Beyond the Reformer

Rethinking Pilates for Runners, Pain, and Performance with Juan Nieto

• Nic Lenny • Season 5 • Episode 53

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Nic is joined by Juan Nieto, a physical therapist, Polestar educator, founder of the Reformer Flow Collective and co-creator of Runty.


Juan brings a completely different perspective to Pilates, movement, and coaching. Rather than focusing on perfect technique or choosing the “right” exercises, he challenges the idea that there even is a single correct way to move. Instead, he shares why expanding movement options, building awareness, and increasing variability is what truly helps people move better, reduce pain, and build resilience.


The conversation explores how Pilates can act as a foundation for everything else, from running to strength training, and why it should be seen as part of a bigger movement ecosystem rather than a standalone solution.


Juan shares why group classes can be more powerful than privates, how play and task-based learning can transform the way people move, and why teachers need to shift from instructing to creating environments where real learning can happen.


Timestamps

00:00 Intro to Juan

00:37 Why Pilates should be seen as a starting point, not the end goal

04:58 The challenge of getting runners into Pilates

08:16 Using Pilates as effective cross-training

11:30 Juan’s journey into movement and physical therapy

12:27 Moving away from hands-on treatment to building client independence

14:30 The opportunity for Pilates teachers in modern rehab

20:33 Understanding pain, beliefs, and the nervous system

23:01 Assessing movement through tasks and tendencies

25:45 Why group classes can be more powerful than privates

29:03 Building agency and independence in your clients

31:57 Why Pilates teachers need to stop over-cueing

35:03 Using play and games to improve movement and learning

37:44 The Reformer Flow Collective and creative teaching

45:41 Quick-fire questions

49:31 Where to connect with Juan


Thanks so much to Juan for coming on the podcast. Please make sure to subscribe and rate the show 5 stars if you’ve been loving it, it helps the show more than you know.


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Connect with Juan


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

It's not just about the flexibility, it's not about the core control, it's not even about the progressive overload.

SPEAKER_00

Today I'm joined by Juan Nieto, physical therapist, polestar educator, founder of the Reformer Flow Collective, and co-creator of Runity, a project focused on smarter, pain-free running.

SPEAKER_01

We tend to see the things in a linear way. Things are more chaotic and complicated than we usually love to reframe in this brain that we have. There's a huge misunderstanding about the goal of a movement class. For general population, group setting is way more effective, way more rich than private. What is interesting is that hello everyone.

SPEAKER_00

I am thrilled to have Juan on the podcast today. Juan's based in Madrid, but I met him many years ago at a runner-tee training workshop in London, where we learn how to train runners to be pain-free in their running. I personally just found him super inspiring, and I really love the way he made the Pilates work feel new and fresh. And it was a great challenge to my body, which I feel like after all these years, sometimes it's not anymore. And today I get to talk to him in more depth, and it's wonderful to share this conversation with you. I'd love to know what you think of today's conversation. So do drop me a DM on Instagram. I reply to every one of them myself, and I'm really loving getting to know this phenomenal collective of people who love Pilates that we've created together through these conversations. Before we dive in, I've just got a quick favor. I know I ask every week, but honestly, it makes a huge difference. If you're loving these conversations, please can I ask that you like, follow, or subscribe whatever platform you're listening or watching on. This is a small thing that you can do, but it's a big thing to help the podcast grow. And it allows me to keep bringing you thoughtful educators like Juan and keep these conversations free. Okay, let's get into today's conversation. Juan, it is so wonderful to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01

Hello, Nick. Hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_00

It's been great. We met, we were just talking off air, we met a few years ago, more than a few years ago now, I suppose, pre-COVID in London. You were running a workshop there. And um it's been many years since then. And I'm excited to kind of explore what's been happening since then. I know that you have in the past, maybe still currently, worked a lot with runners and with athletes. I had a question for you. Is Pilates enough for those people?

SPEAKER_01

I think the question is a little bit uh tricky. I've seen lately a lot of conversation about being Pilates enough for strength or it's enough for women's health. I don't think that's that's that's even the purpose of it. I mean, it's it's like we try to look at everything we do from a very kind of performance-based result or intention. It everything has to be done because of, because I want to be stronger, because I want to be healthier. And I I don't see Pilates as something that you do because it's good for you or because you want to achieve something from it. It's a method that it has a very clear philosophy behind. So Joe Pilatis has strong beliefs about why he created the method. Maybe you like it or not, but that's the reality, and he he was very, very clear of his uh guiding principles of it. And it was more like a whole ecosystem of practices about sunshine and proper food and good relationships and mental health or mental clarity, you know, all this. And then he has its own ideas about movement. He he was a mover, he was doing all this kind of acrobatics, wrestling, boxing. So I think he he really, really loved movement, and and he developed a method probably very influenced by its own culture and and the moment in history where he was creating that. So now we have Pilates at this time in this world, like 21st century, technological work, world, sedentary, you know, all the things. And now we want Pilates to become the next thing that is useful for something. But I don't think is the is the right is the right mindset. I think Pilates is something that you can use to really understand exactly not how to move your body, but how to start to move your body. It's a it's a great starting point. It's a very, very nice road that is going to take you somewhere. It could be running, it could be strength work, it could be martial arts, dancing. But it's a way of understanding how you move, understanding something about yourself, facing some issues, some problems. And then from there, once you have more understanding of who you are, what you do, what beliefs can you break, then you can add on different practices or any any other activity. So, in that sense, I think Pilates is really really interesting for runners. Uh, usually runners tend to be very obsessive and very kind of specialized in their practice. I would say it makes sense because if you want to run like seriously, you need to spend a lot of time on it. So it's the the opportunity cost is really big. Like you have to not look at many other things in order to focus on that thing that you decided to do. Again, I think Pilates is really, really interesting. I think it really helps you complement or understand or add more viability to your tissues, to your body, also to your brain. And it can be applied in many different ways, but I would say that it has to be something that becomes part of your own practice, of what you do as a person, as a human being.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's really interesting what you shared, in that you see a lot on social, don't you? Of as Pilates has grown in popularity, there's a lot of, well, it's not enough. And you know, putting strength training against Pilates and this against Pilates. And I'm always like, it's not one or the other. And it's so lovely to hear you kind of frame it like that. And Joseph Pilates wasn't one or the other either, actually. As you said, he was very into lots of things. I think just thinking about runners, because I think runners are quite a tricky group of people sometimes to convert into this work. I think, and I wonder what your thought is on that. I sometimes struggle with it in the sense of I think to be a really good runner, you have to somewhat shut off the feelings to yourself because it's hard. Like to run far is hard. And Pilates is often, I've heard, you know, I've had feedback. It's it's a bit slow, it's a bit considered. And yet often it's when someone maybe injures themselves, they are prepared to look a little differently and go, okay. And then I think once I've converted runners, they never leave it. They have it alongside their running and they see that it's a great support of that. But I wondered like how you in the past, when you've worked with a lot of runners, like how do you meet these people where they're at a little bit more and not just when they're injured and they're maybe open? Do you feel like we have to push them a bit harder than we might do in a normal Pilates class, or is there a different way around it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, at the beginning, I I tried to make the the runners fit into the kind of Pilates, uh, the usual culture of it, like the the what we all think about a Pilates studio environment, class, etc. It usually didn't work very well, like you said.

SPEAKER_00

I think uh Well that's nice to hear because sometimes I think what am I doing wrong, you know?

SPEAKER_01

I I think it's uh it's a huge gap. How how do you do the transition from one place to the other? I don't think it's a very easy, clear pathway to do that transition. That's why in in the in the program that we developed, we used a lot of Pilates ideas. There was a lot of essence of Pilates in in the program, but we needed to contextualize a little bit more to appeal to runners. At the end of the day, it's all movement. At the end of the day, it's it's all about being present and having an intention in how you move. That I think is probably the most important thing when you are in a movement practice. And sometimes I have to say, in the Pilates environment, we lack of that intention. We we focus maybe so much in the technique, in the what, in the exercise, not in the how or in the why, or allowing ourselves to even change or or experience, play a little bit with the opportunity that we have there. But that that's that's another story. What I was saying is if if you create a little transition point into running through movement, maybe you can get into Pilates. I I think, especially with the equipment, there's there's a huge, rich world there that runners could benefit. It is true that sometimes we we need to adjust in terms of of rhythm or intensity, and I think that's okay. I also would like to again come back to the roots to Joe Pilates, and if you look at his footage of his training or training other people, it was kind of brutal. Like, yeah, it was probably it was not as gentle and slow and considerate, like you said, as we're doing today. That's probably why the transition is complicated. But let me tell you that for me, now I've been doing Pilates for a long time, then I stopped doing Pilates, then I move to a complete different practice, more extreme practice as a jiu-jitsu, as a martial arts. But then I find myself coming back to Pilates every time I'm injured, every time I'm overloaded, every time I need a I need some cross-training, I need to more like the gentle part of the of the process, the taking care of yourself. So I'm I'm using Pilates in in that way, and I love it. Every time I come back, it's like every time I forget how much I love it, how cool it is, how challenging it is, even though it looks like I'm I'm doing so so many other things that are more intense. So yeah, it's it's definitely something that that I enjoy a lot. I'm very grateful that it that it exists.

SPEAKER_00

And it's interesting to hear you, you know, as someone who's Pilates has been such a big part of your life, like all of us, we do sometimes have moments where we're like, no, no, no, I'm gonna go over here for a while. But it does call you back, doesn't it? And I think it is, I always think of it like the servicing for your body. It keeps it going. And you mentioned something before I wanted to touch upon as well, which is, and I remember you saying this actually when we did do the running course, was around, you know, running is very accessible. You know, you need a pair of trainers and off you go. And I think now it's not just running, by the way, strength training is also part of this, where there's a lot of um noise out there, you're in, you know, you're in middle age, you need to be student strength training, or you need to be doing this, or you need to be doing that. The challenge is, isn't it, is that if you're coming from a very sedentary place and you haven't got good organization in your body, then running is gonna be maybe not ideal for your body. And then of course, then the the narrative is going to be running is, I've heard people say running isn't good for you. Like running is fine for you, running is brilliant for you, but your body needs to be in a good place to do it well, and I think that goes for strength training as well. And I think it's a great place for people to start Pilates. Like, I think it's a great way that you can start from any level, really, and it can get you into a place where you're more organized, where you can then load your system in any way that you want to load it. And I think it forms this nice basis, and it's nice hearing your story as well, where it did that, you felt really pulled to do some more intensity stuff, but you come back to it because you know what it does for your body and it creates that balance.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, 100%. I I would say that what really Pilates is is it's a way to gather information about your or your whole organism, not just your body, but your whole self, your whole being. When when you exchange and you try and you observe and you are present in in an activity that involves moving your body on space and achieving certain tasks or certain certain uh proposals, you learn from yourself and you understand how to communicate with yourself in a way richer way than happens when you run. Like you said, that you tend to desensitize yourself and and just, I don't know, clinch your teeth and run and try to go to the next mile.

SPEAKER_00

I'd love to hear Juan a little bit about your story. What got you into Pilates? You're a physical therapist as well. What's your movement story? Where did all this come from and your sort of desire to be in the world of movement and helping people move better?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, um, I I've always been very interested in sports and yeah, you know, movement. I really, really loved it as a young uh kid. And then that interest is interesting to human movement and understanding a little bit more about it. I started studying uh osteopathy. It was like my first kind of contact to this world. At the beginning, I was just learning and studying. I had the the luck to being hired by one of the teachers. So very early in my career I could see like eight or ten patients a day. So there was like a lot of activity in my formative years. And one of the things that was really, really shocking to me is like it was the same people coming every week to do like this servicing, like this maintenance of their own body. And I was wondering, like, okay, what I'm really doing. If if this is something that has to happen every week, I'm not so sure if if I'm helping anyone by doing this. They they seem like, yeah, they they like this, they enjoy it. It it is it looks like something positive for them, but I couldn't feel that I really was helping them. So I started to look at something that would imply more activity, like more agency, more autonomy, something that they can they can do for for themselves. And then I ran into Pilates, and it sounded really, really good in the early 2000s. So yeah, I met Brent, and he was a PhD in physical therapy, and he was talking about neurophysiology and biomechanics, and and it was all this era of motor control starting to be in something. So, yeah, it was fascinating for me. I jumped into it, I love it from the very beginning. It was exactly what I was looking for at that time is a way of people organizing themselves and taking care of them of themselves, but in a in an active way. That that is something that they have to do, that they don't rely on me in order to be okay. That's why I always started.

SPEAKER_00

I one of my studios is in an osteopathic practice, and I got to know them when I first moved to the city I'm in. And like you, you know, they're like, we don't want patients every week. Like, we don't. We're so busy. We need them to get well. And it really got me to understand this idea that no matter how much you manually help put somebody back together and help them organize themselves, if they keep moving the same way, they just put themselves back. And you see that all the time, don't you? People going round and round in circles. And I think this is where Pilates can really step in. It's been really interesting. I've been at quite a few conferences lately, and this has been a conversation that's come up a lot in that in the physical therapy world, there was a lot more time being given to the movement aspect of it. Now you're given a piece of paper with some stick men on it. And actually, we as Pilates teachers have an immense opportunity to step in. I think, however, one of the things I've loved about working with Polestar, I'm sure there's other educators that do this, but using the movements to educate you on your body and how your body is designed to perform and can perform and how joints are meant to move. And I definitely see a shift away from that in the big boom that we're seeing at the moment. I'm not certainly I'm not somebody who's stuck in it, must be done like this. But I was, I did a lot of physical activity, but I would often come up against myself with pain. And I would get very frustrated and think, why can't I do this? Why can't I do a boot camp class? Why can't I get past six kilometers running? Why can't I do this? And it was being educated on this is how your scapula move, this is how your hip should move. You know, it was that kind of detail within a class that then got me to be able to, my joints, I guess, and my body to be able to be more organized. And my understanding, as you said, it's my understanding of it too. So it's really interesting to hear you kind of actually came in about it. You'd seen that gap yourself. And and I do think, do you see that out there, that there's a real opportunity for Pilates teachers to step into this role of taking people from an osteopath, a physical therapist, they've been doing that work and then getting them back to a place where they don't need that every week, every month.

SPEAKER_01

So, probably my my starting point at the beginning was from a belief of I need to find the like the right posture or the right movement. But at the beginning I was kind of applying to them. Now I know that I I cannot do such a thing, like creating uh proper organization or changing the posture or or the position of the joints, not even affecting muscles or fascia manually is it's just a very short effect. But then in this kind of ideology, I try to do the same through movement so they can do it by themselves. So that was a change. But what I think now I understand is what is interesting is that people get to move their bodies, especially when they are very sedentary. The runner is specialized into running, uh, a sedentary person is specialized into sitting. But it's it's the same activity, monotonous activity, completely unvariable activity that can create that for some reason the tissues get sensitized, the whole system adjusts and adapts to that activity, and then when you try to do something different, you cannot, because your body is telling you, I'm not used to this. So, first you need to change who you are, and then you need to get more information from your body. You need to expand the variability of your nervous system, and then it expresses through your movement, and then you need to get exposed to uncomfortable situations like this feels stretchy, this feels very heavy, this feels very, I feel very uncoordinated when I do this, I don't have enough balance to do that, I don't know how to be on one foot and pointing my foot. So, all those kinds of tests, all those kinds of activities that take you close to the boundary of your current ability, is what creates a new you, a new capacity, a new nervous system that is able to relate with the world in a different way. And and I would say that is that what really makes people get better in situations of pain, especially this kind of long, persistent pain, very related to certain movement, very related to people who has a poor relationship with movement, sedentary, etc. So it's not just about the flexibility, it's not about the core control, it's not even about the progressive overload. No, no, no. In Pilates is because we increase the options that you have to move. And when you increase your options to move, first you don't need to move in the only way that you know that it's painful. So you have different options to move and don't flare up that pain. But at the same time, you get to distribute the movement through your whole structure, and also your nervous system is used to different sensations, not just pain or pain. Now you have a whole range of very granular sensations that you are getting used to feel and you cope with it. So that exposure and and the fact that it's very progressive in in the Pilates wall, it it were really it what really make positive for for a let's call a patient or a person who has been in pain. That is something that you can do also as a physical therapist. And no, I I I I would say physical therapists now we are catching up with exercise. Hopefully, it will get even better. Again. I would say being very close to that process here in Spain, and I think internationally too, again, that is very focused in this idea of progressive overload, this idea of yeah, loading the tissues, and again, very biomechanic. That's definitely something that works and it's a it's a good framework. I'm not saying it isn't it is not, but my gut feeling and my understanding is that this expansion of your behavior, your ability to be more active in the world and having more confidence and more knowledge about how you relate in in the context, what really makes people recover.

SPEAKER_00

You're an educator. How do we guide teachers then to help them do that? Because I think we've all as teachers had those clients. And I agree with you. I think there's more to getting people from that place than just the exercises. It's their belief systems, you know. But how do we work with them as teachers? What tips have you got for people so that they can do what you've said? Because you've, you know, what you've said is brilliant, but how do we execute it?

SPEAKER_01

Well, here I would say that if you're a Pilates teacher and you're dealing with a person that is a chronic pain patient, and you don't really understand very well how pain neurophysiology works, and like you said, how belief systems influence. I think it's too much for you. I I don't think it's even your work. I mean, you definitely play a role, but I would say get somebody who helps you with that other part. I also believe that that the the overall level of Pilates teaching is not very good. Even in the highest levels, the the teachers that we consider that they are really, really good, I think they are not as good. I think we are very influenced in the box that is the method. Like we trust in the technique because we know that it works. But understanding that it works in the population that we usually attract, it doesn't mean that is the only thing or that's the only thing that works.

SPEAKER_00

It's funny. I I think I, having been somebody myself that was in a lot of pain, I guess I have done lots of trainings, and you know, you go on trainings just in your own body to heal, don't you? And I have gone on lots of trainings, and it's actually really interesting to hear you say that that's kind of what you need to do. You you know, it's a specialist subject. And I mean, all movement's good, isn't it? I always think so. In the osteopath practice, they will say to you, you know, you'll have a session and they'll say, You'll probably feel awful tomorrow, but this is part of the process. And sometimes I think as teachers, we're maybe not, and that's your point, really, we're we're maybe not, haven't got enough depth to maybe understand how what we're gonna do with someone in a even in a private might make them feel. Because if they are in the place that you explained at the beginning, they're very sedentary, their tissues are set up like this. How do we meet them where they're at? And that's quite a specialist area. So I think that's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01

I can say how I do it, and and for me it's it's all a continuum from I cannot move, I mean a lot of pain all the time, to I really want to perform at the highest level. But for me, it always goes to okay, how your body behaves when I drop you a task. So if I tell you, okay, do this, what happens? What are your tendencies? What is your ability to change it? What are the opportunities? What it is called in skill acquisitions, what are the affordances that the task or the context are providing to you? And that's a very interesting concept because it's those affordances in the task or the context are not the same for everybody. It depends on your ability to move. It's what can what you can really do with that task. And that is telling me a lot of information. And and if it's not the solution, at least it's a place to start. Those things that I see that they can create more options, they can do it in a more efficient way, or even they can have more fun doing it. It's like it's not as scary, it's not as boring, it's not as unpleasant or uncomfortable. I try to expose them into those tasks that I see that they need a little bit of optimization. You know what I mean? And from there, the process itself, it will take you to the place. Sometimes you go in one direction and they say, Hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly where my shoulder is painful. Okay, good, interesting. We do this movement, we have this signal. Okay, now what can we do? Can we change uh and create another option? Can we facilitate? Can we load it? What are the opportunities that arise in that interaction that we're having together in order to learn, in order actually for you to learn what is going on and to really go deep into that sensation and trying to reframe it in a way, in a very kind of deductive but organic way, you figure it out where that organism needs to go or wants to go in order to recover. So it's something that is kind of chaotic, it's not linear. That is something that I always criticize with fitness or fissio or pilates, that we tend to see the things in a linear way, like first A, first B, then B, then C. Usually it doesn't happen that way. Things are more chaotic and complicated than we usually love to reframe in this brain that we have.

SPEAKER_00

I'd like to step away from the private world and look more at the group class world if I can. And you were in London at the end of January teaching a new course, well, new to us anyway. Tell me a little bit about that, what that's about, and why that felt important to you to put together this new training.

SPEAKER_01

I have to say that even though I see patients and I coach athletes, most of the times I usually try to move away from privates very quickly. Unless there is a very specific goal or result that we want to achieve, and we decided both together that we're going into that, it's usually a very short process of four, five, six weeks, and then we go into groups. I I would say for general population, group setting is way more effective and way more rich than private.

SPEAKER_00

Why is that?

SPEAKER_01

The relationship that you establish in in a very long, like in a long-term one-to-one relationship, it usually tends to be toxic in the way that the client becomes dependent on you, and it also at the same time manipulates you so you do what they want to do. So it becomes something that loses its effectiveness quite quickly. So I would say that at the very beginning is really, really useful. You can go really deep into the issues, you can look at them, you can play with it. It's very specific, very specialized, you can create huge changes in very short time, but then the longer it gets that relationship, the worse are the results until there's a point that it's just losing time and money for both parts. When you go into groups, first you understand the social element of it. Like there's some other people with some other issues. Some of them are more flexible, some of them are more rigid, some of them are stronger, some of them are very coordinated. You see different uh solutions to the problems that the class presents itself. You are forced to be your own, you have to be the protagonist of the interaction. There is nobody being your feedback source all the time. You need to develop your own feedback relationship, your loops of information that that you exchange with yourself. So it forces you to have agency, to be autonomous, to be proactive, to listen to yourself, to take decisions, to manipulate your intention when you're moving. So I think you need to get rid of all those very nice things at the beginning that the teacher provides and become the protagonist of the interaction, not to depend on another person telling you what it should be done.

SPEAKER_00

I think it makes absolute sense what you're saying. I imagine there'll be people listening to this, though, saying, like, well, how do you, like, how many people do you have in a group? Do you have a mixed ability? Is you know, because sometimes it's good for these people to see people doing it well. And like you said, you're you're almost there seeing the solutions in other people, not just in what you're saying. But as a teacher, how do we manage that? You know, do is there a level that someone needs to be at from their privates that you're like, you know, what is that level that you're like, now you're ready for group?

SPEAKER_01

I think there's there's a a huge misunderstanding about the goal of a movement class. So the goal of a movement class is not for them to improve their performance, especially in that class. It's a process that they get into in order to change a behavior. So they need to change their behaviors and they need to understand who are they in that long-term interaction. So there is nothing that is going to change in one class, but every little class, if the intention, that is is like my buzzword for the last couple of months, because I'm really, really focused in the intentional work. Like if the intention is very well aligned, every repetition is going to lead them to whatever the path they are going. I'm not even going to say to their goals. It's whatever the path they took, if their intention is aligned with that, they will get there. And it's a process. So I'm not so interested in everybody performing the same exercises or doing it right or well. I'm interested in their intention, their perception of the situation, the decisions that they make when a task is proposed to them, when they face a problem, a movement problem that we throw them. And the action is actually the part that they use to get feedback. Okay, my intention was A. The action looked like D. Okay, this is my perception is telling me that this is not what I want. Okay, how do I do it? We as teachers don't have the answer either. They they need to iterate, they need to come back, repeat, be present, having the intention, having the perception ready to collect information and let their own movement system to find a new solution and to throw a new solution. I don't, I don't even, I'm not even saying that they find, I'm not so sure if you can find a solution. It's just an approximation of okay, maybe this is how I can do it, better than the previous repetition. When you get into that cycle, for me, it's my my job is done. I'm happy with that. I know they're growing, I know they're learning, I know they're changing their behavior. That's what I want. They keep coming, they seem happy, they ask for more challenge, they try the strength classes that we offer, they go to the mountains, they start to become a more resilient, brave person that uses their body in the way they want, or they they go into again, it's not that that is a finished process, but they go into that direction.

SPEAKER_00

It feels like in order to do that, we have to think about how we are queuing our classes. Like, do you think that Pilates teachers are generally the ones that you're working with? Are they over queuing? How can we do a better job to create that environment that you've just so beautifully explained?

SPEAKER_01

We are over queuing. That's that's 100% sure. We use external feedback and we use our directions and our rules and our instructions too much. Our only way to really help a person is to provide opportunities for them to align this coupling of intention, perception, action. So we just need to be very aware of what opportunities are they getting, what are the tasks that we want them to play with, and there is no right or for answer. It's just okay, we are playing with this, we are playing with uh thoracic extension and shoulder flexion. Okay, this is a project that we've been we're gonna be playing for, I don't know, three months. And I want you to really understand that very well from all the perspectives possible. We can use the Pilates perspective, the uh Olympic weightlifting perspective, the handstanding perspective, locomotion, hanging, whatever. There are many ways, but I use Pilates, I I use all the elements that I have at my disposal. If you can create tasks that are matching your intention as a teacher, and you know that they are playing with it and their intention is aligned with what you are looking for, you know that they go into the process. So we don't really need to cue that much. We want them to understand their own cues, what their body is saying to them. And again, sometimes the focus becomes very internal. And we know in in movement acquisition process that the more external is the focus, the more feedback of the results they have, they get better. So the result of the attempt that we do is the biggest source of information. If I'm throwing a dart, if you throw a dart into the board, you know how well you do it. You have the feedback of the result. And then you don't really know what to do, but you know that you have to change something, and your nervous system, most of the times unconsciously, is creating changes. And if you practice enough, you get better and better and throwing darts. It's useful useless to say, throw the dart more to the left.

SPEAKER_00

It's a good point, actually. Yeah, you wouldn't do that, would you? You just try and figure out. I mean, I talk about this in my training. I say, you know, we're task-based individuals. If I said to you, go up and make me a cup of tea, like you just figure out the best way to get to the kettle and come back and do it, you know. So I think it's quite interesting to play with tasks in class. Um, and clients have great fun actually trying to do it. And I know, you know, play is a big part of that's what I think of you, Juan, a lot is you love to bring play into this. I guess that leans into that same idea, doesn't it? That where that you're not really thinking about what you're doing, but you're but you are, you but you're thinking on a really deep sort of nervous system level, I imagine.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because uh uh a game, if if it's well designed, it has all the elements. It has a a goal, it has a uh a context that is influencing, and and there is a task to be solved through your movement. So the game is so interesting because it creates some sort of universe within our universe. So we humans tend to connect emotionally to the game, much better than a set of repetitions in the gym machine like the pep deck. So it's very difficult to connect emotionally to this movement, but it's very easy to connect in a game that you need to wrestle with your hands with another person, and they are trying to win you, and you are trying to win them. So that's also a very interesting aspect of why play is so interesting, because that connection and that clear objective of the environment, the task, and also this idea of I want to win, or or at least I want to compete, I want to see how good I am, or I don't want to get beaten so often, whatever it is, it is it creates that connection that encourages your system to learn and to learn faster and to enjoy it and to have fun because it's it's fun. So the more we can turn the movement practice that we do in some sort of little games that force them to self-organize for new movement to emerge from nowhere, we don't know where. But the more riches that environment in that sense, the more they learn. And funny enough, the less you have to do as a teacher. And sometimes that's the that's the problem. It's where you feel that you're losing your identity as a teacher because you are not telling them what to do, because you feel that that is your job. And for me, that is not our job. Our job is to create the environment and the task so they have the opportunity to try to solve the problem by themselves and to learn in the process.

SPEAKER_00

I saw recently that you've created a new online platform, the Reforma Flow Collective. Tell me a little bit about that. Why did you create it? What is it about?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so first I have to say I'm fascinated with Laya, which is the she's the co-creator of the program. She's a colleague of me, All-Star Train. She's extremely creative. She's such a researcher of movement, especially on the reformer. And I I feel very attracted to that kind of passion and obsession to one specific topic. I don't even care what it is, it could be making clocks or fixing shoes or whatever it is. But when you do things uh with such passion and such obsession and such high-level creativity, I feel very attracted to it. It's something that resonates and it's something that I love. So I wanted to play with it. And we were thinking in okay, how can we transfer your passion, your brain, your creativity, and how can we share that to the world? We play with this goal in mind. And it was very easy for us to fall into let's create a lot of content. But then I realized, okay, this is exactly the problem that we have. It's like we have a lot of options that we consume, but we don't really practice. We don't own, we don't make our own, we don't play with it, we don't have the time to investigate. What is impressive about Laya is not the amount of content that she creates, it's the amount of research that she does. And that creativity comes from her playing with the reformer for hours. That's kind of the point of this, is every month we are going to share a flow. A flow is a couple of exercises that are connected in a way that the transition between exercises is almost more rich in movement and more interesting than the movement itself. So we want to create that continuous movement experience that you are like entering this kind of flow state, you never separate for the task. That was that was the idea. We we share a flow. There are different levels, could be like very challenging, but there's also that they are really, really easy that you can do with beginners' clients in order to expose them to play in a way that is continuous. And then we propose like a game, task base, experience, sometimes it's coordination, sometimes it's rhythms, sometimes it's balance, different games. But we use the reformer again, it's part of the of the of the context, and that's what you have for the month, and then we play with it. So the idea is to research, to talk about it, to propose different variations, to expose the problems that we have. So that's why we created a community. So the idea is that not having a huge amount of content, but just an idea that can inspire you. And as a starting point, we kind of want to encourage you to really go deep into that. Even though it looks very simple and that you can do it. No, try to go deeper, try to understand it better, try to change it, try to find the weak point, or try to make it better, or try to adjust to a different population. That's what we're doing. We're trying to create that dynamic inside the community of people participating, showing and exposing themselves, being part of the teaching of the community, so we can learn from each other.

SPEAKER_00

I just think it's really interesting because you spent the beginning of our conversation talking very focused on intention. Intention is really important. And sometimes intention and creativity can feel like they're juxtaposed, you know, they're not the, and then of course they are the same thing. It's just that what you see a lot is in teachers' desire for creativity, they lose the intention. Follow somebody else's flow and maybe put a few different bits of flow together, and therefore there's no intention of that class. And so for me, I I love that feeling of we're working on an idea and it kind of you feel this thread coming through. And so I was really excited when I saw this platform because I love your creativity anyway, because you've done it, and it's so interesting to hear how with Larry used this story of how do we have playfulness, creativity that isn't chaotic and that still has intention in it. And I love this that this sort of ethos that you've got around it's not a hundred different options on here. Let's look at one and play with it. Because when we're all learning to be teachers, we spend a lot of time, do we not, on each of these moves to understand them. And then I feel like when we're qualified, we just watch something once and think, oh, I'll deliver that tomorrow. And there won't be a teacher out there. And I'm sure you're included, Juan. We've all done that. And then you're in the middle of teaching in your group and you're like, I have no idea how this plays out. Like this is things the class has gone to chaos. So it's interesting to hear you sort of explain that that's the idea that we, you know, it's yes to give a flow, but it to be deeper and to be explored and played with with the community.

SPEAKER_01

It's been really, really interesting playing with Laya because she's extremely artistic and creative, but I'm more structured. So I was trying to decipher layers behind their own creativity. What for her is very natural and organic, and it makes a lot of sense. I wanted to create uh some sort of organization so we can deliver in a way that makes sense for all contexts of people, not just their creative ones.

SPEAKER_00

I I've just recently written a training around creativity in Pilates, and I actually I actually talked about that. There's a way to be some of us aren't just more naturally creative than others, and some I'm not, I'm a little bit more structured, but you can still be creative within that. So it's actually interesting to hear you even understood that as well. Because sometimes I think where teachers get stuck is they see these beautiful, creative people and they think they need to be them. And I couldn't be them. It took me a few years before I was cool with the fact that that's not who I am, but I can still learn from these people. I can just bring it. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Bring it into a way that feels structured and understood in a way that you could deliver it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was I was trying to organize and and make some coherence to her work because you you start playing with her and it's like endless. It's like it's uh like a river that splits in and two new rivers and then another two and another two, and at the end of the day, you have all these branches, and it's very difficult to grasp, at least for me. And she's so used to that that it's very natural for her. But like you said, I'm lost in step three. I'm already lost. I'm I don't remember what's next. And that's exactly the process that we want to take the people in is okay, there is a system in order to first trying to get the intention of more fluency during the classes, in order to look at the the whole class as a movement experience, not as a set of exercises. And and trying to have that sensitivity into don't break the vibe, don't break the flow, don't break the rhythm, but without going into the bells and whistles and the purporing. It's something that happens in a deeper level. I mean, that intention is not because of the show, it's because of how it feels when you get into this flow state of continuous movement and you are focused on the task all the time. It's not that you change in the spring and then you're thinking about buying bananas. That's what we're trying to avoid.

SPEAKER_00

Juan, I've absolutely latting to you. I'd like to end our conversation today with some quickish fire questions, if I may. And what is your favorite Pilates exercise?

SPEAKER_01

It changes, it changes. I can tell you maybe now. I'm very into short box series. All this hanging on your feet, all direction, the bodies open, all this sensation of the gravity, and you're looking for anchor points to connect, you're looking for elongation. It's challenging and it has like a huge range to go through.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Is there a cue that you come back to time and time again that you hear yourself saying a lot?

SPEAKER_01

I would say breathing is included in the price.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. I love that. Do you see that most Pilates teachers are overloading or underloading, underloading their clients?

SPEAKER_01

I can say what happens in our studio. In our studio, we differentiate strength-based reformed classes, that they are they are specifically to work on strength, especially volume, hypertrophy. Those classes definitely are overloading because we want and they are designed. And I wouldn't say that's a Pilates class, it's more strength class using the reformer and other elements. But we use the reformer. In reformer classes, I would say it's very neutral. Most of the teachers remain in that kind of neutral uh zone of not underloading, because I I would say even just the repetitions and the variety, and the if you go through all the categories, you're gonna move the body and you're gonna stress enough to create a balance to your sedentary life. So I wouldn't say it's underloading, but you don't get enough uh stress to the tissues to create an adaptation. So I would say it's more like an homeostatic uh balance. And I think that's fine. If it's something that you enjoy and you love and you don't get injured, and you can sustain that practice for a long time, and it's the practice that you really can sustain for a long time and you love it, yeah, keep doing it. But if you really want to vaccinate yourself for future functional lacks or pains or problems or even cognitive function, functions, etc., from time to time get into an environment that makes your muscles feel sore.

SPEAKER_00

And what still excites you about the world of Pilates, Juan?

SPEAKER_01

Lately, is to really trying to imagine the intention of Joe Pilates when he designed the exercise. So I'm I'm doing a deep dig into okay why Pilates did this did this exercise, what he was thinking. And I love to fantasize about his intention, what he was looking for, and trying to look from very different perspective, and I'm learning a lot about the exercise. And I'm every time I go into Pilates' work, I feel more respect about him as a teacher, as a mover, as a thinker. So yeah, kudos to him, a lot of respect, and that's the part that I love the most lately.

SPEAKER_00

I think it is interesting, isn't it, to go back and look at the work and you see it differently every time you revisit it, really. And and and sometimes some of the, you know, the thing that always surprises me is we're learning more about movement science, and then you read his work again, and you're like, he was trying to say that, he just didn't know that's what it was called. So that's really interesting. Juan, this has been an absolute joy. If people want to work with you, how can they do that? How can they find out about your online work and your workshops and things like that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, probably reach me through social media or my email. That is Juan at Polstarpilates.es. If not, it's easy trying to find a school in Spain, Polstarpilates, or the podcast.

SPEAKER_00

They will find you. We'll put some links on the show notes anyway. Thank you so much, Juan. This has been an absolute joy.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Nick, for the opportunity. It was a great conversation, and congratulations for the programme. I love it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, thank you so much. Speak to you soon. Before we wrap up, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed today's conversation with Juan. I feel like every single conversation on the podcast has inspired me in some way, and it's great to hear you also sharing the same. It's just amazing to be able to sit down with these people and ask them the questions I've always wanted to. What I've always admired about Juan and what really came through today is its ability to make movement feel creative and playful while still deeply rooted in the method, the technique, the consideration. All the things really that I love about Pilates. I've had the opportunity to see him teach in person, and that same energy carries through. It's thoughtful, it's intelligent, but it's also incredibly fun. I know you can find him on Pilates anytime as well. If today's episode resonated with you, I'd love it if you'd share it with another teacher who's exploring that balance of work themselves. And as I said, I say it every week. Please don't forget to like, follow, or subscribe. It genuinely helps the Beyond the Reformer community and podcast to grow. Stay curious, stay grounded, and I'll see you on another episode of Beyond the Reformer. I am loving bringing these conversations to you. See you soon.