We’ve expanded our CoreAlign schedule to include three levels, making it easier to find the right place to start—so you can keep progressing as you gain experience. Whether you’re completely new to CoreAlign or ready for more challenging work, there’s now a class for you.

Benefits of CoreAlign include upright/functional movement training, posture, balance, and gait improvement, and core stabilization.

COREALIGN LEVEL 1

CoreAlign is unlike most of the equipment in the Pilates studio—you’ll spend much of class upright, working with two independently moving carts that respond to how you shift your weight, step, push, and pull.

Level 1 gives you time to learn how the equipment works and become familiar with its foundational movements.

Expect coordinated stepping patterns, standing and floor work, and plenty of instruction as you learn to work with the moving carts and resistance.

Who this class is for: Anyone who wants to try CoreAlign. No previous Pilates or CoreAlign experience is required.

As with all of our group classes, you must be able to get down to and up from the floor independently and comfortably use stairs.

COREALIGN LEVEL 2

Once the basics of CoreAlign are familiar, Level 2 gives you more ways to use them.

You’ll work with longer sequences, more varied positions, and movements that ask you to coordinate the two moving carts while changing direction, shifting weight, and working against resistance.


Classes move at a steadier pace than Level 1, with less time spent introducing the equipment and foundational exercises.


Who this class is for: Clients with Reformer experience can begin here, even if CoreAlign is new to them. Clients without Reformer experience should first take Level 1 and progress with their teacher’s recommendation.

COREALIGN LEVEL 3

Level 3 takes familiar CoreAlign work and makes it more complex.

Expect longer combinations, quicker transitions, and exercises that ask more of your strength, balance, coordination, and ability to manage the moving carts independently.

There’s less time spent breaking down familiar movements, allowing the class to spend more time exploring advanced variations and more involved sequences.

Who this class is for: Clients who have been regularly attending Level 2 CoreAlign and are comfortable with the equipment, common exercises, and pace of class.

 CoreAlign class schedule

We hope and intend to add more later this year.

CoreAlign Level 1: Mondays at 4pm with Katrina

CoreAlign Level 2: Wednesdays at 9am with Libby and Fridays at 9am with Christine

CoreAlign Level 3: Wednesdays at 4pm with Audrey

We often offer POP UP CoreAlign Classes. Make sure you are opted into our News & Promo email list to be the first to know

Pilates Teacher TrainingOn this blog, We’ve talked about breath and we’ve talked about axial elongation and control as the first to principles of Polestar Pilates Teacher Training. If you remember breath is a tool to facilitate movement and axial elongation and control uses alignment and length to create the most efficient pathway to movement. Now we move on to the third principle and this is Spine Articulation.

First, let’s do a quick anatomy review.  The spine has consists of 24 vertebra,  a sacrum and a coccyx, and each vertebra has articulating joints that can move.  So, the principle of spine articulation in the Polestar Pilates Teacher Training asserts that when moving the spine,  we want distribute the force of the movement over several joints of several vertebra,  which will reduce the wear and tear on each individual vertebra.

If you’re like me, of a certain age, you had P.E. class when you were in school.  In this class, there was probably some sort of  fitness test that tested flexible you had,  I remember a ruler between my legs measuring how  far  I could reach past my toes.   There was also a sit up  test.  I remember someone holding my feet while I  did  as many sit ups as I could in minute. These tests are great examples  of  why the world  needs the Spine  Articulation principle.

Imagine first, the flexibility test.   Way back when, the intention of this test was to measure the flexibility of the hamstrings, but in actuality based on what we know now, that test actually  was a measure of how much movement was available at the lower lumbar spine.   Now, imagine if you will taking a breath in, and reaching your head to the ceiling.   Once you find the longest possible spine, then nod your head and then allow each vertebra of your spine  to move in sequence towards your legs.  You might feel a stretch all the way along the back of your spine.  Using the Spine  Articulation principle  we have turned  an  old fitness screening  into   an  exercise  that actually changes  the way  that the spine  relates to the  back  of the  legs.  

Now  let’s take our mind’s  eye that ridiculous sit up. What  if we  slowed it down?  What if  we nodded  our heads before even starting  and then focused on peeling each vertebra away from  the  floor  individually until we  reached the sitting position. In this movement using the spine  articulation  principle we  have created a movement that  distributes the  load of  gravity  across the  entire spine, instead of at only a few vertebra.  This makes the exercises much safer and more relevant to what the body needs.

In the Polestar Pilates Teacher Training we use  the Spine articulation principle to protect the spine and keep the body as fluid as  possible.    Pilates becomes more than a  fitness class it becomes a  method to keep the body moving.

                              

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