Pilates Work Life Balance!
Balance in life requires equal amounts of rest, play and work. Joseph Pilates
All work and no play makes Claire a dull mummy and teacher!! My lovely clients reap the rewards of my time off with my boys and my boys reap the rewards of my time at work. I love my boys and I love to teach Pilates. I knew when I had my eldest son that for me I needed to find a way to balance being a mummy and helping others through Pilates.
The infamous balance! Its taken me a while but I have realised that there is no full stop! Balance is exactly that, it is something we are constantly working on, not something we will ever achieve and put a full stop after. If you imagine a set of old fashioned scales when you pour something in one side you need to take a little out the other and so it goes on. One child starts a club one finishes a club, one starts high school, one starts primary school. You work long days to maximise childcare then you work split shifts so you can share the school run. We all know that the only guarantee in life is change! So of course with change we have to adapt and the balance shifts again.
As a family we have a set of values and a mission laying out what is important to us and this is our reference point when we are working on the balance of rest, play and work. One of the things we are really clear about is that we are away from the studio during the school holidays often in the great outdoors up in Scotland.
This half term our plans to go away fell through at the last minute so our response was, ok so how do we re balance the scales. We found a way for the boys to do the things they wanted to do both with us and with close friends. Scott and I took time out to relax and invest in our health at the Turkish Baths in Harrogate and had a gorgeous lunch together. Yes I still did several loads of laundry, but only when the boys were in bed, so I could balance the never ending work of five peoples laundry with our family time.
It is still really important to me that I can help people through the many benefits of Pilates but I recognise today is there is only one of me and so many hours in the day. So to keep the balancing act going I am now identifying what I believe are the vital ingredients to my brand of Pilates and how I can impart them on other teachers who want to support me in achieving mine, and of course Joseph Pilates, goal of bringing Pilates to more people.
Through my role as Polestar Pilates Mentor and Educator I can teach the next generation of teachers and at my studio I can work with my dedicated team on how we can bring our individual strengths to support the breadth of our community. And for my wider Pilates teaching community I have founded a support network.
So to rest. This is what I am yet to balance. I like to work and to play but long soaks in the bath, lying on the sofa or even sitting still are not in my regular repertoire but I figure there will be time for that! Right now my balance is my mission as a mummy, wife, daughter, friend and Pilates teacher!
The photo above is me with my gorgeous boys on the edge of the River Tay with quite a wind blowing in!!!
Claire Sparrow
@clairepilates
