Written by @loretosocorro
In Vecindario there is a place where small miracles happen based on perseverance and with the support of a shy but very restless and hard-working woman. The site is called “Pilates Studio By Estefanía”.
Is this studio a dream come true?
I was working as a hotel assistant manager until they fired me, before the pandemic, and I had to reinvent myself.
Why with a pilates studio?
I really wanted to, really; He had been practicing Pilates for eight or nine years because of back problems. I have had chronic pain since I was twelve years old and doing Pilates changed my quality of life. When I saw the opportunity, I said to myself: "I always wanted to do the other thing!"
When did you know about pilates?
Twenty-six years old and while working in a hotel in the south where there was a pilates studio. I used to do rhythmic gymnastics and I thought that was just relaxing - something I'm bad at. I thought "No way! With all the sport I've done in my life, I'm going to start stretching…!Error!! Well, it turned out that my visits to the physio were continuous due to the lumbar crises that prevented me, with less than thirty years of age. My own physio and friend told me that I should either start doing Pilates in a studio with a good professional or prepare myself to have a hard time. I only had two alternatives: put my back strong or suffer. That's how I started.
Did you switch from touring to training easily?
I was a rhythmic gymnastics instructor but I studied Tourism, to earn a living, because I couldn't with sport. When they stopped me I reinvented myself. Now it sounds easy but I was blocked, like I didn't believe it. That was a month before the pandemic. It was clear to me that I wanted to do what I do now but it scared me terribly. I reacted thinking that it was time to train in Pilates and to move until I opened the studio.
Estefanía trained conscientiously by attending seminars, with a Master's Degree in Biomechanics and Xtensal Anatomy, among other courses. She is committed to continuous training to give the best care to the people who come to her studio.
In the month of June I opened the doors of "Pilates Studio By Estefanía", with four Reformer machines, there is also a Tower, which is another machine. I opened with few students and growing step by step.
Are machines used to do Pilates?
There are machine and floor pilates. Machine Pilates was invented by Mr. Pilates about a hundred years ago and is a system that distributes loads evenly. They have pulleys and they have springs. Using one of these machines, people who cannot move on the floor or lie down on it, due to various pathologies or obesity, manage to do their work uniformly and perfectly, thanks to the reformer.
What is a reformer?
It is the name of the machines. There are different reformers and I have one with a tower.
It's a system, like a kind of bed, and it works with different springs and different loads. There is a foot bar for pushing with your feet or hands and you can work through all planes of motion.
For whom is Pilates indicated?
For everyone. I have people who do crossfit and also people who have serious spinal operations. Pilates is based on the comprehensive improvement of health through uniform muscle development. You don't just work on doing arms or legs or back, but the whole body and, in addition, it is done through breathing.
Does lung capacity also work?
It is important, but above all it is to promote movement through breathing. When we do a push-up, that makes it easier to exhale, when you stretch out it favors inhaling.
Work with the breath at the same time as with the movements?
Of course, what happens is that when we start -as with everything- and we consider that we are going to breathe consciously, people go from not breathing, from not even seeing how their chests move, to getting dizzy. And it is that we lead such a brutal pace of life, so fast that... look at the day to day, how many things do you do while holding your breath?
What is conscious breathing?
Stand up, nothing, two minutes, at the beginning of the class. Nor are you going to learn to breathe like Mr. Pilates, with three-dimensional breathing, which is filling the chest with air, taking it to the sides and back... he said it was like an internal shower. According to Pilates, oxygen purifies you every day. Breathing, we all know, now that breathing with awareness and accompanying the movement is another level. At first no one is going to move to the rhythm of your breathing, the important thing is that you move, but little by little you realize that you are integrating the two things.
Can you explain something more about that muscular development that Pilates promotes?
Work the deep muscles more than the superficial ones: those little muscles that are forgotten and that are the ones that protect the spine.
Estefanía speaks with passion and conveys her desire for other people to know as much about this discipline as she does. She explains to us that she has always played sports and that discovering Pilates was a before and after in her life.
As a result, I began to control my posture, to be a little more careful and to know where I am and where my body is located. It seems silly but there are people who are very uncoordinated, who don't know where their right foot or left foot is.
Is coordination working with pilates?
Coordination, alignment, correct posture... When Mr. Pilates invented the method, he did it for athletes and artists who walked upright walking down the street. Almost a hundred years later we are all backwards: flexed. What you have to do is distribute the loads and put strong people in your column and in everything. The method has also been changing.
How?
Pilates used to be called contrology. Everyone who is certified starts from the same point and there are currently different schools: some more classical and others more contemporary. What interests me, because it helped me, is everything that is focused on biomechanics and anatomy.
My school is called Xtensal.
Where have you been trained?
My teacher is called Isaac Fernández, from Malaga, internationally recognized. Every time he puts out a new seminar I sign up. I have just come from one on pain that I plan to apply to different pathologies.
Who helped me a lot and encouraged me and made me able to do the practices with her to the fullest, is a Pilates teacher named Laura Izquierdo and she has a Pilates studio in Sonneland.
How were those practices with Laura Izquierdo?
Apart from the continuous encouragement, while she taught in her studio, I would sit on the next machine to train for exams. To this day I still feel the support from her and also from my family.
Laura recommended Isaac Fernández, the Xtensal teacher, and that's how I got into this world professionally.
Could you tell me what biomechanics is, in a simple way?
It is the study of the function and structure of the body in relation to movement. Why we move and how that movement affects the body. Each person moves differently and you have to adapt. That is what I find super interesting that each person is different and that you have to accommodate, progress and advance depending on the physical condition of each one.
I see you work with small groups
I have small groups with four reformers and I make my groups based on that as well. Aside from the machines, these small groups allow me to offer custom classes and make individual modifications quite easily. What I want is for each person to take away the same thing that I have taken away: "they have seen me, they have taken care of me, they are correcting me and they are watching to see if I am doing the technique well or not" That the person leaves with the feeling that he has done, everything he has done, well.
Pilates doesn't end when the class ends but you take it with you to your daily life?
In my case, yes, because my quality of life has changed when practicing it and also when giving it.
Does anyone who practices Pilates change their gait? Do you notice on the street if someone needs Pilates?
I always have a clinical eye and I see someone who walks crookedly, someone limping and I imagine the pain, operations... Maybe it's not true, huh?, but I think about it. Because of people's posture I think: "I would do this to him... look at that one has something very pronounced" and I realize it because I'm there all day, I've studied it and I work on it.
How do you value people when they ask you for help in your study?
The first time I interview them about what they have and it can happen if they have any pathology...-"my lumbar hurts..."- it may happen that the problem is not the lumbar itself, but when analyzing it, it turns out that they come from the wrong cervical and everything is related.
For what ages do you recommend Pilates?
In my studio the youngest is sixteen years old, a young woman who does sports and it suits her very well because it helps her control her body and later I have people who reach seventy-something. People with all possible pathologies: plaques in columns, brutal scoliosis...
When Pilates created the method, was it for people with back problems?
No, I create it for athletes. But it is true that people have this confusion that, well, Pilates is to stretch a little, relax... In reality, classic Pilates arose for strong people, only everything has progressed. The strange thing these days is that someone who doesn't have something doesn't come to me: if it's not the neck, it's lower back, if it's not lower back, it's knee or ankle... as I say "Between the four of us who are lying down and me, we don't make a whole one"
Does pilates open a door for people who cannot practice any sport?
There are people who give a diagnosis and label themselves... "I have a hernia, I can't" and I say: What can't you, how far can't you? People with hernia, if they let themselves be advised by a professional and want a change, should not wait for their back pain to go away lying on the sofa. There is nothing worse than standing still.
Estefanía, in practice, what was the process of going from the project to having the studio open?
That part was complicated - it still is - because I had many doubts. I had the support of Laura, of Isaac with the machinery, of friends that I made in the training in Malaga and of the whole family. In fact, for the search of the premises -it cost me a lot-, both my natural family and the politician were very involved. everyone helped -the dog barks as if supporting Estefanía's statement – It is a small but super nice place, I have a wonderful landlord and more wonderful neighbors.
The machinery is very expensive and, in the end, I put all my savings, with that uncertainty of “what if this doesn't work?” I learned many things at once.
What would your life have been like if you had started practicing Pilates at the age of sixteen?
Very different, it would have saved me a lot of back pain and headaches and many crises.
The truth, I also tell you, that I would have been bored as a teenager because you have to have so much control that... I remember it was like... "¿seriously i have to put up with it three seconds with this posture that is burning my liver from what hurts me…? » It's learning that discipline too.
Those who practice in your studio understand it out of necessity, right?
Most of the people who come to me understand it and abide by it because they come with problems. The truth is that in a few sessions the change is noticeable if you train. You notice it in your body and you realize the positions you adopt, if you have sat down badly... People with atrocious backs who commit themselves and train well, after three months -not because of me, because of the method- I already They say their backs don't hurt. That is my goal: that just as it helped me, that it helps other people and if I earn a living on top of that, great.
How should we go through life stretched or flexed?
The spine has to stretch and it has to extend, it also has to flex laterally and it has to rotate. It is made for that. The problem is not that you flex, but that you flex badly. So, it is better that you be strong for day to day, where you bend down to pick things up - we bend down to the block - and you have to extend and you have to flex. Also, you have to distribute the loads correctly.
What projects are the ones that keep you excited?
See how the year progresses and how people are responding. Grow little by little, by word of mouth and continue looking for new formations with Xtensal. I want to stay active and as Mr. Pilates said: ”When you dedicate yourself to playing with people's health, what less than devoting all the time possible to studying and researching pathologies”.
I invite people to move. Pilates had a phrase -it was very poetic- that said that "Change occurs through movement and movement heals". Hernias will not be cured by moving, but movement is the key to improvement. We are not made to always sit down. The most brutal pandemic is sedentary lifestyle. Pilates is a good method to start in the sport. As long as you have a body that allows you to move, move it, it shows on a day-to-day basis.
