The Quality of Muse
Do you want your movement experience to be like a home cooked meal or a take out sandwich?
There is no doubt about it: Pilates is hot right now! Specifically, reformer Pilates. It’s finally having its well deserved moment in the spotlight with reformer studios popping up all over Toronto Town in the vogue of cities like LA, London, Melbourne and New York where there is a studio on every block.
It’s so great to have choices - what’s lovely about Pilates is that there are so many different methods so that people have options to decide the one that is right for them. As you know here at Muse we don’t believe in dogma or sticking to a specific repertoire, we love creativity in movement and incorporating the latest movement science and even other modalities into our teachings.
At the end of the day we just want the world to be doing a form of Pilates (or movement) that works for them because we believe movement is healing and we all need a bit of that.
However, there are some trends we are seeing that give us pause.
We see words on websites, Instagram and hear them spoken, like:
“Get better posture.”
“Lengthen and tone your muscles.”
As a studio committed to science, diversity and inclusivity and; an ally and participant in the fight to change the damaging messages of the Pilates industry we find these kinds of messages really problematic and frankly, misleading and incorrect.
We wonder, “What is better posture?”.
Who defines what good posture is?
To us this is a dangerous and arbitrary statement that only serves to perpetuate an impossible standard of beauty. Our lives imprint themselves onto our bodies which creates our posture. Our bodies are constantly attempting to compensate for imbalance because of an injury, a way you sit, a traumatic experience and so on and so on.
This system of postural compensation is actually beautiful. To us it is stunning what the body can do. You have an injury on your right leg, your left leg will kindly take over. The only issue is sometimes it goes too far, doesn’t know when to stop which causes some “postural imbalance.”
What we do with Pilates is help you work on those imbalances in movement so as not to create strain or stress and to help you feel better on and off the machine.
So whose posture is better? We all have different lives and different bodies and this is to be celebrated not tried to fix or be defined narrowly.
Sorry to burst any bubbles, but folks your muscles don’t lengthen, just like you can’t actually get taller from Pilates.
Personally my height changed a quarter of an inch when I became a regular practitioner of Pilates. Wanna know why?
I became connected to my body which made me feel empowered so I stood my full height. That's it.
In Pilates we use a lot of eccentric contractions which is essentially working musculature in a lengthened position as opposed to a shortened one. This is the most successful way to build strength, however, it does not and will not ‘lengthen’ your muscles.
To be told you will achieve long, lean musculature is a gimmick.
In full transparency, there was a time when we did that as well, that is the systemic messaging we were given and followed. We are more sophisticated than that now and want to empower our students with the truth rather than false and regurgitated messages.
Another issue we are seeing is the devaluation of the practice and the lack of quality.
And, non-Canadian owned spaces sometimes run by investors as opposed to passionate teachers. We see classes taught on TV screens, with a barely paid teacher walking around the room supervising.
Teacher Trainings that are done on one weekend with a lot of false information disseminated. Really large classes, rooms jam packed with machines so that the instructor can’t see everything happening in the room. Unlimited memberships and unsustainable pricing options.
We have heard horror stories of the pay being offered to teachers too. It is important for us at Muse to pay our teachers, not only fairly, but well. They bring skill and heart to the quality work they provide.
Being a professional Pilates teacher is not just showing up for a class for fifty minutes. It also involves hours of prep every week outside of the classroom. It involves constant commitment (and budget) to continuing education, to growth as a human, to showing up and holding space for people so they have a better day - despite all the turmoil in your own life.
We know that Pilates - especially reformer Pilates - can be really expensive.
We completely understand that it can be quite restrictive and unrealistic for a lot of folks and we really wish it didn’t have to be this way and are always trying to think of ways in which we can make it more accessible while weighing the realities of the cost of doing this particular business.
We want to keep our classes small, our teachers well compensated and our quality high. And, at the end of the day, our goal is that everyone has a practice that works for them: bod, schedule and budget.
What you get at Muse (whose prices are industry standard - or were industry standard before big box Pilates began to creep into Toronto) is an investment in yourself and a choice of Quality over Quantity. You get a commitment to choose a business that is aligned with how you want to be in the world.
Our pricing also affords Muse the opportunity to provide community and sliding scale offerings and wholeheartedly commit to our goal of trying to see a diversity of bodies and lived experiences in our community and the Pilates world at large.
It doesn't matter how low the pricing is in a studio, if it's not a safe space it's not accessible.
Here is what you invest in at Muse Movement:
A warm welcoming community committed to inclusivity.
A local, Canadian and female-owned and operated business.
Teachers, not instructors, for whom this is their life long passion and profession, who care deeply about the work they do and the humans they do it with.
Skilled, experienced professionals who get paid well because they put everything into their work emotionally and physically; not to mention the thousands upon thousands of dollars they have and continue to spend on continuing education to be the best that they can be.
An owner and management team who gets on calls with you to give you advice, get you in the classes that are right for you and support you however you need.
Time spent after class to connect with you and encourage you.
A commitment to supporting you on your journey of empowerment.
A beautiful and unique space in a building run by an organization whose mission is to support artists and the arts.
Kick ass curated playlists.
A teacher training that is Toronto’s most comprehensive. We teach way more than the exercises - we create clever, practiced and thoughtful teachers who know how to hold space for YOU.
A small classroom where we can see everything happening in the room.
Methodical class design and sequencing; attention to detail and attention to each and every one of our students.
A staff that learns with each other in studio and in other workshops.
A clear value system that we all work on every day individually as a team and as a business.
Pro-bono offerings
Community offerings and sliding scale pricing to try to make the practice - with quality - accessible to more folks.
We would love to hear from you why you choose to come to Muse or other studios in the city that are committed to quality. Obviously we want you to choose to move with us and that's what we will tell you, but we also want you to hear it from a member of our community as well.
Below one of your fellow students tells us about the experience she had with a big box space and why she continues to stick with Muse.
Xoxo
- Keri O
“I’ve been practicing Pilates for over 15 years. I am a certified instructor in both classical and contemporary methods and have practiced in dozens of studios around North America and Europe. Pilates has given me great awareness of my body, how it is aging and changing, what I can expect from it in daily life and activities. I often refer to it as my form of meditation because I am able to calm my mind through movement, something I find nearly impossible otherwise. I know this is commitment for life, so the quality of teaching & experience matters.
In 2017, I found Muse and it has been my go to studio in Toronto. I have many reasons: one is community; the second is the beautiful space where I love to workout; the third & most important are the teachers. Muse teachers are knowledgeable, funny, attentive to each student’s abilities and needs, and they care about the experience I have.
I recently tried a new studio in the neighborhood and wanted to share my observations. I started by going through their website to understand their business model. I quickly learned that they hired instructors who have no Pilates training. This was surprising, but after the first class I quickly understood how their model differed from what I’m used to. The class was effectively taught onscreen, with the instructor there to verbalize the videos. (They also offer instructorless classes, where you can simply follow the videos on the reformer on your own). A series of pre-recorded videos are displayed on multiple screens around the room, demonstrating the movements, counting down the time and outlining the muscle group targeted. The sequences are mixed and matched from class to class for variety and to target specific body parts.
The classroom is small and feels a little crowded with a dozen machines. It is cold and faces a main street, no charm to speak of. The music was never to my taste…
The instructors are welcoming and encouraging to a degree but have little to offer in terms of feedback, movement variation and corrections to form. This last point is probably the most important in any group class setting and what distinguishes a teacher from an instructor. A teacher is there to observe, modify, correct and improve my practice. Too often in larger group settings with inexperienced instructors I have observed students doing exercises incorrectly, or beyond their capacity, effectively causing themselves harm. I have observed myself, getting lazy and loosing track of my form or the purpose of the exercise. This is all to say, if there is no feedback, except for ‘the burn’ (which seems to be a selling point of some Pilates oriented gyms like Lagree) how can you be sure you’re getting a workout and not repetitive strain injury.
The 5 workouts I managed to squeeze in to my 10 day trial were not bad, but I did not enjoy them. There was variety as the videos were always assembled with different sequences, but there was no teacher asking how is my body today, what would I like to incorporate into my workout, etc. In summary it felt generic & heartless… like a take out sandwich instead of a home cooked meal. “
- J Z