[00:00:00] Welcome to Pilates Teacher's Manual, your guide to becoming a great Pilates teacher. I'm Olivia and I'll be your host. Join the conversation on Instagram @pilatesteachersmanual. Today's chapter starts now.
Hello, hello everybody. Welcome back. Guess what time it is? It's that time. Pilates Teacher's Manual time. I am so glad to have you tuning in with me today. I've got an excellent episode that will be super helpful for all of my Pilates teacher friends out there who are [00:01:00] navigating this new way of teaching.
Today we're going to be talking about teaching great virtual group classes. So teaching your group classes remotely. How we doing it? We're doing amazing, first of all, even if you are doing none of the things that I'm talking about, you're doing amazing because you're showing up for your students, you're showing up for yourself, and at a time where it can be difficult to move.
I know that a lot of the exercise that I get was just going from place to place. I walk everywhere and living in Chicago, it's a walking city to a large extent. And so being home has minimized the amount of exercise I get. And for a lot of people walking to work and walking around the city is a big form of exercise.
And you know, people are missing the studio classes. I'm missing studio classes. You are doing amazing by providing an outlet, whether it's two minutes, simple stretches for your neck videos, whether you're doing full length virtual classes. All of those things are really contributing to everyone's health and wellbeing.
So thank you for [00:02:00] being awesome. But since we are doing this virtual thing, I thought that I would lay out for you some ways to do your virtual thing in an amazing, fantastic way, and I'm going to break it up into two parts. I'm going to talk about setting the stage and I'm going to talk about teaching the class.
If you are intrigued by the behind the scenes aspect of teaching, stay tuned. We're going to jump right into that. If you haven't already done so, highly recommend that you check out Transitioning to Remote Teaching, which is an episode from Season One of Pilates Teachers' manual, and that was, Oh, maybe we're doing this for a couple weeks. Here are some challenges that you might be facing transitioning to remote teaching. Here are some opportunities. That is a wonderful episode. If you're interested in this topic, you should definitely go check out that from Season One.
This episode is going to go a little bit more in depth and really build on it because it's not like, how can we think about this [00:03:00] positively? It's like, let's do it the best that we can.
So talking about setting the stage, the space that you have is of course the space that you have. No one is going to move into a new apartment or a new house that has a beautiful sunny studio space. You know, for your, like your reformer and stuff. Like if you have that, I'm super jealous.
But if you are like me and living in a small apartment, you're going to work with what you have and I just want to shine lights on some ways that maybe you may not have thought about what you have. The first thing when we're talking about setting the stage is where is your camera going to be filming you?
So what is in the background? What furniture is there? What colors are going on there, and what is the space that you're going to be filming in? In an ideal world, you've got a beautiful clear studio like I think of on Pilates Anytime, they're like beautiful, like windows overlooking the ocean, like that is ideal.
But in your space, what you could do is rearrange your furniture so that you have a little bit of [00:04:00] a flat, kind of clear, neutral space to work with. If you've seen me teaching on Facebook live or for Club Pilates, where I'm filming is the entryway to my apartment, and I have a bookcase there.
And again, round one of teaching virtually, it's like, how can I make my bookcase tidy? And so I got these really cute bins and they're all decorative and I put stuff in them and it looks neat, but it was still really busy cause it's a multicolored background and there's like lots of stuff going on.
So what I do is I cover my bookcase with a neutral scarf that instead of having lots of colors in the background, it just kind of like washes it out. If you can use a scarf or a sheet or something to clear up the space if you can't move the clutter, like, and again, in my apartment I've mostly just like pushed things out of the camera view, but that's part of it. Like what can you push out of the view of the camera that's going to be great, in addition to having a clear space as much as possible, at least not a busy space.
Having bright lighting is really important. I try to [00:05:00] teach my classes during the day because I get natural light in my apartment that is much brighter than the lighting that my apartment has. I do have like a standing lamp that has one of those like desk light attachments, and I try to tilt those lamps so that I get the most light on me because having bright lighting is just going to make seeing what you're doing easier for all of your students.
Another thing that maybe you've considered maybe you haven't considered is what you're wearing when you're teaching, and I'm not talking about like wearing the hippest clothing. But the colors and patterns that you wear are gonna come across on camera differently, like especially horizontal stripes. They do this thing when they're on camera that they kind of warp and it looks kind of dizzying and one way, like super cool, but in another way, kind of distracting. So I love bright patterns, but I try not to wear them when I'm teaching virtual classes because in person, amazing, bright, bubbly, but the camera [00:06:00] isn't as good as your eye and it's not going to pick up those things.
So in addition to wearing solids, I also try to contrast my background. So like the bins that I have that are like holding my foam rollers are blue and I've noticed that if I wear like blue, green teal, I kind of blend a little bit. So I try to not wear those colors. If you have lots of clothing to choose from, amazing. And also I noticed like when I was doing a foam rolling class, I was wearing a black top and then my foam roller was black and it was difficult to see where the foam roller ends and where I begin. And that's not ideal. If that is something that's accessible to you, changing your clothing so that you stand out even more from your environment is fantastic.
Or if possible, can you change your environment? If you have a different color scarf that you can put that, if you're going to be wearing a neutral color, like put a different color background, you know, it's just like a drop. This is very theatrical. And also can you change your props.
I have mats that are different colors. I have many mats and many [00:07:00] foam rollers, and so if I'm wearing a color, I try to use things that are a different color just so that it stands out to my friends who might be watching, you know, on their laptop, and it's small.
Other things you can do when you're setting the stage is do a sound check with your computer beforehand. Make sure that your microphone is working. If you have a clip on mic, I mean, Oh my gosh, brilliant. That would be fantastic to have. That'll be really clear.
And you want to make sure that your microphone is picking you up, not just when you're staring at my laptop and talking to it. You're like, Oh, great. It's picking me up. But is it also picking you up when you're lying on your back, on the mat, talking to the ceiling? You want to make sure that either it's picking you up or you're being louder so that you can be picked up as well.
While you're checking sound, you should also check your camera angle. I know that Zoom and Facebook and Instagram, they all have different dimensions and what the camera's picking up. Some crop the top and bottom of the frame. That just always [00:08:00] is a little bit different. So if you're experimenting with offering a class on a new platform, highly recommend that you test it with a friend or test it. Like you can go live on Facebook just for like one other person. If you can do that with a friend or a person that you live with, that's just going to let you see how you're being seen so that you can either push stuff more out of the way or readjust your camera.
A little bit of a trick that I can share with you again, from my theater days. It's all coming very in handy right now. In theater, you use something called spike tape that allows you to mark where certain set pieces and props go when you're setting the stage. And they use like different colors and stuff so that they can do changes really quickly and like the table that they're using always goes in the same place. So I've taped out where my mat goes and it's not, you know, like a chalk outline, but I do have one of the corners of my mat kind of [00:09:00] marked so that I always know where I can put my mat down, that it's going to be on the camera.
And then I also mark out where I put my laptop stand, which, not going to lie, is an upside down box, but I can put it in the same place. I am going to have to tilt my laptop a little bit up and down, but it's going to show the thing right? Excellent.
Other things in terms of modulating your sound, jumping back on that. If you are on a busy street, if you can close your windows, that's super useful. If you have like a fan or something, just know what it sounds like. Sometimes my refrigerator kicks on and it's kind of loud and you know, I can't really do anything about my refrigerator, but if you can control the sounds that you can control, that's great.
I haven't had a lot of success with music in my classes. It just like gets kind of distorted and tinny and sad. So I don't play with music. If you found a way to make music work in your classes, like let me know because it like, whether it's a Sonos speaker, Bluetooth speaker, or directly from the computer, I just have [00:10:00] not had any success, so I have abandoned that ship.
And just when you're setting up your class, make sure that what you're using is nearby and easily accessible so that you don't have to like run up and grab it. And the reason you're checking your camera and your sound and everything beforehand is so you don't have to get up and change it during your class. You want to kind of set it and forget it as much as possible.
Other things you can do in terms of setting the stage is getting used to being on camera and you can really practice that a lot of different ways. For me, the biggest adjustment was teaching into, I mean, I call it teaching into the void where I'm not getting any feedback from my students while I'm teaching.
If I'm on Facebook live, I can't see who's taking the class. If I'm doing a Zoom class, I am pretty much just watching myself and other people either don't have their video on or if they do, I'm not really giving them feedback. I'm just leading a group experience. So getting used to talking and not having feedback, both like visual and verbal is something that [00:11:00] takes a little getting used to.
You can practice. You want to make your cues as clear as possible. And I would argue that now is not the time to be doing really showy, fancy transitions. Try to keep it simple. People may not be able to watch you at the same time that they're doing it. So you want to make sure that you're talking through your exercises and really cuing in a way that makes sense.
You do want to mirror the same way you would in person. You want to mirror the movements as much as possible, which is like 99 million times more confusing cause now it's on video and there's reflection, whatever. But mirror whenever you can.
And there's a lot of fake it till you make it in video. And having good posture is a great way to show that you are being confident. So stand up tall, talk really clearly and smile. You're doing great.
Coming up after the break, I'm going to be giving you some tips for Zoom, specifically. I do teach some classes on Zoom and these have been useful, and then also giving you some tips about how to teach a class that is [00:12:00] successful and everyone feels great when you're doing it online.
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.
If you teach on Zoom, these are some things that I do that have been really helpful in making my zoom classes super successful. One [00:13:00] thing that's really useful is there is at the bottom of Zoom land, a button that says as manage participants, and one of the things you can manage in your participants is mute all.
That's great because it mutes everyone who's there, but it also mutes people if they're coming into your class a little bit late. So if your class starts at 5:30 and someone's rolling in at 5:35 like you're already moving, you're probably already on your mat. You're not really looking at your computer.
You click mute all before you start your video, or before you start moving, that part of the class, that's just going to save you a couple of trips. When people come in and then forget to mute their microphones, they'll come in automatically muted.
Another thing that's super great to do is to pin your video of yourself. Sometimes people will do it as speaker view, but again, if anyone does accidentally unmute themselves, then if they make any noise, the camera in the video call will shift over to them. So if you pin your video, it will just show you, which [00:14:00] is handy because screens are small and you do want to make sure that you're not being beheaded in any of your exercises, right?
Another thing you can do is try to record your classes, if at all possible. You will learn a lot about yourself and how you cue if you record your classes and watch them back. Is it awkward? Definitely it is, but it doesn't have to be because you can learn from what you're doing, not just the things you're doing that are weird, but also the things you're doing that are amazing.
So be brave and watch yourself and I think that you'll really learn a lot from what you're doing.
Another thing that's handy is before the meeting starts, if you have the ability to turn on the video preview. If you're teaching for your studio, you may not have access to all of the settings for the Zoom meeting, but if you do have access to those settings, turning on the video preview will allow you to see what your space looks like before you go live into the meeting room so you can like lie down and make sure that like your entire mat's there and that when you stand up that your head is still [00:15:00] attached to your body. Very useful.
It's not really something that you do in zoom, but it is something that is useful is if I think that someone might be un-muted, I'll say a cue and then I'll have a couple second pause afterwards and see if I hear any rustling. And if I do, then you can jump up really quickly, manage participants, mute all, and then you don't have to like try to figure out who is making the noise. You just mute everyone again and then keep going. And that kind of minimizes the distraction.
All right, so what you came for, how do you teach an amazing virtual mat class? I am here to tell you.
I think the most important thing about teaching mat classes online is you want them to be accessible to anyone.
You want your parents or your siblings or your neighbor from three houses ago, who's your friend on Facebook to be able to tune into your class and take the class.
And one of the best ways to make it accessible is don't make your class super prop heavy unless the class specifically says, this is a class [00:16:00] that we use a prop. Like I teach a foam roller mat class. You're going to use a foam roller in that class. But when I'm just teaching Mat Flow, I might have a prop, but I always want to make sure that every exercise I do with the prop I can do without the prop so that everyone can take the class and we can keep moving and grooving. Very important to offer options both with and without the prop because you're a Pilates teacher.
I know if you're anything like me, you've got seven mats, you've got eight straps, you've got TheraBands and TheraBand loops, and you've got stability balls and little balls and just like tons of props to play with. Not everyone has them, so try to plan accordingly.
You want to offer progressions in absolutely every single exercise. You always want to start at a foundational level and then build, unless again, you're teaching an advanced class that says right up front, Hey, this is an advanced class. You want people to be able to try things for themselves, and if you just throw people into the deep end, it's, it's easier to say, no, I don't [00:17:00] think I'm going to keep going than it is to, tone it back from where you were.
So always start at a foundational level and then. I've talked about this a lot in sort of teaching language as well, that you want to be really positive in how you're framing it. You don't want to usually be like, this is the level one, this is level two because everyone wants to do the level two exercise.
So I always start with an exercise. I never even say that it's level one or that it's foundational. I'm like this is what we're doing, it's bridging, that's what we're doing. And then if that feels good in your body, you might lift your arms towards the ceiling. Now you have a narrower base of support. If that feels good and you're feeling strong, you know, bring your right leg into tabletop.
You want to build from one place instead of starting in crazy land. But also make sure that you're offering challenge safely. Try to reaffirm in your classes that you know, it's always up to the individual what's feeling good in their body. You don't want to ever shame someone. I mean, I [00:18:00] know you wouldn't do that, but you don't want to shame people for staying with the foundational exercise.
Instead, you know, focus on the benefits of what they're doing. Wow. You're creating so much strength and you're stabilizing. Stay there. You're doing great work. If you want a little more challenge, or I'll say like if you have a little more gas in the tank, then you can try this other option, but you always want to frame that really positively.
Another thing you want to do is be as comfortable as you can while you're teaching. Even if you are, again, faking it until you make it, that is totally fine. It's only awkward if you say it's awkward. So if you make a mistake, it's only uncomfortable if you say that it's uncomfortable. Just keep going forward as smoothly as you can so that we're focusing on the positive.
Again, like I said, what you're really doing is amazing and you're offering an incredible service to people and you should be applauded. So if there's some glitches and technical difficulties, just make sure that you keep moving forward.
I will say because we [00:19:00] are relying on the internet to teach these video classes. If you're having issues like the video lagging or that sound is cutting in and out, one thing that you can do is if you can quickly log out of zoom and then like log back in. That's like worst case scenario if it's not working. Sometimes the video pauses and I just keep going and if I notice that it froze, you know, I'll keep talking through it.
When I see that I am moving again, then I'll kind of reiterate what I just said, but no one's going to hold this against you. We're all navigating this new terrain, and I think that we have the capability to really make these classes amazing and like I said, really contribute to mental and physical wellbeing of the people in our communities and in our world.
Those are my tips and tricks for all things teaching and amazing virtual mat class for Pilates. I hope that these were some helpful things. If they were, definitely share, share them with your teacher friends. Reach out to the other [00:20:00] teachers at your studios and have conversations about this. And if you have better ideas, please share them with me because we all grow together and we all do better together.
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. You can reach out to me on Instagram @pilatesteachersmanual, or send me an email to pilatesteachersmanual@oliviabioni.com. The adventure continues. Until next time.