HOW TO PICK A PILATES TEACHER ACCORDING TO POISON IVY
THE POISON IVY FIELD GUIDE
There are a lot of fitness creators growing wild on the internet. Some are brilliant. Some are weeds with a ring light. And some are selling absolute poison while calling it wellness.
I know plants. I know toxins. I know when something looks pretty and should still not be touched.
Let’s scroll and take a peak…
WE OPEN THE APP.
First reel: someone in a matching set doing twelve exercises at once on equipment that costs more than your rent.
The cue? “Feel the burn.” Again. And again. And again.
Leaflings, fire is not a teaching methodology.
1. DO THEY kmow how to cue The Move?
Anyone can copy an exercise. You can watch someone move their leg and then move your leg. Congratulations. You have successfully evolved beyond a fern.
A teacher should be able to tell you how to originate the move, how to align the body, where you should feel it, where you probably shouldn’t feel it, what commonly goes wrong, and how to change the exercise when your body needs something different.
Yelling “use you core” every six seconds is not Pilates
If they cannot explain the exercise beyond telling you that it should hurt, prune them from the feed. Pilates is the ability to fluidly control ou mob=ement in a fluid matter connection your mind in more harmony to your body- your teachers once is part of that journey
2. CAN THEY make it SIMPLE?
If every exercise looks like Pilates joined Cirque du Soleil after three espresso martinis, ask yourself: Who is this actually for?
Showing off and teaching are two completely different skills. Any fitness junkie or Piates instructor can make an exercise harder. Add a weight. Stand on one leg. Throw in a plank. Put your foot behind your head. Set something on fire. Whatever.
The real skill is taking something complicated and making it understandable. Can she hand it to you on bite size pieces?
A good teacher is so as they plain understand how the exercise works. They can also take the thing you saw online and show you the five boring steps that eventually get you there.
Difficulty is easy. Systemitizing for human brains is hard.
3. DO THEY click bait you with time?
30-Day Transformation. 7-Day Booty Challenge. Get Your Splits in 10 Days. Completely Change Your Body Before Vacation.
Thirty days can absolutely be enough time to build a habit, learn a skill, improve coordination, get stronger, increase some mobility, or simply feel better in your body.
But dramatic physical adaptation takes time. Muscle grows over months and years. Mobility develops through repeated exposure and training. Bodies adapt because you repeatedly give them a reason to adapt.
That is considerably less sexy than GET A NEW ASS in a week
Unfortunately, your glutes do not understand marketing funnels. The boring timeline is usually the real one. Anyone promising otherwise had better have something stronger than a ai generated before-and-after photo and a discount code.
4. ARE THEY PROMISING MIRACLES?
Lose belly fat. Fix your posture. Correct your hormones. Detox your body. Heal your metabolism. Build your butt in a week.
There is an entire greenhouse of bullshit because people desperately want complex problems to have simple solutions.
Bodies are complicated. They adapt differently. One exercise a 28-year-old in spandex gave you on Instagram is probably not the answer.
Until then, keep scrolling.
5. CAN THEY modify AN EXERCISE?
Can they regress an exercise? Can they look at someone struggling and immediately say, “Try this version instead”?
Good coaching builds progressions. A teacher should already have alternatives for when a movement just isn’t moving for your body. A good teacher can make a simple exercise challenging because they understand how the exercise actually wor.ks. Maybe today you need a prop, pad, demonstration, different setup, or just a little grace.
That is not failure. That is programming. Eventually the plant grows toward the light…. but it may take more than jst one night
Fake expertise often runs in only one direction: harder, faster, more..
Difficulty is easy. Breaking movement down for an actual human brain is hard.
6. DO THEY THINK THEIR METHOD IS THE ONLY METHOD?
Massive red flag. Pilates has multiple schools.
Classical, contemporary, athletic, heated, you name it. Strength training has multiple methodologies. From free weights to functional to CrossfFit to Hyrox to HIIT and beyond, theres so many ways to lift… Mobility has multiple approaches. from Yoga to TaiChi and animal flow.
A confident teacher can explain why they teach something a particular way without behaving like anyone who does it differently should be dragged before the Pilates Tribunal. There are a lot of intelligent ways to train a body. Why pretend there can only be one? I am immediately suspicious of instructors whose entire brand is EVERY OTHER TRAINER IS WRONG. Good teachers stay curious. They study. They experiment. They listen to other professionals. They update their opinions when they learn something new.
Sometimes another teacher shows you a better way to explain something you have taught for twenty years.
You know what you do? You steal it. Respectfully.
You pass it on. You dont gatekeep. That is how knowledge works.
7. DO THEY ACTUALLY TEACH THE PERSON IN FRONT OF THEM?
A teacher should be watching you, not performing their choreography at the front of the room while everyone desperately attempts to reproduce it.
Maybe your hip moves differently. Maybe your shoulder needs another setup. Maybe your balance is having an off day. Maybe something simply feels terrible.
A real teacher notices. Because Pilates is not supposed to be COPY ME AND HOPE FOR THE BEST.
You are not a template and you are definitely not the backdrop for their tiktok and reels…
8. CERTIFICATION MATTERS, BUT WHAT KIND?
With the explosion of Pilates has come an explosion of Pilates certifications, and they are not all equivalent.
When I say someone is comprehensively trained, I mean they studied the Pilates system across the major apparatus, not just the Reformer. That typically means Mat, Reformer, Cadillac/Tower, Chair, Barrels and the rest of the studio system, with a substantial in-person component, supervised practice, observation, teaching hours and testing.
That matters because Pilates is a system, not a collection of trendy Reformer exercises.
A short online certification or weekend course is not enough o be accredited by most National Certifying Pilates Organizations. For the comprehensive NCPT credential, the current eligibility standard is a minimum 450-hour comprehensive education covering Mat, Reformer, Trapeze Table/Cadillac, Wunda Chair, Ladder Barrel, Spine Corrector and Magic Circle. The curriculum also includes teaching, modifications, observation/practice teaching, and specified live/in-person components.
Now not every teacher has followed the same educational path. There are different schools, lineages and programs, So if someone is presenting themselves as a Pilates expert, it is completely reasonable to ask:
What was your training? Was it comprehensive? Which apparatus did you study? How much of it was in person?
A certificate tells you somebody completed something. The important question is what they actually had to learn to earn it.
Apprenticeships used to be standard…in the age of the internet and online only courses, this has disappeared. Jessi is one of the few second generation teachers on the west coast and completed 700 hours under Romana Kryzanowska
WE CLOSE THE APP.
Poison Ivy has completed the inspection. We do not buy detox tea. We do not buy miracle transformations. We do not panic about seed oils because somebody discovered cortisol on TikTok last Tuesday. We do not need the most complicated exercise.
We need good teaching. Teaching that makes you stronger. Teaching that meets you where you are. Teaching that gives you somewhere to grow.
Because the goal was never to punish your body into submission.
THE GOAL IS TO nourish it then harvest:)
And if that sounds considerably better than screaming “feel the burn” while you wonder whether your hip socket is trying to leave your body:
