For Teachers and Trainees

When an Exercise Is Not Working, Can You Identify What Is Missing?

Learn to Recognize the Foundational Skills Beneath the Pilates Exercises.

• Understand Why a Client is Struggling

• Give Clearer and More Effective Cues

• Know What to Teach Before Asking Them to Try the Exercise Again

SHOW ME THE ESSENTIAL SKILLS

You Know the Exercise.

You Have Given the Cue.

But Your Client Is Still Struggling.

Does This Sound Familiar To You?

Perhaps the client's lower back keeps moving with the legs. ✗

The shoulders lift and the neck begins to strain. ✗

The pelvis moves out of alignment, the ribcage shifts, or the client holds their breath as soon as they start moving. ✗

You give another cue...
Then another...

But repeating or adding cues does not always solve the problem—because the client may not yet understand the foundational skill the exercise requires.

Before they can maintain the organization of the body while performing an exercise, they may need to learn and practice that organization separately.

Before You Correct the Exercise...

Ask yourself whether the client was ever actually taught the individual skill that the exercise requires.

The Exercise Is the Vehicle.

The Skill Is the Goal.

A Pilates teacher training program gives you:
• Exercises
• Choreography
• Order
• Transitions
• Safety Considerations
• Many different cues to remember.

But Knowing the
Choreography
and Knowing How to Teach the
Movement
Are Not the Same Thing.

When you can identify the individual skills inside an exercise, you are better prepared to see what is missing.
Instead of repeatedly correcting the entire exercise you can:
• Take a step back
• Teach the necessary movement by itself
• Then return to the exercise with greater clarity.

This Is the Approach Behind
"What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills"

LEARN THE APPROACH

Learn What Needs to Happen Before the Choreography Begins

What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills is a focused online course that breaks down the fundamental movements and body organization skills used throughout the Pilates method.

Through 11 lessons you will see how I introduce and teach these skills separately before expecting a client to maintain them during a more complicated exercise. Each lesson includes:

• A Focused Video lesson
Learn each skill through clear, practical instruction.
• Additional In-Depth Notes
Go deeper into the details and understand why the skill matters.
• Downloadable PDFs
Review the key concepts, teaching cues, and Pilates exercises where the skill appears.

Along with these, the course includes:
• A comprehensive video demonstration of how each fundamental concept applies to Pilates exercises using the Mat repertoire.
• Companion PDFs to help guide your progress through the course and application of the skills you learn.

This Course Gives You An Organized Resource You Can Use To:

Clarify your own understanding of the foundational movements
Recognize why a client may be struggling with an exercise
Notice common compensations and unnecessary tension
Choose a more specific and useful cue
Decide when to step away from the full exercise and teach one component first
Connect exercises across the Pilates system through the skills they share

This Is Not Just Another Collection of Exercises to Memorize.

It Is a Way to Understand Exactly What
You Are Asking the Body to Do.

Develop a Clearer Understanding of the
Skills Beneath the Exercises

Breathing That Supports Movement

Understand how to help a client breathe during effort instead of holding the breath, creating unnecessary tension, or losing abdominal support.
Abdominal Support That Protects the Lower Back

Explore how breath and abdominal engagement work together so the client can support the trunk while the body moves.
Pelvic Organization and Control

Teach clients to recognize different positions of the pelvis and understand how pelvic movement affects the lower back.
Independent Movement of the Legs

Help clients learn to move their legs without automatically pulling the pelvis and spine out of alignment - a skill required throughout the Mat and apparatus work.
Shoulder Stability Without Rigidity

Understand how to organize the shoulder girdle so the arms can move with support and the neck does not have to do unnecessary work.
Ribcage Control and Spinal Organization

Help clients recognize when movement of the arms or legs is changing the position of the ribcage and spine.
Head, Neck, and Upper-Back Support

Teach the organization needed to lift and support the head without making the neck carry the full demand of the movement.
Elongation, Timing, and Control

See how the foundational skills work together so movement becomes more connected, deliberate, and efficient.

GET IMMEDIATE ACCESS

What Changes When You Understand
the Skill Beneath the Exercise?

You Begin to Ask Better Questions.

Instead of only asking, “Is the client performing the exercise correctly?” you can ask:

What is moving that should be stable?
What is being held rigidly that should be able to move?
Where is the client creating unnecessary tension?
Can the client recognize the position of the pelvis and spine?
Can the arms or legs move without disturbing that organization?
Does the client understand how to create support before beginning the movement?
Which part of this exercise should be taught separately first?

These Questions Give You a More Useful
Place to Begin Rather Than Simply
Offering More Corrections.

The Same Skills Appear Throughout the
Pilates Method

The foundational movements in this course are not limited to one exercise or one piece of apparatus.

• Pelvic stability affects how a client performs Leg Circles, Footwork, Knee Stretches, Corkscrew, and many other exercises.

• Shoulder organization affects the Hundred, Long Stretch, Rowings, Chest Expansion, Pull Straps, and every exercise in which the arms bear weight or move against resistance.

• Ribcage control, abdominal support, spinal organization, and how to breathe continue to appear across the Mat, Reformer, Cadillac/Tower, Chair, Ped-O-Pull, and Barrels.

When you recognize these recurring skills, the Pilates method becomes more cohesive, and your teaching becomes less dependent on finding a different cue for every individual exercise.

You Are Not Only Teaching Exercises.

You Are Teaching the Movements That Make Those Exercises Possible.

Focused Lessons You Can Return to When You
Need Them

"The Essential Skills" Video Lessons

Concise lessons allow you to focus on one movement concept at a time. Watch it. Learn it. Pass it along to your clients.

A 20-Minute Guided Mat Application

After studying the skills individually, use the guided Mat tutorial to practice how they come together in a complete movement experience.

Learn → Practice → Return

Move through the course in order, practice what you have learned, and return to individual lessons when a particular skill becomes relevant to your own practice or teaching.

Continued Access To the Course

Revisit the material whenever you need:

• When you need to reconsider what solutions to offer your client.

• When you want to refine your own understanding of a foundational skill.

ENROLL IN THE COURSE

This Course May Be Right For You If…

✓ You teach Pilates already but want to revisit the fundamentals through the perspective of an experienced Classical Pilates teacher.

✓ You want to give clearer, more concise cues rather than just flood the client with more information.

✓ You know the choreography but are not always sure what to focus on while a client is moving.

✓ You want practical foundational movements you can teach before introducing a more demanding exercise.

✓ You want to understand why a client continues to struggle, and become a problem-solver for their issue.

✓ You are in a teacher training program and feel overwhelmed by how much there is to absorb.

This Course Is NOT A...

✗ Pilates teacher-training or certification program
✗ Substitute for supervised practice teaching or mentorship
✗ Comprehensive anatomy course
✗ Course in rehabilitation, diagnosis, or treatment
✗ Library of class plans or new exercise choreography

This is a focused educational resource designed to strengthen your understanding of the foundational skills that you use to guide your clients throughout the Pilates method.

NICE TO MEET YOU

I'm Joanna Telacka

I am a Classical Pilates teacher with 28 years of experience and over 50,000 hours spent teaching clients, primarily one person at a time.

Over the years, I have repeatedly seen that clients struggle when they are asked to perform an exercise before they understand the movements required within it.

A client cannot reliably stabilize the pelvis because we tell them to “keep it still.” They first need to recognize the position of the pelvis, understand its relationship to the spine, and practice moving the limbs without losing that organization.

The same is true of the shoulders, ribcage, neck, breath, and abdominals.

That is why I teach these movements before I ask for the full exercise. This course organizes that part of my teaching into a clear resource you can study, practice, and return to.

Is This a Teacher Training or Certification Course?

Is the course only for Classical Pilates teachers?

I am still in teacher training. Is this too advanced for me?

I Am Already an Experienced Teacher. Will This Be Too Basic?

Does the course provide continuing-education credit?

How Long Are the Lessons?

Can I Return to the Course After Completing It?

Is This a Collection of Pilates Workouts?

What is the refund policy?

"What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills"

$97 One-Time Payment

Your enrollment includes:

The complete "Essential Skills" video course—accessible on both desktop AND mobile (through the Kajabi App)
11 Concise, focused lessons, complete with video tutorials, expanded notes, and downloadable PDFs
A 20-minute guided Mat application
Continued access so you can revisit the lessons
Immediate online access after enrollment

The $97 cost is comparable to one private Pilates lesson. A private lesson gives you individualized instruction during that session. This course gives you an organized foundation you can return to whenever you want to review a skill, refine your own practice, or reconsider what you are observing in a client.

One Payment. No Subscription.

ENROLL NOW — $97

Do Not Stop at Seeing That the Exercise Is Not Working.

Learn to identify what may be missing underneath it.

When you understand the foundational skills inside the Pilates exercises, you can observe more carefully, cue more precisely, and make better-informed decisions about what your client needs to learn next.

What Pilates Is: The Essential Skills