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Ever wondered what a Pilates Reformer class looks like? Here are a few shots from yesterday’s photoshoot at Zen Tai Studio with my gorgeous students/models Julie and PauL!
Join me every Monday at 11am at Zen Tai Studio for a 75 minute Pilates Reformer class that includes some off-the-machine work with the foam roller, Swiss ball and Magic Circle.
5165 Queen Mary Rd Suite 511, next to Snowdon metro, parking available behind the building. Classes are taught in English and French. 192$ for a package of 6 classes.
Call 514-507-5990 to reserve your spot, maximum people in the class is 5, and you can join us anytime!
Start 2012 in great shape! Join us for a weekend of exercise, fresh air, and tranquility.
*** Register at info@nfbody.com before February 9th 2012 and get a $50 rebate ***
More than 15 hours of workouts await you in the beautiful region of Mont Orford. Second generation Pilates Master, Natalie Fitzpatrick, offers you the best in Pilates and Yamuna Body Rolling to regain strength and flexibility in your body. Plus, afternoon snowshoe and hiking excursions will make you burn those calories and get a healthy dose of winter sunshine!
Proposed activities:
- Detoxifying breathing
- Toning Pilates with flex-band
- Toning Pilates with ball
- Pilates-yoga-stretch fusion
- Yamuna Body Rolling for the feet and leg lengthening
- Yamuna Body Rolling to free your ribcage and neck
- Yamuna Body Rolling to free your hips and spine
- Snowshoeing
- Classes will be taught in a room surrounded by windows over looking the forest!
$375 per person with double occupancy including two nights at the luxurious Auberge 4 Saisons (Friday and Saturday)
$250 per person if you find your own lodging
$50 off when you register before February 9th!!!
Auberge 4 Saisons
4940 Chemin du Parc
J1X 7N9
Orford, Québec
Only 90 minutes from Montreal!
As an avid practitioner of foot fitness and lover of all sorts of fancy or funky footwear, I dig anything to do with feet. If you haven’t made your way into one of my foot focus workshops yet, or are unsure why you should pay any attention to your feet, check out this recent news broadcast from NYC, birthplace of Yamuna Foot Fitness and quintessential walking city.
Festival Mode & Design de Montréal
On August 3rd, the Montreal Fashion & Design Festival will highlight the launch with it’s very first high heel race. Crazy do you say? Yes of course! But it’s to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society, therefore at least it’s for a good cause. I thought I would mention this because I am so obsessed with strong, healthy feet, foot fitness… and pretty shoes!
So I’ve decided to teach another Love Your Stilettos workshop. Whether you intend on participating in this risquée race, enjoy wearing heels in your own time, or want to free up tensions in your feet, calves and lower back, mark your agendas! The workshop will be held at:
Love Your Stilettos!
Centre Kinesphère, 1565 Mont-Royal E (corner Fabre)
Saturday August 20th 2011, 4:30 – 6:30 pm
If you are interested in participating in the fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society, click HERE!
Following a recent fitting at Lululemon on St-Denis as part of the research and development team, here is my favourite top out of the dozens I tried. It is called the Power Dance Tank, and I it’s my fave for the following reasons:
- Ample room around the bust, perfect for women like myself who have broad backs and strong arms
- Very supportive built-in bra that does not cut into the ribs, allowing for comfortable and expansive thoracic breathing
- The body of the tank is so light and breatheable, you won’t feel like you’re wearing anything at all. So if you sweat a lot in your workout, you won’t feel sticky
- Drawstring around the base of the shirt, allowing for a more form fitting top so that your teacher/trainer can have a better look at your body and correct your alignment during training
- When the drawstring is released, the top has a beautiful flow to it that is clean and classy for teaching
Last year I had the pleasure of teaching a Yamuna Foot Fitness workshop to the designers at Merrell Footwear. We also discussed some of the common body ailments that occur as a result of walking on hard flat surfaces (like concrete and asphalt) while wearing stiff and inadequately padded shoes.
Enter the Pace Glove (the male version of this shoe is Merrell’s Trail Glove). It makes you feel as though you are barefoot, yet is designed in a way to protect your body against the impact of walking or running on a hard surface.
The shoe’s best features:
The heel is super well padded, makes you feel like you’re walking on a cloud
The shoe is extremely light (4.7 oz per shoe)
Ample room for the toes to articulate in proper walking technique
Adequate arch support that does not lock your foot in one position
Vegan friendly footwear
Comes in 9 awesome colours.
My review:
So after multiple long walks, I have to say that this is the first shoe that I would absolutely recommend to all of my clients. I can actually feel that my feet had an amazing workout the day after a long walk with the Pace Glove – being a foot fitness fanatic this is very exciting for me! A lot of people come to me with foot issues and I teach them how to release tense muscles, realign bones, and walk properly using all the parts of the foot. This shoe is the answer to my recommendations: enough support to keep the foot and ankle in proper alignment, with ample room for your feet to actually work at getting you around. Keep in mind that the 26 bones in the foot SHOULD MOVE!!!!! If your feet were not meant to be articulate, there wouldn’t be that many bones in them!
As I am a super speedy walker and not a runner, I can not give a runner’s review on this shoe. Read this review regarding barefoot running.
Oh, and as a bonus, Merrell created an iPhone App called Go Barefoot that helps you improve your barefoot running. Go figure, it may inspire me to do some low impact running!
Ok so you all know that I’m a foot fanatic, as much about wearing fun shoes as I am about keeping them strong, flexible and healthy!
So here it is, as promised, a workshop on how to properly wear high heel shoes and make your feet strong enough for the task. You will also learn how to take care of your feet before and after wearing high heels to limit the damage these can cause.
Learn to improve/prevent:
Bunions
Neuromas
Tight calves
Stiff lower back
So come with friends and learn how to strut your stuff with grace!
Saturday June 4, 2011, 4:30 to 6:30 pm
Centre Kinesphère, 1565 Mont-Royal E (Coin Fabre) Montréal, QC
55$ – receipts available
Email info@nfbody.com to register, see you soon!
A letter from my teacher, Lolita San Miguel, regarding this International Conference and Memorial Plaque Honouring Joseph H. Pilates:
Joseph Pilates 1880-1967
A man, born in Monchengladbach, Germany on December 9, 1880, after an immensely productive life filled with many inventions, a life dedicated to finding ways of making the human body function better, died in New York City on October 9, 1967, penniless, and without having received the recognition due him.
That man’s name was Joseph Hubertus Pilates. I was his student.
In 2009 I visited the city of his birth and discovered that except for a handful of people, no one in Monchengladbach knew who Joseph Pilates was. Right then and there I made it my mission that this would change. I am happy to tell you that we have been given the opportunity to place a Memorial Plaque where now stands an empty space with a linden tree, the exact location where once stood the house where he was born.
The Plaque will honor Joseph Pilates, the genius who has revolutionized and influenced the entire world through his Pilates Method of Body Conditioning.
Our intention is to unveil this Plaque on May 7, 2011, Pilates Day.
Surrounding the celebration we will also have a Conference of Pilates Teachers from Friday May 6 to Sunday May 8 featuring internationally known presenters covering Mat, Reformer, Chair, Cadillac, Arcs and Barrels and workshops on Fibromyalgia, Osteoporosis, Scoliosis, the Pelvic Floor, Lypodistrophy, MS, racquet and other sports, and other topics. The Conference will be held at the beautiful Haus Der Erholung in Monchengladbach.
- Lolita San Miguel
Ok so here is the scenario: I’m biking home from teaching an anatomy course, and close to home I see a girl waiting to cross the street. I notice she is wearing super cute platform booties, the kind of thing I notice because I love shoes just as much as the next girl. However when she puts her foot down into the road and starts crossing the street I almost fall off my bike because she, like so many girls out there, DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO WALK IN HEELS!! Her knees were bending at weird angles, her shoulders and head slumped forward, and her feet struck the ground in large loud clumps. Moral of this short story: No matter how gorgeous your shoes are, and no matter how great you look in them when you are standing looking in the mirror, if you can’t MOVE in them, you look bad. Period. It’s a major turn-off. Most guys will agree with me on this, and quite frankly a lot of guys don’t really care or even notice if you wear heels or not. So in order to impress the boys out there, and myself who happens to specialize in foot fitness, I think a little high heel education is in order.
First of all I must say that wearing high heels is not healthy. Here are some of the negative side effects:
- Compressing the toes together trapping the nerves
- Developing bunions
- Damaging the knees as the body weight is shifted forward
- Tightening of the calf muscles and stiffening of the Achilles tendon
- Forward tilting of the pelvis. Yeah it makes your butt look great, but it compresses and tightens you lower back
This being said, it is still nice to dress up and put on a pair of heels since they can make you feel tall and sexy, and thankfully there are ways to minimize the damage done to the body.
Here are a few tips on how to minimize the impact of wearing high heels and look sexy doing so!
- A shoe is considered a high heel when the heel is above 2 inches. The higher the heel, the greater the damage done to the body, so lower is better.
- Tighten your kegel muscles and pull your lower abdominal muscles in as you walk, as this will help protect your back (and flatten your tummy).
- Try to place your foot on the ground as lightly as possible to avoid a lot of banging in the toe joints… Think of Cinderella and her glass slipper!!!
- Find a shoe with a thicker heel, as it will give your ankle more stability. Wedges with a large toe box are the best.
- When you are standing, let your weight rest backwards onto your heels to relieve some pressure from the bases of the toes. Also regularly flex your feet back to give your calves and Achilles tendons a stretch so they are not constantly in a shortened and contracted position.
- If you wear your heels at work, take them off when you are at your desk to give your feet a break and wiggle your toes.
These tips are all quite basic but can still help. However there is a lot more that can be done for foot health, high heels or not. I try to teach foot fitness workshops regularly to break down everyday wear and tear, as our feet need a regular tune-up. Stay tuned for my first ever workshop specifically for people who wear high heels!
Some stats on high heels:
In a Gallup Poll, 37 percent of the women surveyed said they would continue to wear high heels, even though they did not think them comfortable.
Women account for about 90% of the nearly 800,000 operations each year for bunions, hammertoes (a permanent deformity of the toe joint in which the toe bends up slightly and then curls downward, resting on its tip), and trapped nerves, and most of these surgeries can be linked back to their high-heeled shoe choice.
