"I don't think that most people are like, 'You know what I really want to do? Pilates!'"

Ivy Baron of Requisite Pilates (photo by Minerva Villa)

Hey friends: I cannot wait to introduce you today to Ivy Baron. She’s the founder of Requisite Pilates, and she teaches in person and online in Austin, Texas. I don’t remember how I first came across her work, but I do remember that I was so excited to find a brilliant, experienced teacher, herself in a bigger body, who gives helpful guidance on how to do Pilates if you also are in a bigger body — or even if you’re in a smaller body but you have a butt, belly, boobs, or something else that means you don’t necessarily look or move like a tiny dancer Pilates lady from Instagram. I can tell you that in my own training, these extremely common body types were pretty much not addressed at all — we got some guidance on working with folks who have lower back issues or knee issues, but not a differently sized or shaped body from the one we probably all think of when we think of Pilates.

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Of course, I have to say here that I am only a mat Pilates instructor, and sometimes when I write about Pilates or talk to experts about it, I get some serious impostor syndrome, because a true comprehensive certification that involves allll the apparatus and jillions of exercises is way beyond what I’ve done so far. Then again, as Bill and Ted said “So-crates” said, The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. So there you go.

Anyway: I was really grateful that Ivy was able to take some time to sit down with me and talk about Pilates — what it’s for, whom it’s for, and how to make it work for you. We also discussed the Pilates industrial complex, which if you missed it, Mikala Jamison wrote an excellent piece about a few months ago, and I wrote a response piece as well:

Even if you aren’t interested in Pilates at all, I hope you’ll give this one a listen, because Ivy’s perspective on movement is so helpful, and she has some great guidance on finding movement you can — and will actually want to — stick with long-term.

One quick thing before we start: I had a little raspy throat situation going on the day we recorded, and Ivy has a chatty pet bird, so sound quality may not be crisp and clean at all times, but it’s definitely cheerful.

Here’s Ivy.

(The transcript below has not been edited for errors or typos. If you want a cleaner experience, I recommend listening to the audio!)

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Anna: Hi, Ivy. Thank you for joining me. I'm so glad to talk to you. Can you start off by telling me who you are, where you are, and how you describe your work?

Ivy: I'm Ivy Baron. I am the owner and sole proprietor of Requisite Pilates which is a small home Pilates studio in Austin, Texas, but I also do a lot of work with folks all over the country, all over the world, virtually. And I have been A Pilates instructor, comprehensive, which for those of you who are new to Pilates, that just means I can teach Mat Pilates. I can teach on any of the equipment pieces for about 20 years now with a little break. I don't know if you can hear my bird. I have to apologize because he will scream.

Just enjoy. Okay. Yeah, so for about 20 years, and in the middle there, I also got my master's in social work. So, I kind of marry those two worlds a whole lot. And how do I describe my work? I guess that's the good segue, right? It's that marriage of one of the major tenets of social work is meeting your client where they are exactly as they are.

And I've really tried to make that the central tenet of my work as a movement professional. So people come in. Or they zoom in and we just start wherever they are. Small, big, define what challenge means to them. Define what kind of movement, lights them up, what kind of movement do they hate and go from there.

Anna: That's such a beautiful intersection of things, social work and movement, and I'm sure people know getting a master's of social work is is no small feat and also I will just say for the audience like a Comprehensive Pilates education is also no small feat. That is so much training So I'd love to know how do you explain What Pilates is for and who it is for.

Ivy: Whoa. Um, that's a great question. Pilates is for everyone, period, full stop. And for me, I think of it more as. Almost as an education for our bodies a way to help remember how our bodies are meant to move with ease. And I do a lot of callbacks to, hey, remember, you know, for able bodied folks to remember when your child or your parents told you how you started to move through the world, right?

Like, how you rolled over, how you started to crawl, and you weren't thinking, I should really engage my glutes in order to get up on my hands and knees. You were curious about the world around you and that translated into movement. And so my feeling is that Pilates can be the vehicle.

To bring us back to movement that brings us joy. Because I don't think that most people are like, you know what I really want to do? Pilates. But, it connects us to something so much deeper. It connects our whole system, our whole body that just allows us then to try the things or return to the things that brought us joy as a kid without injury and without fear of falling etc.

Anna: And that's so similar to how I talk about it as well. Like, I don't think Pilates needs to be the thing that you're doing six times a week. I think it's a tool to allow you to do the other things in your life that are important and do them comfortably and confidently. Exactly. Yeah. So did your training, Pilates, prepare you to work with folks in different kinds of bodies? And to what extent, and if not, how did you figure it out?

Ivy: Ooh, you're, you're giving me that. I know that you were like softball questions, but I'm like, whoa, that's deep. Um, because no, I mean, the answer is no. And I feel like I had one of the best, um, in my opinion, trainings that, that exists because of, so I'm going to back up.

In the Pilates world, there's. Lot of discussion about what your lineage is in relation to Joseph Pilates. not everybody knows that Joseph Pilates was a guy. So let's start there. He was a guy. And then he taught teachers, over the years. And so my lineage is through this woman named Eve Gentry, who was the first person to say, maybe there needs to be a pre Pilates.

Maybe we're not all jumping into these crazy movements. Maybe some of us need to practice how our head moves or moving our arms through space, et cetera. So she was the one that came up with, ribcage arms and knee folds and all these smaller movements that we all now use as warmups. One of the ways that that did actually prepare me to work with all kinds of bodies is that it set me up to not feel like I needed to stick to a classical order of things, to have permission to explore and as Michele Larsson, who was my instructor at the time through my training said, If you have a reason to do it differently, then you do it differently.

Anna: And I just want to interrupt and say, like, that's very different from how a lot of people are trained. Like, Pilates can be so regimented. It's like, it's these exercises, this many reps, in this order, every time. Do not go Outside of the manual, basically. So that is a bit revolutionary, just in and of itself.

Ivy: Yeah, yeah, and I wouldn't exactly. I didn't even know at the time. I think this idea of like classical palates versus contemporary palates came later after I had been teaching for a number of years. And so it's not even in my. brain, that that's a thing, but it very much is a thing that if you're classically trained, this is how you do and that's a certain lineage.

And then there's those of us who are like, here's the principles like the good stuff, the piece about connection and breath and movement with ease and all of those Pilates principles can fit in any type of movement. That said. If you've ever walked into a Pilates studio a classical Pilates studio, there can be a sense of elitism.

There can be a sense of there's like a, there's a clique feeling, there's a certain type body type, etc. And so I always knew that I didn't fit. Even in all my different, body variations over the years, I still didn't fit in typical Pilates spaces. And so I think just that gave me a sense that, oh, I need to work with folks who also don't fit.

And then as I got older. And my body changed and, there's babies and surgeries and injuries and all kinds of things, the more that those changes, some of them like could be thought of as bad, happen to my own body, the more I could broaden my perspective. And how to work with all kinds of bodies, not because I'm centering my own body in that relationship, in that client relationship, but because it creates empathy.

And I think the more your body has to go through, the more empathy you have and the more willingness to be curious about my what might work for somebody else.

Anna: Yeah. It sounds so weird, but I always say like, every time I get injured, it's like a huge learning opportunity. , like as a trainer. Yeah. So, so when those things happened, how did you like, how did you navigate those changes in terms of what can I do to incorporate this into my work?

Like, did you turn to a specialist? Was it just tapping into the core principles that you'd been trained on and figuring it out as you went?

Ivy: Honestly. I isolated for a while. I would teach clients one on one because I had complete Autonomy to do whatever we wanted without any other Pilates eyes, peering at me and telling me that, oh, no, no, that's not this.

And so in that time where I just worked in small one on one situations with folks I got to just explore. And, like, kind of MacGyver. MacGyver it all. Like, oh, that doesn't work for you. Let's try that. And then after that, I worked For about seven years at the Pilates Center of Austin with Wendy LeBlanc Arbuckle, who she was, she is, she's here.

She is, um, also a yoga instructor. And so a lot of the yoga props were all available in that studio and she uses a lot of the yoga props for support, et cetera. And so I took that also and incorporated it in that. How does that specifically work for folks who are in larger bodies? Because that's where I am now, you know?

And so I think like. As I moved, there was a while that I was really focused on pelvic floor because that was my journey. I think the evolution, yes, happened with some outside instructors, but it also happened just alone with my clients and building relationships where there was trust to play a little bit.

Anna: I've learned so much from you about how to use really simple props to make movements more accessible, but also just make it more available to people to get the connection that we're actually looking for in, in that movement. So I guess on that note, whether it's props or taking a different version of an exercise, this can be such a fraught thing for folks, right?

Like the idea of modifications. What's your spiel, like how do you explain to people this idea of finding the right version or the right prop of the exercise for you?

Ivy: , first thank you, that's really sweet of you to say, the first part. Um, and then the second part is I don't use the word modification.

Because it's not a modification of an exercise, it's an option. It's an option. It's a version. In my mind, there's no full, final version of anything. And that challenge is subjective and relational, right? There are exercises that are, Thought of as like the expert exercises that you might be able to do just because you know of the way that your body is proportioned and that a person who's in a smaller body isn't going to be able to do and vice versa. I think that there's a deep reframe and deprogramming of what, how we think of challenge in movement, how we think of, um, goals, external goals, goals that are put on us versus intrinsic goals that we have. Some people just want to figure out how to get up off the floor after playing with their grandkid, right?

That's a valid goal. That's just as valid as doing a triathlon. It's just as valid. And so it comes back to that person centered piece, is what it, what's important to you. I ask every single person, every single new client.

Think back, like what in your life have you done that has It's movement wise that lights you up, that like makes you feel good where you feel free or you're, it's fun or you feel strong or, and then what is the feeling? And then kind of reverse engineering that to use the work that we do to capture that feeling again, even though it might not look like what it did five years ago, 10 years ago, yesterday.

What's the feeling? Can you find that in a small movement? Can you find it in a big movement?

Anna: If somebody feels like, and I think you've posted about this recently, this idea of like, I need to lose weight before I can start doing Pilates, or it's, my body is wrong in some way, I have to change it before I can do Pilates.

If somebody feels that their body is not right for Pilates, what advice do you give them? How do you reframe that?

Ivy: That's a really hard one. Because, and this, these are words from my friend Leslie Jordan Garcia, everyone should go follow her immediately at Liberati Wellness, but we were talking the other day about fat erasure.

And that is the intention of our fitness industry, is to erase. And so that feeling that you're talking about, like, I'm not ready because I'm not because I need to lose whatever X, Y, Z is us buying into a really broken, broken system. And, um, it runs deep. And that is with intention by an industry that's a multi billion dollar industry that wants us to feel terrible about ourselves so that they can make more money. If we feel good about ourselves, we don't, we no longer need them.

And I. I think, um, at least for me, understanding that it's a systemic problem over and over again, because Lord knows I fall into it all the time and have to remind myself, no, no, this is a broken system that I'm a part of. And I can participate. By losing a few pounds and having that be my focus of movement or I can choose not to participate and move because I want to and move because I want to feel healthy and I want to feel good and I want to feel strong and whatever that motivation is . Knowledge is power is what I would say.

Anna: Thinking about working with somebody maybe new to Pilates. What are some of the things , whether it's a movement or a concept, that folks um, struggle with in Pilates that you feel the most satisfaction out of helping them with?

Ivy: Mm, mm hmm.

It's the simple things. It's understanding how to lift your head without using your neck. Right? Because, for instance, if you have a larger chest and you're spending all of your days sort of fighting and resisting gravity to keep yourself, quote, lifted, that creates a ton of tension in your mid back, in your neck, and so that Seemingly small education around how to relax into that weight of your chest and actually you can use that as leverage to help you feel less tension instead of same with your belly, right?

Instead of it being this burden that you have to carry, use it. Use it as, a way to ground more, use it as a way to release, as a way to feel your feet, etc. It's those small new ways of

, or I'll say the smaller movements, like the pieces that I think are most profound. Versus performing a big, you know, doing a teaser or, who cares? Can you

lift your head?

Anna: I love that. It's just so applicable to everyday life. So I mentioned in my big post about Pilates a couple of weeks ago that I was gonna be talking to you and shared your Instagram and a couple of people were just like, oh my god I'm so excited to have encountered Ivy and Somebody actually asked does Ivy have any insight for me on having boobs in a belly and trying to do short spine That move is my nemesis So it's a little specific but I don't know if you have some guidance on that movement or even just some general like, you know, you gave that great seminar, the three B's, boobs, belly, butt, a few weeks ago and I learned so much.

So whether it's specific to short spine or just in general navigating Pilates with boobs and a belly. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Ivy: Sure, absolutely. So we can talk about short spine or we could just talk about inversions in general. So not everybody knows what short spine is and that's particular to the reformer.

I will say to whoever that person is we looked at that at, in one of my workshops, which is available. And it's not for just instructors, it's for all the people. Okay. Rewinding. So, inversion. What are we talking about when we're talking about inversion? That's , in this case, where we're lying on our backs, right, and our legs are over our heads.

So that might be, in yoga, you think of that as like plow. In Pilates, it's overhead or roll over. And what happens for a lot of us. It's really challenging to lift our butts because our butts are heavy. So there's a number one. Our butts, our legs are heavy, so it's truthfully challenging for most people but so lifting our heavy butt to get it over our head, and then also not drowning ourselves in our breasts and choking, right?

Choking on our breast tissue essentially, because once you're overhead balanced on your, on your shoulders and you really get your hips up, which is one of the Intentions of that exercise is like to really get your hips up in the air to be able to get your legs over if you're not supported, that can happen.

So what I do for that, A, for the first part, I might put something underneath of your hips. So a bolster or a pillow or a yoga roll to start you already lifted because you're lifting from I think of it as like ground zero or beyond ground zero when you're when you're starting with your butt on the floor.

So we lift your butt and then you're already past the most challenging part of lifting your butt. So it's a lot easier to continue that movement. And then in terms of upper body, what I'll often do is fold a towel or fold a yoga mat and place it right underneath of the bottom of your shoulder blades so that your back to about your sacrum, your low back or your pelvis is lifted just a little bit, but your shoulders can drop down into that negative space.

You with me so far? So that when you get your legs up and over. You have more room for your neck and your chest. And like, yeah, if your boobs are really large, your breasts are really large, they're gonna still come towards your face, but you're not gonna get that choked out feeling because I always think of it as like, if you've ever been to the chiropractor and they do that, like, drop down table.

That's just the image that works in my head, but your shoulders are dropped down and back and it just gives you that much more space to get up and over.

Anna: Okay. I hope that helped, but definitely take that. I love, no, I think it's super, super helpful. Not only did just have the ideas, but just to have the sort of permission encouragement to explore what it might feel like using these props.

Because, you know, again, I think people have these ideas that this is like. It's a modification. It's not the same, but it's, but it is, it's the same position. It's the same movement. It's allowing you to do it in a more supported way that doesn't feel horrible and get the exact same muscles,

Ivy: right? Right.

And I, just an addendum to that, I think that that's so spot on is that we think that using props somehow makes us weak when in my mind it's the opposite. It's like you're setting yourself up. That is baller. To like actually go, this is what I need. This is what I've got. And back to your earlier question, like advice would be, once you kind of know what the things are that you need, like pack your Pilates bag, walk into that studio with your bolster and your ball and your blanket or whatever it is that , you have figured out that you need for certain exercises and You just take care of yourself.

That's kind of badass.

Anna: That's totally badass. And I think people would see you do that and say, Wow, like That person knows their shit, like, they know what to do, and that's like, I want to try using that bolster sometime, like, it's cool. It's very cool. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask, just given that there has been some talk about this idea of Pilates culture, because, the place of Pilates in our world or in our sort of conscious, who does it, what is it for, it's just, it's been through an interesting shift over the past, maybe five years, I just am interested in just like how you have sort of perceived All of this as a teacher and is the state of Pilates culture today a good thing or where would you like to see it shift?

Ivy: Um, I,

I would say that it's not a culture, it's an industry. And that, I know, mic drop, but that's the bottom line it's a manufactured culture and historically has been and continues to be elitist, what has changed in the last 5, 10 years. I actually, I don't know, and I'm not going to call them out because they're not a threat to me at all. Um, but there's a huge, there's a big company franchise. That has started popping up everywhere and so Pilates specifically on the reformer has become more visible in a lot of smaller communities, etc.

And the knowledge around what Pilates is comes from this very well organized, um, Um, if you know, you know who they are, if there's, if you live in a smaller town and there is a Pilates studio in your town and they have a bunch of reformers, that's who I'm talking about. Um, and they're not bad. They're just different than what I grew up with in the Pilates world. So I feel like that's the major shift in terms of creating this culture that you're talking about. Come specifically from an industry that is very successful. Where do I want to see it go? I feel like full stop. Any questions about that part or any thoughts before I keep going? Cause I want to make sure I'm making sense.

Anna: No, that makes total sense. And I think that's a really important like reframe. It's, it's not a culture. It's an industry. It's, you know, anytime there's something like this, it's probably because somebody's trying to sell you something.

Ivy: Yes. Yes. And I mean, I'm trying to sell you something because we're all trying to survive.

Like, we're trying to make it through. There's a difference between selling

a persona. That we think of as a Pilates persona dancer, primarily white, very small body, right? I don't need to say all the things, like when I say Pilates, we all have, I mean it just, like a visual of exactly who we're talking about. And that is by design. If you walk into those studios, though, or my studio or what you actually might see is just regular people.

Doing Pilates and that to me is, that's the real culture, right? That's the real, not culture, but that's the real like oomph is the reality is the bodies. Like once you get past that, Oh, it's not for me. And you walk into a door of a studio that feels safe and creates the culture is safety, right? Creates a culture of belonging and safety and connection and, um, exploration and curiosity.

Right, then that's really what, what drew me to Pilates, so long ago. I think that the reality on like social media, Instagram, etc. is very different than the reality on the grounds. Yeah.

Anna: What is your, just even outside of Pilates. What is your advice to folks who are hoping to start or restart movement of some sort and stick with it long term?

Ivy: The thing that comes up first for me is what we talked about. Figure out what it is that, what is it that lights you up? Because I think that intrinsic motivation is the thing that keeps you doing whatever it is. If you figure out that,

I never knew I loved hip hop and now all I want to do is be in hip hop classes and you think about it all the time, almost obsessively that's your thing. And so my advice is try things. Try all the things. Try, like, I'm up in the air all the time. I do a lot of aerial arts, like, Find a studio. Try that.

See if you hate it. Go play soccer. Do you like soccer? Maybe you didn't play as a kid, but maybe it's your thing now. Like, maybe you like to juggle. I don't know. But you don't know until you, you take that step and try. And then the other side to that is It's okay to put it down and not like it. It doesn't make, it's not a moral decision, it's just like, oh, well that wasn't my thing, but maybe this is.

And all of a sudden you're out there having fun, you're playing, you're finding other people who are doing similar things, who are exploring different types of movement modalities. And who knows, like you might even build an unintentional community of people that want to try different things with you or are doing that thing that you didn't know you loved, but now you love stage combat.

I don't know, like it could be, like the, the possibilities are endless and where we get stuck, I think is. Only thinking that what the media tells us is available, like that, those are the only choices we're told to go to the gym. We're told to do some squats. We're told to do hit exercises.

We're told to do yoga. We're told to do Pilates. And the reality is that there, did you know there's sumo wrestling for women? There's arm wrestling. The possibilities of types of movement that you don't even know exist that could be your thing are endless. So, out of the box, like, if you know that you have tried umpteen million times in your life to go to the gym and you just can't stick to it and, uh, you know, I really should and no, no, no, all of that, we've all done that.

Then the gym is not your thing. It's not your thing. Cause when you find it, you're like, where do I find another class? How soon do I get there? Cause I'm missing it. I'm craving it.

Anna: That's so beautiful. . Just breaking out of that. What are you supposed to be doing? And just. Exploring and playing and it all comes back to that.

How did you used to move? How did you used to feel good? Let's get back there. I love that. Yeah. Ivy, where can people find you? How can we support what you do?

Ivy: I'm on all of the socials and it's at requisite Pilates, R E Q U I S I T E. Did I do that right? Um, and Instagram is where I primarily live and that's a great place to follow me.

Um, in terms of offerings, I see people one on one, um, even just for a consultation to have this conversation. I hate the word coach. I don't know why I do. I just do. It's not my, it's not my word, but it'll work in this case. Like, if you need a coaching conversation session around, well, how do I find it?

What do I? I can do that. I also do one on one Pilates sessions online with folks and then I have a sliding scale subscription. So I have all of my classes that I taught during the like heat of the pandemic are all recorded. There's over a hundred of them and they are all levels. There's a lot of restorative stuff in there because that's what folks needed at the time.

Um, and I still wait. I think we still need it. There's some roller classes and then there's some foundational Pilates classes. And they're just accessible. Let me see what the sliding scale is because I don't want to say it wrong. I think I set it at like 15 or even 10 per month to 30 because I wanted to have an option that was It's accessible to most people, um, and then also if that is not accessible to you, you can always DM me on Instagram and we can talk about what is if you really feel like you want to explore.

Anna: Well, I hope people take you up on that and explore your work and your many helpful approaches to props and exploring movements. Um, thank you so much for doing this for

Ivy: asking.

Anna: I learned so much from you every time I see your face pop up on my screen. And it's such a, such an honor to be able to, uh, ask even more questions of you.

Thank you so much for all that you do. Thank you.

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Thanks for listening!

xo
Anna