Want to be a Pilates Teacher? Learn 5 Traits that are Key to Being a Good Teacher.

1) Likes Working With People:  Let's face it, 90% of being any kind of teacher is interacting with those your teaching.  Even more so being a Watson Method Pilates teacher, because many of our clients are coming to us for rehab issues and you need to be able to communicate about what feels good and doesn't to their body. 

2) Is Flexible:  Not Literally.  In our job, we constantly have to adapt and roll with different situations.  For example, I once had a class when 3 out of 5 people arrived with three totally different injuries.  One had a knee injury; one had a shoulder injury, and one had a bulging disk injury.  In the Pilates teacher world, that is your worst nightmare because the people with lower body injuries can do arm and ab exercises, but the people with back and shoulder injuries can't.  We got through the class with surprising ease, but only because I could adapt really quickly with the knowledge base I had to make a full hour class.  All of our awesome trainees and teachers in the Watson Method are taught and have to memorize hundreds of exercises so that they can switch gears in just a few seconds to accommodate everybody.   

3) Is Accountable:  The Watson Method Pilates training is a full 500 hour program, 450 of those hours (observing, student, teaching, and assisting hours) are on your own time.  So you have to be dedicated to complete the program.  This carries over into your teaching skills because you develop into an individual teacher that forms personal relationships with the clients.  And you want to see your client succeed.  

4) Likes (Maybe Even Loves) Anatomy:  We are not Physical Therapists, but we are helping people that have injuries.  In some ways that is more of a challenge because we have to use words to help people understand the movement of their own bodies since we can't manipulate them like a Physical Therapist.  Our trainees and teachers have to take a lot of anatomy.  This enables them to be fully equipped to communicate those actions to clients.  Some of our teachers go on to work with health insurance patients so we need to be able to communicate intelligently with health care professionals.    

5) Is Creative:  Pilates teachers design their own classes, so you have to have a creativeness to make it interesting for your clients.  Teachers have several hundred exercises that they must piece it together in a way that is organized and fun for clients.

P.S. Our Trainees and Teachers are some of the best trained and most awesome in town.  We fully support each other's success and become like a family.  If you're interested in becoming a Watson Method Pilates Teacher, we invite you to learn more about the program on our teacher training tab or at one of our free informational workshops.