The Intelligent Chair: Play, Problem-Solving & Movement Design
The Pilates Chair may be small, but it offers an extraordinary environment for exploring strength, balance, coordination, adaptability, and problem-solving.
In this two and a half-hour experiential workshop, we’ll move beyond simply performing Chair repertoire and explore how the apparatus can become a playground for movement possibilities – and how we, as teachers, can become movement designers.
Using familiar exercises as our starting point, we’ll investigate how changing load, leverage, support, tempo, range, orientation, and the task itself can completely change the movement experience. Rather than always telling the body how to accomplish something, we can create an intelligent movement problem and allow the nervous system to organise a solution.
We’ll explore how to:
- Use the Chair to develop strength, balance, power, coordination, and confidence
- Manipulate variables to create different experiences from familiar repertoire
- Progress challenge without simply making an exercise “harder”
- Use constraints, variability, and play to encourage adaptability
- Observe the strategies people naturally choose before deciding what they need next
- Consider person, purpose, and desired experience when designing movement
- Create movement challenges that relate to the demands of life beyond the Pilates studio
We’ll challenge ourselves to move from exercise teacher to movement designer – asking not only “What exercise should I teach?” but “What does this person need, what capacity am I hoping to develop, and what experience can I create that might invite it?”
Expect to move, experiment, laugh, problem-solve, and reconsider some familiar Chair repertoire. The goal is not to leave with a collection of clever variations, but with a way of thinking that helps us use the Chair to create intelligent, purposeful movement experiences that build capable, adaptable, confident movers.
This session is part of the two-day Polestar International Intensive with Shelly Power and Christi Idavoy – two amazing international senior Polestar Educators.
To register for this particular session, you will need to register for both days – individual sessions are not available.
Please review our Registration Policies here before signing up.
