I’ve decided to take one Pilates exercise a day, and add it to my dance workouts. Of course many of the dance workouts have yoga and Pilates inspired moves to begin with, but by focusing on one exercise at a time outside of the workouts I want to try and perfect them. It isn’t just that I’m obsessed with getting rid of my stomach, it’s also that these exercises really develop core strength, flexibility and stamina for dancing. By sticking with Suhaila-style workouts for many months I’ve seen a big difference in quad strength, the ability of my back to be flat and take all the bending nd undulaitons in its stride.

There’s a nice video podcast of Pilates exercises at http://pilatesonfifth.com/video/?p=9 . “:Pilates on Fifth” has 60 podcasts so far. You can download the separate videos straight from the site, if you like. Most are 2 or 3 minutes long unless it’s a bigger workout, in which case it gets to be a bigger file. But the instruction in each is focused, quick and careful. If there’s a commonly made mistake with a move, they show you both the mistake and the correction. For dancers or others who exercise regularly, it should be easy enough to correct, but for newbies, I’d say listen real carefully, both to the instructions and to your own body.

I have DVD instruction on Piulates, but I really like the idea of picking up one move at a time to really work on, getting the posture, breathing etc right. I find that too many instructors focus on quantity and speed, letting the momentrum do the exercise, but I prefer an approach where you learn the proper muscle work and pay particular attention on exactly how your posture must be. That avoids injury too.