Ever heard of chicken sexting? It’s actually pretty fascinating. When chicks are hatched they need to be sorted between males and females, but there is no way to tell which are which, unless you are a professional chicken sexter.
You see, no one who sexes chickens can tell you how they determine the sex. They just know. You become a chicken sexter through the following training:
You pick up a chick
You look at it and say male or female
The chicken sexter who already knows how to tell says yes or no
You keep doing that until you always (or most always) get the answer right.
You are knighted Professional Chicken Sexter
After seeing enough of them, something in the subconscious can tell you whether a chick is male or female, but you can’t verbalize it. This is true or I am just very gullible. It’s one of those stories that is so good, I want to keep telling it. Either way, I’ve taught enough Pilates that sometimes I feel like the Pilates Sexter, or the Body Sexter, or the Muscle Sexter—call it what you will. Maybe pick the title that sounds less inappropriate. Muscle Whisperer also works.
Point is, the more I work with bodies, sometimes I think my subconscious picks up on what is happening. I hope it does. It would be an added tool in my tool belt. The powers of my conscious and subconscious mind combined could change the world (maniacal laughter in background). Actually, in my dreams those powers would just encourage more people to get up, get moving and enjoy moving. Baby steps, people.
When teaching a class (group or private) I go into that class with a plan. But I don’t always stick to that plan because I’ll adjust based on what is happening in people’s bodies. If you asked me to verbalize why I made a decision or did a particular exercise, I’ll have an answer. It’s my job to provide that, and I encourage clients to ask. But even though there is an answer there is more to it, and reasons it might be a good choice that I can’t articulate, reasons none of us know yet.
I could tell you the science behind my choice, what made me pull a particular exercise out of the depths of my memory. Still sometimes the idea comes subconsciously. Explain it later? Sure. But the moment the decision was made, like someone looking at a chicken, my subconscious tells me what was needed.
I like “Muscle Whisperer”. Are we voting ? 🙂