I’m finding muscles I never knew I had

Being a beginner at Pilates feels like standing under a faulty light bulb: flickers of clarity followed by darkness, as dormant muscles, particularly in my torso, switch on and off intermittently. After years of trying to ignore the precise and patient exercise system (also known as “Contrology”) developed by Joseph Pilates during the First WorldWar, I’ve finally begun the undulating journey towards finding that connection. It starts with some private sessions with the leading classical Pilates instructor Holly Murray at her Pi Pilates studio in Battersea, south-west London. During our first session I am introduced to many of my smaller stabiliser muscles and, in turn, introduce them to the more dominant muscles that are usually overworked. These are your friends and the idea is that if you learn to use them, you’ll feel more able to handle whatever life throws at you. At the same time I’m made aware that not all forms of Pilates are the same. “All Pilates comes with a good intention,” says Murray, as she moves my legs into what she calls the “midline”, so that my feet fall below my hips. “But the classical teacher or studio believes the best, and most effective results, are achieved in simply teaching the exercises in the order Joseph deemed most successful, and utilising all the apparatus he developed over his lifetime.” Nodding, I try to do as I’m told: visualise my lower stomach muscles pulling in and up, rather than simply tensing them with gritted teeth, and internally rotating my thighs. Murray says that I have developed excessive external rotation (I naturally have a wide stance, with a slight turnout in my feet). She speaks as if she has seen this problem a thousand times before in both men and women,