What to Expect from Your First Pilates Class

Before you walk in

Wear something you can move comfortably in. Nothing too loose, as your teacher needs to see how your body is moving. Grip socks are required on the equipment and most studios have them available if you forget.

Arrive a few minutes early. Your teacher will want to know a little about you before you start, any injuries, areas of tension, or movement history that might affect how they work with you. This isn't small talk. It's how we make sure your first class is right for your body.

The equipment

If you've never seen a Pilates studio up close, it can look a little like a physiotherapy clinic crossed with a gym you don't quite understand. At UNA, you'll work with the Reformer, the Half Cadillac, and the Chair. Three pieces of a much larger system, each designed to challenge your body in a different relationship with resistance, support, and gravity.

Your teacher will introduce each piece as you go. And once you feel how the spring resistance works, how adding or removing tension completely changes the demand of a movement, things start to make sense faster than you'd expect.

The class itself

Pilates has its own vocabulary. You'll hear words like imprint, neutral spine, and scoop, and you won't know what they mean yet. That's fine. Your teacher will cue you through it, and within a few classes the language becomes second nature.

You'll probably feel muscles you didn't know you had. You'll also probably feel like you're doing it wrong at some point. You're not. That feeling is your body learning something new.

What you'll feel afterwards

Pilates works differently to most workouts. You might not feel the kind of soreness you're used to from the gym. What you will feel is something harder to describe, a kind of length, awareness, and calm that tends to stay with you for the rest of the day.

Some people feel it immediately. For others it takes a class or two. Either way, your body noticed.

One more thing

At UNA, no class is the same as the last. Your teacher adapts, progresses, and adjusts based on what they see. So your second class will already be different from your first, because you will be.

That's the point.

Book your first class at UNA: [unapilates.com]