 35 years, to this day, every time I do a session on my own body, alone, wherever I am, at home, in the studio, I still towards the end of the session say, Did I do this? Did I do this? Because I don't always do it in the same order when I do my own workouts or when I teach. But towards the end, I go through my checklist. Did I fulfill all the blocks? And that was the beginning of the block system.

SPEAKER_00

And you mentioned creativity, and I was going to ask you a question around, you know, does having some structure like that enable creativity? I guess it does because I think people can get very lost in creativity. The creativity takes it away from having any structure, and then they get confused and they can't remember, and then they need notes to remind them, and then there, if they've got notes, they're not present in the space. The energy that we were talking about before maybe isn't happening. So I'm imagining that block system actually really just allows there to be a structure, but that has the freedom to bring your creativity across.

SPEAKER_01

Nick, there cannot be creativity without structure. We need structure. Structure gives flight to creativity. You need that structure. Without structure, it's just picking things out of the sky. You need that structure, this logical progression. I need to, if I take a session, I want to feel that there's some logical thread that goes through that session. And that is the structure. Structure and creativity are not diametrically opposed. They share a symbiotic relationship. They need each other.

SPEAKER_00

And that's where the flow can come, because if you've got that thread going through it, you can take somebody on that lovely journey.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

When I was researching for our chat today, I heard you talking about marathon mat sessions, which I'd never heard of before. These are two-hour mat work sessions, is that right? Right, yeah, I actually trademarked that. I think it's great. Can you tell me about it? I'd literally never heard of it. I was like, this sounds amazing. Tell me about them and why you think they're such a great idea.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I wanted to take people to a place in the mat work where they had never been before. I wanted it to be a physical experience, but to do it well, you needed to transcend the physical. And that's what a marathon is. You know, you cannot do a marathon just on physical ability. There's a point where you have to have the mental capacity to do a marathon. I remember, and I do digress, but I'm I will get back to marathon, Matt. When I came out to the States, I met a wonderful endurance athlete, possibly one of the best ever, and he had won the Hawaiian Iron Man, I think five or six times. And we're having dinner together, and I said, Mark, how how do you do it? I mean, it is such a mammoth feat of human endurance. He said, I wasn't winning, I wasn't doing very well at all until my wife and I had a baby, and I couldn't train the number of hours that I used to train. But what I did is the hours that I did have, they became quality hours. I immersed myself in them completely. And he said it changed my whole mindset, and I started becoming so mentally focused rather than just physically focused. So that was kind of the premise. I wanted to give a hard mat work that we would all, myself included, need to dig deep to get through the session. So it became for it to be called a marathon mat, it has to be two hours. There's certain criteria that it has to meet. And once, I only did it once for one of our PMA conferences, I gave a three-hour. And I called it the ultra marathon. And the PMA didn't want to do it, and they said it could be dangerous. I said, let's just try it. I'll give them a short break in the middle. And I'll never forget it because there was this group of guys in the front, strong macho guys. They came in, they were very, I guess, maybe full of themselves, and uh they were right in front. Let me suffice it to say, they did not finish the class. They couldn't finish. But most of the women that were in there, a couple of guys, finished the three hours. So there's one and a half hours, a very short break to run to the restroom, and then another one and a half hours. But that's the premise of the marathon, Matt, is to it's two hours to take people to a place where they have to dig deep to finish it.

SPEAKER_00

What kind of feedback do you get from people? Not the people who left, but the people who stayed, does something transcend for them? Does something come to them in that, you know, because I feel like that's a really interesting experience.

SPEAKER_01

It is. I would say that, you know, I that group of guys, I found it quite uh humorous and that they they couldn't quite, I mean, they were struggling. They really were struggling. It's probably better that they didn't complete, they were struggling, they just weren't used to this type of intense work. But everyone, I I would say almost a hundred percent of the attendees that that do a marathon math come out with that exhausted but invigorated feeling. Just you have to put everything into it.

SPEAKER_00

You've been running BASI, obviously had BASI for a long time. You said you're 71. I was interested to see how, because I think it's it is an interesting thing when you know you've done a comprehensive program. I always think I was gonna genuinely, not just because we're sat here, I've said this before, long before I knew I was gonna meet you. Uh, if I was gonna do another comprehensive program, I think Bassi would be really interesting because it would be complimentary and different to what I've done at Polestar. But I saw that you've created things like your legacy program. Was that important to you to try and, you know, because I think I found that I just thought it was a really interesting idea where it's taking us on further because sometimes you sort of you do your trainings, even a really good one, and you do your CPD and you come and do the workshops. But it's nicer to be able to feel like we could work with someone like yourself and really go deep again. Would you mind telling me about that program and what that's about?

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna tell you about that program, but I want to just grab one of my files. It's just behind your bag there. You ask about the legacy program. Is this it? I want you to, Nick, I want you to hold this in your hand. Wow. So I why I want you to hold that in your hand is because I want you to feel the the weight, it's actual weight of a program that has been a life's work. This is they're you know, well over 500 pages here. And it It's like a life's work. So it wasn't something, again, like so many things in my life. I didn't have a plan for it. In 2006, I decided to teach the mentor program, what I called the mentor program. Actually, the seeds of the idea came a little earlier, but I decided to create this program called a mentor program. I gave it a few times and it was very successful, but I felt there was so much more. I'd always be saying, Well, some of the time I'm going to add this and I'm going to add this and I'm going to add this, and it evolved. And I decided to add a master program. Well, there was still more. So I added a master one and a master two. And then there was still more. A lot of it I was creating at the time, and I added the honors program. And I decided that all those four programs together, and this is the weight of mentor master one, master two, and honors. And for the first time ever, I will give the honors reunion was a working name, but I'm actually calling it transformation. And that is a final phase that I will do in Italy this year in September. So to attend that, you have to have done all this. And I don't know yet myself whether transformation will become part of this or whether it will be a one-off event. I don't know at this time. But this compilation is called the Legacy Program. And I don't know whether it's, you know, I've thought often whether it's appropriate to call it the legacy program. I'm still alive, I'm still creating work, I'm still adding to this, fine-tuning this. But I can tell you it's the story of my career through movement. It's like I'm telling you a story, and I'm telling you that story in movement. It's a hundred percent inspired by Joseph Pilates and Joseph and Clara Pilates and their teachings, but I would say about 70 to 80 percent is made up of original movements, having taken their movements and then given flight to their movements. But you would be able to page through this and see the root, the family tree that would take you back to the pelvic curl. Yeah, and would take you back to all the original work, but it's grown and grown and grown and grown and grown. And so I you know, I felt that it is the legacy of Bassi. It's such a huge part of Bassi. When you put together this with our comprehensive program, it's a massive body of work. And I'm not sure there is another school that takes you from that first movement, from the very fundamentals, all the way in this progressive, systematic way to the outer reaches of what we can do on this equipment and with the human body. I think it's just beautiful work. I made the very important decision uh a few years ago, whether until a few years ago, only I had taught it, whether to let other people start teaching it. And I did create a very small group of people that then started teaching, and no one has taught the whole thing, and no one can yet do all these movements.

SPEAKER_00

Because that's the thing. I from what I understand, there is a lot of advanced work in there. That not all, I believe there are some just where you've taken, you know, but you know, it's a journey for your body as much as anything. Which I remember my comprehensive course feeling like that. I remember these moves feeling unobtainable at one point. And I think so much about Pilates is a strategy that you learn actually. And once your body gets the strategy, like it just remembers it. And now I think, you know, I there's a few moves that I I remember, I mean, they took me years, and now I get asked to demo them and I just bash it out. And every single time I have a little chuckle in my mind, I go, Do you remember how many years it took you? And now here you are, like, and I think it'd be so nice to go on a journey again, but I feel a little bit stuck as to what to go on. So it's a really interesting that you kind of went, Yeah, well, here we go. This, you know, this can go further. And I don't think really anybody else is doing that from such a grounded place. There's lots of places trying to almost teach advanced work too soon with no foundations and thinking that that's what people want to make it in inverted commas hard.

SPEAKER_01

I'm so averse to that. I think it's terrible. Then it is for entertainment. That's performance. Look, any good acrobat, I can teach any acrobat this work probably in a few weeks. Does it mean that person knows he or she knows Pilates? No. It means they can perform choreography, they should be able to perform choreography. This is a journey. This is a journey of learning. You have to go through it systematically, it's not just advanced work. I so I will use as strong a word as detest. Seeing advanced work just thrown out on social media, on often done so poorly. And I can do this. So what? So what if you can do the high bridge with one leg? Does it mean that you've doing are you doing it correctly? Are you doing it beautifully? Are you doing it with flow? Are you doing it with precision? Are you doing it with grace? Do I see in that movement your years and years of training? No, I don't.

SPEAKER_00

Will you run this program again or parts of it?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. This has been right all the time now that I've given it over to other faculty to teach. As I've worked on my succession plan, and then you know, I'm I cannot be here forever, and of course I'm uh looking at different ways of transitioning into the shadows. Other teachers are teaching it, but I have got my foot on the brake all the time because the business minds in Bassi, it's always sold out. 1990.

SPEAKER_00

When I saw it a few years ago, I thought it sounds like such a great program.

SPEAKER_01

It is. And the business minds say, well, if there's a need for it, do more. Let's do more. No, no, I that you cannot. This is not, it's like doing your PhD. You know, not everyone that gets a bachelor's degree is gonna do a master's degree, and not everyone is gonna do a PhD. It's for the few that really want to go on a journey of discovery. It's it's for yourself, whether you manage to do every movement in this book or not, it's about the discoveries that you have along the way.

SPEAKER_00

You've been running global education for so long, you've been at the forefront of, as you said, curriculum-based Pilates education. The challenge we have in our industry is it's an unaccreditated industry. And I know certain countries have tried to bring in some frameworks, but pretty much there isn't any. And it raises a bit of a challenge, doesn't it? Because people can go and do two weekends and they're a Pilates teacher, and they're usually the people doing the counting. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that there is any solution to creating standards? Or one of the points that came up, actually thinking about your yoga sort of influence is that yoga did a decent job of at least giving different styles of yoga names, whereas Pilates feels like it's Pilates. So, you know, you get told your chiropractor says you need to send someone to Pilates, they could go to a whole, a bigger range than ever now, many of which might not help them at all. What's your thoughts on this? Have you have you looked into this? You know, this is something that comes up when people are looking at programs.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, definitely. You know, having been in the industry for so long, I believe strongly uh that there should be, I wish there was, some accrediting body, some licensing body, some organization that could oversee the industry, even in different countries. But we've tried. And I don't know, we've had different degrees of success, I suppose. And I've been at the forefront of trying it. There was an organization we call the Institute for the Pilates Method in uh it was 1991, 1992, 1993. That was the precursor to the Pilates Method Alliance. Then I was a founding board member of the Pilates Method Alliance. I was on the board of the previous one as well, and then uh founding board member of the Pilates Method Alliance. That's had a good run. I've seen initiatives in other countries, but I I don't think we've been greatly successful, and I completely agree with you that not all Pilates is created equal. So when a doctor says go and do Pilates, they could go somewhere where they will get very sound training, or they could go somewhere where it's probably gonna do more harm than good. I don't have a good answer to it. I can tell you that I've tried to be involved in as many initiatives as possible from the early days, but I cannot say that we've been very successful.

SPEAKER_00

What's become the barrier when you're, you know, you're you're part of those initiatives? What comes up that means it can't be done?

SPEAKER_01

I'll be truthful.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Ego.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. That it's this way, it must be this way or not this way. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Ego is a huge barrier in life in general. Anyone who has studied with me has heard me use the word humility time and time again. It's just one problem. Humility is not a word, it's a state of mind. It's just like mind body. Mind body just a word, two words. But to truly immerse yourself in mind body is a state of mind. And humility, to have humility the way I see it, you cannot be a student without humility, and you certainly cannot be a teacher without humility, because you've got to recognize every day that I have so much store to learn. I have so much, I'm an infant in my understanding of the human body. And it takes humility to recognize that, but to really believe it, not just in word, in my own faculty. I catch them time and time again acting contrary to that principle. And I said, no, take a step back. That student may have had a point. Take a step back. Did you deal with that the best? Did I look at myself as well? Could I have done better? Every day I could do better. And I think that has been a barrier in our industry. We come from an industry that has people, there's a positive side to it. They believe, we all believe strongly in what we do. We've got an opinion, but I don't believe we've been open enough to hearing other opinions and other ways. And there are many ways. Anyone that says to you there's only one way, run and turn the other way.

SPEAKER_00

The thing that I've um, you know, been so privileged in the last few weeks, really, as this podcast has grown, is to interview people at the level like yourself. And actually, what everyone's basically said is we all actually, you know, at the top level, you all really get on and you know each other and you know, you know, you can see what each other's doing. A lot of these fractions tend to be a bit further down where people are like, you know, hell-bent on believing it's this way or no way. And that actually it was quite interesting hearing some people say that's not really how Pilates is, you know, at your level, really, which I think is quite interesting. But it's it's interesting, it's interesting hearing the the challenges around this. And then what I see is I've I've written a teacher training course. Well, I've, you know, I've been able to come off the back of there being no accreditation, but I took it really seriously. I spent two years writing it. Part of doing this podcast is I want to learn, I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. And then I see, you know, a studio down the road doing a really poor training, in my opinion, accredited by someone I've never even heard of, which then makes clients or potential students think, oh, well, that's better because it's accredited. And it's just, it's it's just tricky. And whenever anyone's looking to sign up and they have a call with me, this always comes up as a conversation. I always just try and act answer really honestly as I don't care who you go with. Let me explain how the system works, and you can make the right choice of what kind of feels right for you.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, I I think there's so much of that in our industry, and a lot of it stems from the fact that there isn't a globally recognized accreditation or even nationally. I just had an incident the other day where an attorney called me and he said, look, a a student of mine is is part of a particular program, and they have to sign an NDA when they enter the program because all these the materials they are given are proprietary and they were created by this person that is running this program. They're all very original and created by her, and they need to sign this NDA, something that we don't do at all, but anyway. And in going through the materials, the student realized that about 25 pages or more had been lifted verbatim from my book, Pilates Anatomy, and walked in there with diagrams, with everything. With no credit given, I mean that would in itself would not be legal to just take someone's work and put it in, but then to not even credit that work, you know, if it if in the back you saw in references and the bibliography, you saw, you know, credit uh Ray Lai Zakowitz, Karen Klippinger for Pilates Anatomy and then Ray Lai Zakowitz for Pilates, then you could say, okay, well, maybe they took a little bit of a liberty to take so much 20, 30 pages and put it in there, but to hide the fact, and that is something I've never understood in our industry. I see it today, even with people that have studied with me, and you'll see their resume, and they'll just say, been doing Pilates for 30 years, and um have this vast experience in Pilates, and I've been doing it for 30 years, and now I have this program, but they don't say who they studied with, they don't say where their background is. And I've even had some of my top faculty who have done that, started their own programs, and I always think to myself, why wouldn't you put it there just for historical context? Even if you don't like me, even if you think you know, we don't share a relationship. You you want to do it to credit yourself. You want to credit others because it sheds a positive light on you. I mean, I love saying I studied with Kathy Grant and with Romana and with Ron Fletcher and had an acquaintance with Eve Gentry. And I mean, I love saying I learned this from a student. A student came up with this idea. Nick taught this to me. I was doing a session with her, and I just love this idea, so I asked her if I can use this movement.

SPEAKER_00

But when I'm teaching a class, I'll be like, oh, I was in Alice's class the other day. I've totally taken this from her class. Like it's important.

SPEAKER_01

Of course, because it sheds a positive light on you and on the other person, and people think better of you because then they realize you're out there doing the work. We don't credit our other course.

SPEAKER_00

That's a good point that you make. I wonder if the NDA, I mean, I can't even imagine going, I don't think I'd go on a course that made me sign an NDA. But I guess that I wonder, like if that person, I mean, they inherently know they've done that, and maybe that's part of why they did it. I guess as someone who did write their own course, and you are inspired, as you were inspired, as everyone was inspired, I guess we get a little scared of, you know, well, where does the copyright sit on some of this material, right? Because, you know, I definitely sat with it. I got lawyers to look at mine. I was like, I don't I want to make sure that I haven't stepped on anybody's toes. But inevitably, there's similarities. But similarly, I also heard that piece of advice where you should credit and you should say, like, I'm hugely grateful to you know who taught me and where's there. And and actually by putting that in, that doesn't mean that anyone looks at your work and thinks that you've copied it as as you talk about it. So I think it's great that you share that. Actually, I hadn't really thought about that so deeply before.

SPEAKER_01

It's so important. And even with this person, you know, now there's legal action and all this stuff. I don't want to, or I don't want money for it or anything. I just want them to stop doing it. But if I had just been credited, well, the book, not me, but the book was credited, I would view it in a very different light to when there's no credits. When I look at a book and there's no credits, I mean, I think, where did you come up with the material? Did it drop into your head? You know, I mean, it has no credibility. The crediting gives you credibility. Such a good point.

SPEAKER_00

You mentioned earlier one of the things about Bassi that you think's been successful is you're not afraid of change. What are the things, and it sounds like there's been many things from the many uh changes you've had to make, but what are what are the things that maybe spring to mind when you think about things that you believed in that maybe you feel like now you've kind of let go of and that you're, you know, you've changed your mind on?

SPEAKER_01

That's a such a great question. And I'll answer it in in two ways. I've had a lot of shoulder issues, and in 1998 and 1999, I had uh two extensive rotator cuff surgeries on this arm and on this arm where the supraspinetis had completely torn. And anyway, they they went in, they did surgery, very difficult surgery, open surgery, not orthoroscopic. So the recovery was much longer. But I recognized after surgery that there was such a wonderful relationship between the external rotators of the rotator cuff and the back extensors, and a close relationship between the internal rotators and the flexors of the trunk. So many exercises that we had done that were because of the positioning of the shoulder encouraged this flexion of the spine, and I recognized the importance of the external rotators and the extensors of the spine. I changed some of the choreography of the exercises that I had been taught in a particular way by Romana, by Kathy, by others. So it's not that I changed the exercise, but I changed the way it was done. A little nuance like that. One that I know is going to be like a hitting a nerve is neutral spine and neutral pelvis, because I was very much at the forefront of saying, yes, we should, as a reference point, look at the neutral pelvis and in some positions, neutral spine. The pendulum swung far too far in a direction where people were actually inhibiting good movement and positive movement and the recruitment of correct muscles because they were so. So adamant that the person absolutely needed to maintain a neutral pelvis and in some uh instances neutral spine, where it was detrimental to the movement. They weren't seeing it in the context of the body in front of them, in the context of fully understanding why we do it, to make it more functional, because that's how we move, that's how we stand, that is good alignment. Things were taken too far. And so those are two instances where one, it came out of my own process of going through rehabilitation. When you come out of shoulder surgery, you can't even lift your arm to brush your teeth, and getting back to you know, doing high bridges on the reformer and star and twist and snake and all those, it is a long journey and painful at times. And so during that process or through that process, I realized how we could I could change the way we do certain movements, not getting rid of the exercise, but just changing the emphasis, how we do it. And then seeing certain concepts that I believed in being taken way too far, and actually having these positive concepts with all good intention started morphing into negative movement patterns.

SPEAKER_00

I think it the imprint neutral, then the fixation on neutral is a really interesting one, isn't it? People want the simplicity, so they they just stick with it. And as you said, it's very much about well, let's look at the person in front of you and how are they moving and what makes sense here and not being fixated. Raoul, I have loved chatting to you. To end our conversation, I've got some quick or quickish fire questions. What's your favorite Pilates exercise and why?

SPEAKER_01

I think it's changed through the years, you know. The pelvic curl will always be a favorite of mine. It's just speaks to the mobility of the spine. It's a feel-good exercise.

SPEAKER_00

And it always exactly.

SPEAKER_01

One that we call prone to on the Cadillac. I love hanging. Hanging just makes me feel like a kid on a little jungle gym. It feels very playful to me. So I still love hanging and tumbling and uh doing more acrobatic moves. But I would say, as just a staple exercise, the pelvicle.

SPEAKER_00

This isn't on my list, but you mentioned earlier about you know, you do Pilates every day. What does that look like? What does that typically look like for you? Is it a mat workout? Is it equipment? Is it an hour? Is it 15 minutes? What does it typically do?

SPEAKER_01

A standard workout for me is an hour and a half. So I like to have an hour and a half, carve out an hour and a half. It's my meditation. Anyone who sees me here working out in the studio will tell you he becomes very quiet. He goes into his own area, his own space, and we just let him do his thing because that's what it is. It's it's my meditation in motion. I go through the block system and it's a it's a full workout. It's probably not every single day, but I would say five out of seven.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I do it. And sometimes it'll be more fundamental, sometimes it'll I'll throw in some moves from our program. I'm gearing up to now teaching the honours program in March, and then this to debut this program in um September in Italy. You know, like any athlete, you start building up to this performance, like a dancer. You you build up to a performance. I'm starting to build up to get my endurance going and to go through all the moves.

SPEAKER_00

You've obviously taught so many teachers over the years. Is there one thing that you see that teachers worry about too much?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. They worry that their clients are gonna be bored. And because they worry that their clients are gonna be bored, they talk too much, they give too much information, and they feel that they need to change things up all the time, all the time. I need to entertain, I need to change. My clients gonna be bored, I need to add this, I need to change this. What we don't realize. Actually, clients love repetition. I love repetition.

SPEAKER_00

I love repetition. I say this to my teachers as well.

SPEAKER_01

So just keep it, you know, throw in nice little gems here and there, but you don't want a meal of dessert. Dessert should be a nice little at the end of a meal. You still need to go through these basic things that you do every time. It's like a dancer, ballet dancer go through their bar, a Graham dancer goes through the floor work. You do these almost set routines. You change it up a little more in Pilates, but I think teachers have this fear, particularly young teachers, that their client is going to be bored. So you need to give, give, give new all the time. That's new, is not what you need to give. Give them new insight, maybe, but not new exercises.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Uh, you've talked about some of these, but one habit that's helped you sustain such a long and successful career.

SPEAKER_01

The habit of being disciplined about my own workouts has helped me. I've had to stay connected to the work. It makes no sense to me to be teaching the work and you haven't done your own session in six weeks, sometimes six months. You haven't done your own session because you don't have time. That doesn't mean anything to me. I often at conferences I would ask, so how many of you do four sessions a week, three sessions a week, two sessions a week, one session a week, no sessions a week, once every two months, three months, and it's astounding that some people don't do their own work, don't do their own practice for months. Whatever that practice is, it doesn't have to be advanced, it can be very fundamental. But I really do think that staying connected to the work has allowed me to have a long career.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's so good that you shared that because you see that all the time. I talk to it with students that I work with. We all usually, I would assume, fell in love with this because we loved how Pilates made us feel. And then there is something interesting about when people become teachers, they're too busy. I don't know, they don't find time to do it. And yet, as you said before, if you were an athlete, if you were a dancer, you would have to do the practice. And of course we are in that arena actually, and we have, you know, not just from a physicality perspective. You know, I had this uh student once and she said, you know, we want to cue how we want it to feel. I thought, I love that. I thought we can only really cue that if we feel it. And so then you know what we're cueing, don't we?

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And and you know, you lose your touch. I mean, I don't need to still teach sessions in the studio, but I do teach at least a session a day when I'm here at the studio. It keeps me connected to the work. I keep my touch, you know. I know this is may not be a good analogy, and uh I'm certainly not equating us to a surgeon, but you're not gonna get a surgeon who doesn't do surgery for months on end and then goes in and does a surgery. No, they've got to stay connected with it all the time. A dancer is not gonna not dance for a month and then suddenly go in and do a performance, or you know, you you have to stay connected. Maybe neither of those are good analogies. I love what your students said. You know, we we want people to feel how we feel when we do that exercise. To do that, we need to be connected.

SPEAKER_00

My final question is if someone comes and does a class with you or with someone here at Basi, like what's one word or one sentence of how you would want them to leave? Like, what's the takeaway from their experience with you?

SPEAKER_01

I want them to leave empowered and inquisitive at the same time, meaning that they feel empowered and so good, but also have a thirst for more.

SPEAKER_00

Rayelle, thank you so much for seeing me today. This podcast started off as I don't know, I'll do 10 episodes and see where it goes. And then it went a bit nuts, and it's all over the world now. And you know, people come up to me at conferences, and it's amazing. And then I get to ask people like you to sit down and ask questions I've always wanted to ask, and I'm so grateful, and it's been such a joy to meet you and to be able to have this conversation with you. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much. Well, you know, it's it's interesting, you just say names like Sam, Samantha Wood, and you know, these are relationships. One of the things I wanted to say is that Bassi and this business is built on relationships and community. And those are the things that are important. When I was in 2022, I had the honor of being inducted into the PMA legacy circle. So this was the first person that hadn't studied directly with Joseph Pilates that was inducted. All the others had studied with Joseph Pilates. And, you know, when I received the award, I said, at the end of the day, we must all look and recognize the importance of the relationships and the community. Because how we do a teaser, how we whether we point our feet, flex our feet, all those things will fall aside. How we breathe. But it's those relationships. I mean, you talk about Brent I remember, you know, Brent starting a more comprehensive education because in the beginning it was more geared towards clinical rehab applications, and then over the years it became more of a comprehensive education. I remember Samantha Wood coming to see me the first time, and my wife Adele and Sam were best friends long before I knew either of them. And Sam's been with us for, I don't know, 28 years. And it's these relationships. I've known Brent for years and Tracy Mallet. I remember when she came as a student. Christy Cooper was uh one of my first faculty. So, you know, it's these wonderful relationships that you look back on and you think, wow, such great stories. And that's what is important after a long career to look back and think, I've enjoyed all these relationships.

SPEAKER_00

But you know what's been amazing is that how supportive everyone I've talked to has been. And like so Sam, we haven't released her episode at the time of having this recording, but her episode will be out. And she said to me, you know, I was really nervous to contact you because I know that you're Polestar and I'm Bassie. And I'm like, I just wasn't brought up, for want of a better phrase, in the world of Pilates with any sort of belief like that. It just it just wasn't in the education that I had, so I just don't have that belief at all. And she then kindly messaged you. But it's been so nice to start to see people support each other and the people who listen, I think, like all things, isn't it? You think I would have I really wanted to hear conversations like this and be inspired. And I suppose it's my small way of to those people who maybe have done a two-weekend course who don't realize that that is the depth, to realize how much more depth there is and to hopefully be inspired to understand what this is about a bit more and to see. And even those people, by the way, who've done big courses, I sometimes see people who've done those who don't do any additional learning. Like this world, as you said before, it's so vast, you never know it all. And I love that. That makes me so interested. And I now get the privilege of I feel like this is free CPD for me every week when I'm doing these conversations with people. But it has been amazing. And I think, but so my point about Sam is to feel that there is this nervousness about reaching out. Well, actually, that hasn't really been my experience. Maybe a few people on Instagram comments, but mostly the actual people I speak to, the people who've got something interesting to say, the studio owners that I talk to, because I love talking about to them as well, the people who nobody's ever heard of except their community. They have great stories to share as well. They're the people living and breathing this work every day. I think it's important to share those stories too. But people are just loving listening to it, and that's why I like, like I said, this was never my intention to create this podcast and be a thing. But people are loving hearing the stories.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that's great. I'm so happy to hear that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you for today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Wow, it's been so lovely to listen back to that interview that I did with Rayao back in January. I had such a lovely time sitting and chatting to him. His wife so kindly waited outside. We were supposed to be just an hour and we were about two hours with the interview and set up, and it was just such an honour to be able to have this lovely conversation with him. And so much of what he said has really stuck with me. After we were interviewing, he talked a little bit more about, you know, acknowledging those people who've inspired us. And it got me thinking, I added an acknowledgement in to my manuals. I also felt a bit more passionate about no, we will change them, let's add them, let's reprint them. And I thought it was a really important thing to do. I've heard a few of our guests on the podcast, Tracy Mallet was one of them recently, on social on different platforms, but talking about, you know, their work being ripped off verbatim. And that's just something that we don't want to do. So I think it's good, isn't it, to say I picked this up from this person's class, this exercise, or if we are now starting to educate people, I think it's a really good idea to start showcasing where did we learn our work from. It all comes from Joseph Pilates at the end of the day, but where did we get our inspirations from and how do we acknowledge that? So that has gone into my manuals, and I'm really pleased about that. Um I'm also really excited to announce that I'm gonna be speaking at the Reformer Pilates event on the 3rd of June in London in Soho Hotel. It's gonna be a lovely day exploring the world of leading Reformer Pilates studios, so really aimed at studio owners. We're gonna be talking about elevating our industry and especially around education, which is something that I'm really passionate about and have been so inspired by the people on this podcast, as well as my own journey. So it's been great. So I'm looking forward to being able to talk about that. I'm also running our first course away from our studios. We're gonna be running a course, a reformer Pilates teacher training course in the Cotswolds from May. I think there's only a couple of spaces left. I went over to visit the studio a couple of weeks ago. It's so gorgeous, right next to Blenn Palace. So I'm looking forward to a couple of days there for each of the weekends. And I think one of the things about my teacher trainings is that what's really important is the mentorship aspect. So we're not the kind of people who come in and run a course and then leave you to it because that's not enough, is it? We know that that's not enough. So we're working with somebody like Kate at Woodstock Pilates, who I'm gonna be working with. She's gonna be leading the mentoring. So if you're interested in running a teacher training, then do reach out to me via our social media channels. What we're looking for really is somebody who can run the mentoring. So someone who's comprehensively trained with at least five years experience. We can come in and lead the education, and then we want you to be part of the mentorship piece because I think that's such an exciting part of this. Anyway, that's enough from me. You've had me twice this week. It's been a joy, and I've loved having you here. And thank you so much for building this community with me. I'm getting the most amazing opportunities now to speak at these events and run these courses, and I couldn't do it without you, so thank you. And I will see you again on Monday for another fabulous episode of Beyond the Reformer.