Baby Boomers and Pilates
I am a baby boomer, and I am proud of it. I was born in July, 1953 in Los Angeles, Calif. And will be 58 this year. How did that happen? We have NO control over when we are born, and unless you have a secret the rest of the world does not know about no one is exempt from getting older. In fact, it is a privledge to age. Consider the alternative: When someone passes on at an “early age”, we cry about how sad it is they left us so young. And yet, the day before we may have been critisizing the lines on his forehead, or the muffin top above her waist. We complain about it, obsess about it, hate it, fight it, get depressed about it, but at the end of the day it is going to happen whether we like it or not. It’s not like Jane Smith will stay her age forever, or Joe Blow grows younger each year, and you are singled out by the Universe to be one of the few to grow old and die. All that being said, what does being a baby boomer have to do with Pilates?
As the largest population group in history, it has a lot. The United States Census Bureau considers a baby boomer to be someone born during the demographic birth boom between 1946 and 1964. I am amused when people talk about the effect boomers have on the economy. Well, in 2011 the economy IS the boomers! There are 75 million of us: we ARE the economy. That is a statistical reality. What are we spending our money on? Us! Our health, youth, staying young with whatever that takes. Whatever is being sold, we are buying it.
Why are baby boomers gravitating toward Pilates? Simple; it keeps you young. And we baby boomers are determined to staying young.
“You are as old as your spine is flexible.” The number one complaint among boomers is feeling stiff, all the time! . They wake up stiff, and go to bed stiff. Computers, work, and life in general is stressful and their bodies take the punishment. Plus, the amount of years of physical pounding, old aerobics, running, or just plain being a couch potato has taken their toll. We thought it would never happen to us. And guess what? It did and is.
In Pilates, we strive for a spine that is flexible, articulate, and strong. No matter your age or abilities, a spine that can bend forward, backward, side to side and rotate, is a young spine. And we can keep it young into our 90’s and beyond. To articulate the space between the vertrebra is the best way to stay healthy, pain free, and flexible. We must keep the spine loose and lengthened. Hence the mantra “one vertebre at a time” we use to cue as we do roll downs. We must imagine our spine long and lean, like a beautiful string of opulent pearls. This allows all the nerves to freely flow throughout the canals. We keep the musculature in proper alignment with our skeletal system so the nerve ends do not compress into the muscles. We breathe deeply and fully to allow oxygen to freely flow though out the body, and facilitate the movement. We are so used to using just the front of our bodies, the back rarely moves into extention.
Constant use of computers keeps our shoulders rounded and the spine constantly flexed. It’s as if you are one dimensional instead of three.
I remember as a young teenager only tanning the front side of my body because I had no awareness of my back!! As we age, ignorance of our back side kicks us on the butt, so to speak, and we experience stiffness and pain throughout our bodies.
As boomers, our goal is not to be on the cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine, or have the hottest body on the beach. We want comfort, to look and feel good, and have the feelings we experienced back in the 60s and 70’s when the world was our oyster. Good news ,it still is!. Only now we are older and wiser! We appreciate all that we have worked so hard for, and we are not going to let our bodies be the last to enjoy what life has to offer.
Life for us Baby Boomers, is just beginning.
