[00:00:00] Olivia: Welcome to Pilates Teachers' Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia and I'll be your host. Join the conversation on Instagram at Pilates teacher's manual. Today's chapter starts now.
Hello, hello everyone! Welcome back to Pilates Teachers' Manual. This is the start of our second season and I am so excited, just absolutely peachy keen, thrilled to be interviewing Jessica Valant today. If you don't know her, you should. She is pretty much Wonder Woman incarnate. She is a [00:01:00] Nationally Certified Pilates teacher, a physical therapist, the founder of Momentum Fest and a super mom. I'm so glad to have you with us today. Jessica, thanks so much for coming.
Jessica: [00:01:10] Oh my gosh. Thank you. That's the most amazing introduction I've ever heard. I want to put that on my voicemail. That was very kind. Thank you.
Olivia: [00:01:19] Yeah, I've got all of her social links in the show notes today, so you can follow her. She's got a fabulous YouTube channel. Her Instagram is just full of amazing, right now, home workouts that are just making my heart so happy that you're so creative. Now that I've got her. The first thing I'd love to ask you is how did you find Pilates? I'm so glad you're here, but how did you find it?
Jessica: [00:01:42] I actually, I was a physical therapist first, so I knew when I was 14 years old, I wanted to be a physical therapist. I graduated from PT school in the year 2000 and I was in an orthopedic outpatient clinic. I was like 21 years old, I think, and about six months in, our [00:02:00] boss came, so this was 2001 and he said, you know, there's this thing called Pilates and we're going to start putting it in our physical therapy clinics and who wants to get trained?
And I remember I just raised my hand. I'm like, I don't know what it is, but you're paying someone to do it., like just add another tool to my toolbox. Sure. I'll do it. It was very serendipitous, perfect timing, and it changed, it changed my life. It changed my world and my life. I remember the very first time I got on the reformer and put my legs in the straps and I thought, okay, this is, this is it. This is where I am. And the more I used it on patients as a physical therapist, the more I saw the power of it.
And from there I was in Denver at the time. I took another job as the head of a Pilates program at a local gym. I went on to kind of just start, because it was that early 2000 time where people were starting their studios, and so I was kind of brought in to different physical therapy clinics to help them start their Pilates programs. And then 2006 my boyfriend at the time, who's now my husband, we moved to Hawaii and we [00:03:00] started our own physical therapy and Pilates clinics there. And now we're back in Denver and here we are.
So I'm very, very grateful every day that Pilates found me actually.
Olivia: [00:03:09] Oh my gosh, that is fantastic. Although I don't know why you would ever leave Hawaii.
Jessica: [00:03:14] We don't either. Actually, many times. Why, why? We love Hawaii. We would love to get back there, but we love Denver too. Denver is where my husband's family is here and we take care of his mother, and so kind of caretakers for her and Denver is a great place.
It's a great Pilates town. It has lots of sun. If it wasn't for the ocean, I mean you would think they're very similar places, to be honest. Very similar people. So we do love it here, but yes, our goal is to get back to Hawaii at least part of the time.
Olivia: [00:03:41] And while you're in Denver, speaking of a Pilates town, I feel like you've contributed a lot to that by starting Momentum Fest in 2017. Can you tell me a little bit about that adventure?
Jessica: [00:03:53] That is, I know. That's a fun adventure.
So, when we were in Hawaii, this was before our daughter was born, so maybe [00:04:00] 2010 and I remember with a bunch of girlfriends, I had just started some yoga classes. I was just doing that as a side thing for myself, so I wasn't teaching. And this something called Wanderlust came to Oahu where we lived and it was up in the North Shore and we said, you know, as girlfriends, let's just go and we're going to get a condo together on the grounds.
And so eight of us went, I think. And we did yoga classes all day long, meditation and yoga all day long. We danced at night, we ate and had drinks in our condo and just did girl stuff. And I remember driving home after three days of that. And I was exhausted but so filled, like my soul was filled. But just the fact that I had moved all weekend long was close friends and there was nothing expected of me.
I didn't have to take notes, you know, I was just in my body the whole time. And I got home and I was explaining it to my husband and he said, well, isn't there something like that in the Pilates world? And I said, no, there isn't. There's nothing. There's nothing that allows us to just move all weekend and that's open to just students.
Like I was a student of yoga. I wasn't a teacher and I could [00:05:00] go move alongside anyone. And at the time there was nothing for Pilates in that respect. There was a lot of great continuing education, but nothing in that same vein. And so we played around with the idea for years and years.
Finally, yeah. Came back to Denver. We had lived here two months and I was eight months pregnant and I remember walking around a lake and there was a lot of back and forth going on in the Pilates world. That was hard for me cause I love this industry so much and there was a lot of, kind of, judgment, it felt like at the time. And I remember calling my husband and I said, you know what? It's time. It's time we do this. The Pilates world needs it. We need some love. We need some movement, we need some healing, we need some community. And Denver is a great, great place to do it. So if we don't do it now, I'm afraid we won't. And I think we just need to try. But we need some teachers. So I remember calling 11 of my friends, great, amazing teachers and said, Do you think you would come teach at this thing? I have this idea. And once they were on board, that was it. And it was amazing, and that's how it started.
Olivia: [00:05:58] Wow. Oh my gosh. That's [00:06:00] incredible. I guess I remember looking when I was looking at conferences and I saw Momentum Fest. At first I was surprised. I was like, you can't get any CECs? Because I had this tunnel vision that everything that I do needs to be for credit, like I need to be advancing myself. And when I read the description that you had online, I was like, this is amazing. Like you said, it's this celebration of movement, that it's about being present and being able to move without having to necessarily like get a certificate at the end that says that you did it . Just to have that experience.
So I'm really looking forward to it. It's happening virtually this year, but also in person in 2021. I will come see you in Denver.
Jessica: [00:06:39] Good. I'm so glad you brought that up too, because we do get a lot of questions about that for CECs, and it's very intentional for our first two years not to offer CECs. We do have pre conference workshops and so we'll talk about that because we're doing that virtually too. But we do offer pre conference workshops for CECs, but it was very, very intentional to not offer them [00:07:00] because of exactly what you said. And I'm the same way, especially as a physical therapist and Pilates teacher. Everything is what can I add to my toolbox, I need CECs, I need to check off that box and you did this and this and this.
Then what happens is we do sit and not usually move during those, which is fine. We need them, but we lose touch with why we fell in love with movement to start. We forget what it feels like in our own bodies because we don't have time anymore to just move. We're learning and we're owning studios and we're starting businesses. We're teaching our clients.
And so I felt that we could actually grow as teachers if we added that one component. Not to take away from CECs, but to add to our experience and give ourselves this visceral kind of thing that we come away feeling it, not just knowing it, but feeling it. And so that is kind of why we wanted to stay away from the CEC part.
That being said, when we suddenly had to pivot two weeks ago and decide what we were going to do in 2020 we [00:08:00] wanted to offer people whatever we could this year. I mean, this year has blown up for so many people. I mean, instructors who depend on workshops for their livelihood and students who depend on workshops for those CECs and to grow them in so many ways, we've lost what we count on. And I love the PMA and what they do. I was on the board for a long time and I talked to my husband, cause he's the co founder with me. So we make a lot of decisions together. And I said, you know what? With PMA canceling this year and so many workshops canceling, what if we could just serve our community by doing Momentum Fest virtually and bringing in the CEC component because so many people truly do need it right now.
They don't have other options. So we're working really closely with the PMA right now and we plan on offering CECs for the virtual event that's happening in June. So it is a pivot. I mean, it's something that we haven't done in the past. I don't know if we'll do it for our future in person events for the reasons I listed.
But I think it's really important right now to iterate and adjust so that we can all support each other in whatever needs we [00:09:00] have. Cause we all have a lot of needs right now in various ways.
Olivia: [00:09:03] I just love that it's still happening because your Instagram and your website have just been such a source of inspiration when you were listing, you know, classes that you can take on Instagram or Facebook, all of the things that the Pilates community is really offering as a way for people to be in touch with their bodies and move when you know, we're spending so much time at home.
When you're talking about finding the joy of movement, just teaching these classes virtually where I'm doing a lot more demoing than I would if I was teaching in equipment class. I'm not doing the equipment exercises with anyone. I'm just talking people through it and I'm really feeling, I see why everyone loves Pilates, like it feels amazing. This feels really great. I am glad that I'm having time to do this right now.
Jessica: [00:09:46] Awesome. That's such a good point. I've heard that from so many instructors and friends.
I am so sore, like I'm so much more sore that I've ever been.
Olivia: [00:09:54] For real. And you're like, I have like a date with my foam roller every night.
Jessica: [00:09:57] It is exhausting, but it exhausting in a good way. I [00:10:00] think it gets us in touch with our bodies, but it also, it makes us better instructors because we become more empathetic.
Like I remember the first time I did tabletop after one of my abdominal surgeries and I thought, Oh my gosh. Tabletop is hard, like it never had been before to me. I had just taken it for granted that I could do tabletop and I suddenly thought, okay, I get why my clients have a hard time with that now, and I've never forgotten that moment.
And I think the more we do things, we become better instructors because we feel what our clients feel and we understand what they're going through. And we become more creative, you know, with what you can do at home. I like that we're taking what we can out of this time right now that will hopefully go forward.
I mean, I would love to get out of this virtual world cause I miss hugging people and I miss seeing people and I miss moving with people. But I also appreciate that, I think we'll all come out with some lessons that we can carry forward, whatever those are for us individually.
Olivia: [00:10:54] It's amazing. Also the reach that you can have virtually that I'm taking classes with, you know, a [00:11:00] yoga teacher that I studied with when I lived in Las Vegas, I've taken classes that were led from a teacher in India or Pilates classes from a studio in New York City, and like you get to be everywhere in the world from your living room.
Jessica: [00:11:14] It is. It's truly amazing and Momentum Fest will have that too. We have, so all of our instructors from 2020 we invited them all to be a part of the virtual. And then for them all to continue with us into 2021. And we had instructors from Australia and from all over the United States, and they'll be teaching. And then we're so lucky to have some awesome guest presenters have Benjamin Degenhardt will be teaching and he's in Cyprus right now. And Grace Hurry will be teaching, and she's in the UK right now.
So we have people from all over and all different backgrounds because that is one of our biggest things at Momentum Fest is we want you to experience movement in all forms. Not just different iterations of Pilates, but we have African dance and we have acro yoga, and we had goat yoga plans for this year, which obviously we're not doing that [00:12:00] virtually, but it would have been amazing.
And then we have a lot of really neat kind of community talks. Also, we have Andrea Mitchell, she's a great teacher out of New York and she's doing some art therapy to really help us kind of get past our boundaries a little bit and prevent burnout as instructors using art therapy. And James Crader is going to do some really neat talking about business.
So there's more than just movement because we do want to feed body, mind, and soul. I mean, it all comes together for what we do as teachers and as healers because that's ultimately what we are. We're healers or we hope to be.
Olivia: [00:12:36] I love that you said that because one of the ways I kind of think about Pilates is just using the language of Pilates to, you know, meet people where they are.
And to heal people, and sometimes it's physical healing, but you know, that's only a small part of us. I love the art therapy thing. Oh my gosh, I'm definitely going to check that out.
Jessica: [00:12:56] It really is amazing. So neat. And some internal strengths workshops, and [00:13:00] we have a Reiki and barre combination class, which is truly amazing.
Yes. So a lot of really neat, neat things that'll just expose people to different things. It's over two days, so there'll be two days. It's June 27th and 28th, so it's a Saturday and Sunday and classes will be held all day long, but you buy one ticket and you come in and out to any classes that you can attend, and so people, yeah, they'll just buy one ticket.
It's $129 for the full two days. That's over 25 classes you can choose from. And then that goes until about two weeks before the event. So that's early bird price. And then prices will go up about two weeks before. But yeah, it's just a really neat thing to come together. And just for everyone to know you can invite your clients.
Cause like I said, it's for teachers, but it's also just for enthusiasts. Anyone can come. I mean we don't have anatomy workshops or you know, you don't have to know the chair, the reformer, anyone can do this from home. And if you're like me, you have two little kids crawling over you at all times. So I just turned my video off [00:14:00] when I do zoom classes and they joined them with me.
I mean, they're coming in and out ,and every time I do a bridge, they think it's a tunnel and they drive their cars underneath me. That's life right now. So please bring your kids, do whatever you have to do. Come in and out of class. And it's just the time, I'm hoping, we can celebrate and remember how much we love our community.
Olivia: [00:14:20] Well, that is a huge pivot for an entire festival to go from in-person to online. Are you doing any big pivots in your studio or work with your clients? Have you gone virtual there as well?
Jessica: [00:14:33] In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm very lucky. When we left Hawaii, I sold my studio, so we owned two and I had a staff of 19. My daughter was a year old and I was managing them from California.
We went there for a bit and I ended up selling them cause it was just for me personally, I wasn't doing either job very well. I wasn't being a mom very well. I wasn't being a studio owner very well. So I knew, took me a while to accept it, but I knew it was time for me to kind of [00:15:00] find a different path. So I sold my studios and I remember putting my first video up on YouTube because my clients back in Hawaii were saying, what were those knee exercises you gave me? I don't remember.
And I thought. Well, I don't want to give you stick figures from thousands of miles away. I guess I could put a video on YouTube and you could watch that. So I remember putting my very first one up in like 2014 I guess, and I just started doing that. I thought, okay, I can throw a couple of videos up here and there, and then one of them gained a lot of traction.
And I created a website and I started selling videos and it kind of grew itself from there. So now I have an online membership site with over 250 home workouts and tutorials, recipes, and I have online CEC courses. So I do see people in person, because again, I love it and I think that's how we grow as instructors.
So I see people in person here in Denver, just one or two days a week. But really most of my work now is online and seeing virtual clients. And I do a lot of women's health, so prenatal and [00:16:00] postpartum and pelvic floor. So I feel very lucky in that I didn't actually have to do much of a pivot in that respect because I had my online system set up, luckily.
And from there I am just waiting. Orders in Denver are crazy right now, so we don't know who we can see or when we can see what we can do. So I'm just waiting until it's really clear that I can see clients in person again. But yeah, I was really lucky to have those online systems set up already.
Olivia: [00:16:25] And I feel like a lot of studios and a lot of instructors, we've had this trial by fire that almost overnight you have to offer everything online, but in some ways, again, it's a real opportunity to get more comfortable.
I thought it was so weird because I thrived so much on, I call it audience participation, but like interaction between people who are taking the class and myself, and if you laugh, great, I'll give you more of that. And if you didn't, like, let's try something else. It's very different to be teaching to your ceiling where it's just like silence and yourself on the screen, but in a way, it's also a good skill to have that you can just [00:17:00] power through and maintain your personality and also lead a great class. In some ways it's great that we're going to have these new skills and new abilities to cue exercises and like you said, be so creative with exercises, but I do, too, also miss interacting with people.
Jessica: [00:17:16] I think that's a great point. And people, I think we all come out with different skills and I think it also will help people decide what they do like or don't like about it because I'm trying to encourage people to, and let them know, Hey, if you don't like the online space, that is okay. Like get through this time, do what you have to do, and then just get right back into your studio. You don't need an online presence to be successful if you know, if that's what you want, is to have that brick and mortar amazing studio.
So I think it's a good chance for some people to step outside of their comfort zone and figure out, Oh, I do kind of like this, but it's also okay if you think, Oh, I really don't like, this is not my jam. And I think that's okay too. You know, we all will come out knowing more about ourselves [00:18:00] and knowing more about our clients.
Pilates is here to stay. It is not going anywhere. People are still going to need us. And that really was why Momentum Fest was and is so important to me. And I think why I was so heartbroken when we had to cancel because having so much of my work online now and having so many amazing colleagues all over the world.
I mean, that's when we connect, like we connect at these kinds of conferences. And Momentum Fest to me, I just can't even explain the amazing energy and seeing people in person. And like you said, you teach a class of a hundred and you see people laughing with you and you see people hugging afterwards and we're sharing this amazing experience.
So Momentum Fest to me is always my chance, like my guilty pleasure. I get to teach and I get to see everyone. I kind of created it for myself because I love it so much. So that is truly my hope that people come out yes, with more skills and knowing what they want, but that we never forget how important in person connection is because it's just vital and always, you know, my kids with their teachers and [00:19:00] talking to the barista at the coffee shop and waving to people on a hike. I miss all of it.
Olivia: [00:19:04] That kind of surprised me because I've been in Chicago and we've been in stay at home order for almost two months now.
And that's the stuff that I miss. Like as much as I missed clients and being in a studio setting, which I definitely do, it's things like talking to your cashier at the grocery store and just those little things, those little exchanges that again, you wouldn't even think twice about until you aren't doing them anymore.
Jessica: [00:19:29] We went on a hike the other day and I remember seeing people were coming towards us or shuffling my kids to the side and I was like, this isn't the way it should be. Like, I shouldn't be sheltering my kids from just saying hi to someone cause we got too close.
And I know that's the way it is right now. Completely understand. Support it. We'll do everything we need to do. We'll stay safe. But I'm really excited for the day that that is not our reality anymore. That we can just have that human connection face to face.
Olivia: [00:19:54] Coming out of this, it's going to be very different. That the things that we took for granted are suddenly [00:20:00] going to be, I did a big trip to the supermarket and just having, you know, really fresh foods that, you know, you picked out.
Wow. Like I picked up these tomatoes, like literally just from the grocery store, but I picked them. And it felt so special. It was like, like sunshine.
Jessica: [00:20:14] I understand. I know. It's a crazy time, but yeah, we'll all pivot and we will all be okay. Eventually we will.
Olivia: [00:20:25] Hi there. I hope you're enjoying today's chapter so far. There's lots of awesome stuff coming up after break as well. Please share this episode with your friends and followers and share the Pilates love.
Now, back to the show.
[00:21:00] and this what's going on currently might shape your answer to this question, but it might not. But what advice do you have, for maybe new teachers or experienced teachers just in the world?
Jessica: [00:21:17] That's a great question. I would say a couple things. I'll probably come full circle with this, but new teachers especially, you know, there's a reason we go through a program and learn their order and their program and that breathing and you need to test out on that because we have to start as an instructor knowing those things.
I mean, it's really important that we understand the foundations and that we have that box to work in. Because I think it gives us boundaries that makes us feel very safe and it allows us to grow as an instructor. So I would say respect that, absolutely, especially at the beginning and play within that box.
And when you start to feel a little voice that tells you, gosh, I'm really enjoying [00:22:00] this specific clientele, how would I work for them? Or. I do want to get online a little bit, what would that look like? Or I don't think I actually want to own my own studio. I think I want to do something like this instead. What would that look like?
So when your heart and your gut and your passion start to kind of take you in that direction, listen to it, and it's okay to start to step out of that box, you're still gonna always respect and come back to that foundation that you are from. But absolutely start to step out of it to discover your place and understand your place doesn't have to, and probably won't look like anyone else's.
I feel very lucky. Actually, the first 10 years of my career, probably 15 years of my career, there was no social media, so I couldn't see what anyone else was doing. So I just had my head down and I just ran the best studio I could. I learned marketing, you know, in magazines, those kinds of things. I just worked with my clients.
So I think social media can connect us, but also make it hard. So once you start to branch out and discover where your passions are, don't compare yourself to anyone [00:23:00] else. Don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Learn from your mentors, but understand you have your own place and it's going to be amazing because no one else is like you.
That's good. That's a good thing. We're all different. We all have people to serve.
Olivia: [00:23:13] When you talked about respecting the foundations, it makes me think of March Mat-ness, which led by Benjamin Degenhardt and kind of revisiting the classical mat, which I don't think we even knew at the beginning of March how important it was going to be to revisit our mat work.
And even within that, just seeing that kind of unfold in social media, getting to see all the teachers and all the different variations, but that unifying theme that this is a really important work that we do
and this and where it comes from is important.
Yes, you can use wine bottles as weights and you can throw in resistance bands and you can add a bunch of props and add a bunch of equipment, but it really comes down to like you on the mat and your breath.
Jessica: [00:23:58] And it does become like a meditation. [00:24:00] I think once you respect it in that way, that's what it is for me. At least. Like you said, I get onto my mat, I take a deep breath and I start that workout or that series, and it is, it's like this comfort that I come to in this kind of meditation almost.
It doesn't mean I don't teach other ways cause I teach a thousand different things in a thousand different ways. But coming to that, yes, it is our foundation. That's our history. And so it's important to know it and respect it, but don't be afraid to step away from it when that time comes for you as a teacher because that's okay. We can grow and we can change.
Olivia: [00:24:34] And I think that, especially like classical mat work is such a great way to measure for me, my personal growth in the practice because things that felt impossible. I saw people doing a rollover. I was like, you want me to put my legs where like, what? And then just the more you play with it and the more you understand yourself and how to turn things on and turn things off, the series is the same, but you're [00:25:00] changing. And so every time you do it, it's going to feel different.
Jessica: [00:25:02] Oh yeah, absolutely. And your body will surprise you every time. And when you get taught by someone different, I mean, that's what's so awesome too. Every time I take the class from someone else and like, Oh, I've never, I've never felt that before. Interesting. Amazing.
Just this morning I was on my reformer and I was doing rowing and like one different thing I played with that you would never know by looking at me. It was just something internally I changed and after 20 years I was like, wow, that feels so amazing. I mean, it's so fluid and it serves us in every stage of life. I mean, it really is an amazing modality.
Olivia: [00:25:36] And I'm so excited to take classes with all of these amazing instructors at Momentum Fest because just, you know, a different cue or just bringing your attention to a different thing in an exercise, even if it's an exercise you've done a thousand times, like you said, there's this light bulb, this sense of discovery, even even when you've been doing it for a long time.
Jessica: [00:25:58] Absolutely. And hopefully people [00:26:00] who do come to the virtual event, that you'll find that you'll have a chance to take from somebody you've never taken from before. You'll hear something in a different way. You'll see something in a different way and more than that, that you'll just feel connected to yourself again.
I mean, if nothing else, I want people to come and leave that weekend feeling joy, feeling celebration, feeling grounded, and just feeling empowered in themselves. I truly believe the more that we feel strength and belief in ourselves, the more we can then give it back to other people.
Olivia: [00:26:28] Do you have any advice for instructors who may be like you have been teaching for a long time? Or what advice would you give yourself right now as you're going through things?
Jessica: [00:26:39] Drink more water is my main advice to myself at the very moment. I feel like I go from one cup of coffee to the next and forget to drink in the middle. So drink water is the advice I give myself every day.
I think, and I don't know exactly how to make this succinct, but I feel like those of us who probably have been doing this a long time and are kind of on social [00:27:00] media, this is a big change and it feels like we should be doing things really fast to keep up, right? Like, like you said, like change things overnight. And I gotta change my studio and I got to be like this and I think I needed any website too. But to have a new website, I guess I need YouTube. And then I should probably have Instagram, and it can be so much.
And I would say take a deep breath and think of the long game, even though it feels like we can barely get through a day and we don't know what's coming the next day, think about the long game and what you want from your business, and don't change who you are just because you can't teach how you want right now. So you can maybe change how you deliver it, but all those things can be short term.
You know, if you're making big business decisions, think a year from now. Think about two years from now and where you want to be, and try to take yourself out of the panic part of it to really make decisions that feel true to yourself and to your brand and to your vision. I hope that made sense, but I just feel like it's so easy right now to make very [00:28:00] panic filled decisions.
I mean, I feel myself doing it. Even just answering emails like I need to do that fast and I don't want to lose this client. And I think if we take a deep breath and realize we're all in this together, it's not going to end tomorrow. I wish it would, but it's not. So we have a little time. So let's just make the decisions that, you know, the best one we can make in this moment, and then the ones that are really true to ourselves and to our business and to our brands and to our clients.
Olivia: [00:28:24] I really see, in my experience and for the studios that I'm working at, that our clients are cheering for us. They are so compassionate and just along for the ride with us. And if you're offering classes online, like you're going to have friendly faces there for sure. And it doesn't have to be a perfect, beautiful studio that you're filming from. It can be your living room. It is my living room that you are seeing.
I really think that Pilates teachers are doing something so incredible right now by providing these movement experiences, whether it's through something beautiful and organized like Momentum Fest, or just a five [00:29:00] minute video on Instagram on if you've been sitting on a desk all day, like, here's something you can do to help your neck feel better. All of that stuff is so necessary because it's really easy to dissociate from yourself and to get head stuck in fear or to just feel trapped and to get back into your breath and back into your body as something that is so important all the time, but especially right now
Jessica: [00:29:23] And it's really easy to get out of that. And I guess more advice I'm giving myself is to read a book, like to get off of my phone because I have found, because we're doing so much online right now, I feel glued to my phone all day and I just get phone fatigue and device fatigue.
And so I do read on my phone a lot. I could get books from the library, but it's still my phone. So I, believe it or not, actually ordered real hard back books. I think they, two of them, they came yesterday and I feel like it's such a treat and I don't know when it will happen, but I'm hoping a couple of minutes here and there I can sit and actually open a real book.
So yeah, [00:30:00] anything to take us, I think to just refresh us, like you said, get us out of that panic and out of that, I need to make a sudden decision right now and keep going. We have a moment, you know, even if it's not moving, if your body needs a break from that movement, just something else. A walk in the sunshine, open a book, you know, stare at the wall if you have to, but something that can kind of reset you for the day.
And that's been helping me at least.
Olivia: [00:30:22] Is there anything else that you'd like to share? Anything else you'd like to touch on?
Jessica: [00:30:26] I would just say if you need any information, go to momentumfest.com. All the info is there. We still do have two pre conference workshops. They're both amazing and they're happening virtually.
So this is happening on June 25th and one is by Amy Taylor Alpers, so amazing, organ to spine connection. And then one is by Jill Hinson and she has created an amazing certification for using Pilates and exercise to help women going through breast cancer. So she's going to train people in that method.
Both of them are being done virtually, [00:31:00] and you will get PMA CECs for them. And like I said, they're amazing women if you haven't learned from them before. So you can sign up for those at our website. And then you can also sign up for the virtual event itself, which is June 27th and 28. Two days of, yeah, over 25 classes.
You can see the instructors and then we also have some great vendors. I wish I could name them all right here, but go to our website. You'll see them and they are going to be offering coupons and special deals for everyone as a part of the virtual experience as well. So like balanced body will be there.
They're actually going to teach an Oov and a MOTR class, which is phenomenal. And then if you are at the virtual experience, then you will get a coupon to buy an Oov or a MOTR for a discounted price for home use. So we just have some amazing partners doing some really cool things. I feel very honored and humbled for everyone, for just helping us as always they are.
Olivia: [00:31:49] I know that everyone is very grateful that you are continuing to offer it. I am so looking forward to it. It is highlighted and starred and stickered all over in my calendar. Awesome. So I'll be [00:32:00] there. And I'm also taking the organ to spine workshop.
Jessica: [00:32:02] You are? Oh my gosh. It's going to be amazing. Have you taken from Amy before then? Any workshops?
Olivia: [00:32:08] I haven't. It's actually my first.
Jessica: [00:32:10] It is, it's going to be such a treat. I mean, both of those are, but I just, it's going to be amazing. It's going to blow your mind. I'll tell you that. Yeah.
The more, I think right now visceral, and this is a different tangent, so I won't go too long, but visceral is some really important work happening and just some of her cues and visualization for that on how, if people are wondering what does that even mean?
Basically it's how to use, I mean, our body is one entire system and the organs are a big part of that, especially because they're in this abdominal canister that we're always cuing as Pilates instructors. So learning how to cue and how to do these traditional Pilates moves while also focusing on the organs because Joseph Pilates talked about detox and that's why he wanted organ movement. It's just fascinating and I see such great results with clients. That's my tangent about that, but it's going to be awesome. She's great.
Olivia: [00:32:57] I can't wait. Thank you so [00:33:00] much, Jessica, for your time, for calling in and sharing your amazing advice and telling listeners and the world about momentum Fest. It is going to be such a party and I'm really looking forward to it. Thank you so much.
Jessica: [00:33:13] And thank you, again, just for this podcast. And just so all your listeners know, you've been very gracious with us. We were supposed to do an interview. I feel like probably two months ago. Yeah, I bet about 10 weeks ago,
Olivia: [00:33:24] It was like right at mid-March.
Jessica: [00:33:25] Yep. We were supposed to do an interview, the how of the live event, and I said, Hmm, maybe we should hold on.
And yet you were very gracious and flexible with us and thank you for bringing us on. Now we're happy to be here.
Olivia: [00:33:46] Thank you so much for joining me for today's chapter of Pilates Teachers' Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. If you loved today's episode, subscribe and leave a review. [00:34:00] You can reach out to me on Instagram @pilatesteachersmanual or send me an email to pilatesteachersmanual@oliviabioni.com. The adventure continues. Until next time.