Pilates Teaser is an empowering movement that anyone can do.

Do you like Pilates teaser? 🙋🏾‍♀️

Me too! Pilates Teaser is everywhere in the Pilates repertoire; on the reformer, mat, chair, tower. Each piece of equipment gives a different way of getting into the exercise. Nonetheless, teaser pilates remains an empowering movement that anyone can do. As a beginner, arriving at this exercise marks your strength, and for you – advanced student, it’s your ticket to move towards more complex movements & exercises.

How does teaser work?

Teaser is a full-body classical Pilates exercise. There’re many components that support this movement to make it looks easy. Today, we are going to talk about the muscles attached to the pelvis and lower body.

Let me ask you a question, what were your challenges getting into teaser exercise? I still remember mine; my upper quads would not stop catching up – it was so frustrating. You see, uniform development is another goal of Pilates. A good way to understand uniform development is this – all muscles working as one big strength, which we could define what core strength means.

What not to do.

There’re many ways and cues that can help you get into the teaser.

But here’s what you should not do.

– squeezing your butt muscles for dear life.

– tensing your stomach.

– applying too much force or

– holding your breath.

What to do instead 

In teaser, all the muscles need to be dynamically strong. What I mean by that is having a balance between strength and flexibility, like with well-balanced pizza dough. You always want the dough to have the right amount of water and flour. This allows you to shape the flour with fluidity without the dough crumbling or sticking to your hand. Similarly, with body movement. When flexibility and strength are well balanced, a required shape such as the V position in teaser makes it easy and achievable.

You want your inner thigh muscles to work with the deep psoas muscles so that the quads muscles do not have to. You also want your pelvic floor muscles to work with the psoas so that the glute muscles do not have to over squeeze. Paying attention to these small details will help your progression towards the teaser exercise.

My suggestion to you is that if you find it hard to do the teaser add the magic circles in your mat work for a few weeks and see if that helps. 

So here is the breakdown for today’s video. 

Part 1: Sitting squeezes plus tips if you have trouble rolling your spine off the mat. 

Part 2: Standing squeezes how to balance on one side and where to put your body weight.

Part 3. Adding magic circles to the mat work.

Once you’ve had a moment to do the video let me know if you felt that became easier. 

Xo 

Jeanique