Body of Work: One Mat Among Many

The set up for a Pilates class in Playa del Carmen on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

Years ago, in barre and TRX classes, being in a group exercise class meant constantly measuring myself against everyone else – how high I lifted my heels, how many reps I completed, how “together” I looked. This time, in my first group Pilates class, I wasn’t there to prove anything. I was choosing to learn in community and hoping to leave feeling more confident and more at ease in my Pilates and in my body than when I began.

For a long time now, I have been exercising alone: neighborhood walks with my AirPods and occasional strength training in my living room. During Covid, I experienced a free Pilates demonstration and got hooked. Since then, my Pilates practice has been me and my trainer in suburban Maryland. My trainer knows my history, my injuries, my tendency to push when I should pause, my habit of saying “I can’t” even when she knows I can. She recognizes that my left calf is about to cramp before I say a word. With her, I never have to explain; she already knows the backstory. Group class is something else: it asks me to bring my body’s history and my mind’s self‑talk to a single mat among many.

The evolving me set up directly in front of the teacher. I wanted to learn, not hide. Just as the class began, I noticed the old script show up: keep up, don’t draw attention, try not to look like the weak one.

We started by warming up our cores, and then moved to leg work. Along the way, the instructor offered options: use a ball if your neck needs support, choose a smaller range of motion if you’re wobbling, drop the band if using it is too much. In the past, I heard possible modifications as little flashing signs that I shouldn’t need them. I worried that if I took the “easier path,” I’d be crying uncle and confirming the story that I couldn’t keep up. I remember forcing my way through classes like that – winded, determined, and embarrassed at the thought of falling behind.

This time, something in me felt different – and not just my middle‑aged body.

As we moved through the sequence, I still noticed other bodies: the older woman whose teaser was effortless, the man whose plank was rock‑steady, the thirty‑something who never seemed to shake. But I also noticed my own body in a new way. I am certainly wider and a bit slower these days. My right shoulder has a limited range of motion, and my hamstrings speak up sooner than they used to. And yet I wasn’t nearly as self‑conscious. I cared more about whether my abdominals were supporting my low back than whether I was the oldest or the jiggliest or the slowest of the group.

Breaking the pattern looked like accepting modifications as part of my practice, not as proof of failure.

In this class, people took breaks. They shook out their legs. They laughed when they lost balance and then tried again. No one seemed to be auditioning; learning together, I’m realizing, is different from performing together. The energy among the participants felt less like a competition and more like shared effort: a group of people, each with their own story and their own knees and backs and shoulders, choosing to move in the same direction for a little while – no gold star to earn, no prize to take home. I just had to bring my full, honest self to the mat.

This Pilates class – held on the Yucatán coast, far from my usual suburban Maryland routine – felt like good practice for midlife: holding the truth of who I’ve been, who I am now, and what I need next – all at once, in public.

As I think about this season and this recent “milestone” birthday, a few questions echo from the mat:

• Where am I ready to learn with others instead of insisting it’s best to grow on my own?

• What would it look like to trust my body’s wisdom, even when the group is moving at a different pace?

• What patterns of proving and performing am I finally ready to release?

  
  

This series of classes wasn’t about becoming sleeker or quicker for me. They were about practicing a different sort of strength: less about keeping up and more about showing up honestly — in front of others and for myself.

If you facilitate learning, where do you notice this tension between performing together and learning together? In the spaces you lead, how are you signaling that “modifications” are part of the practice, not evidence of failure?