Spilling the Pilateas ☕ Edition 40 | Straight Doesn’t Always Feel Straight

How do you know when you’re truly centered?

As riders, we spend a great deal of time working toward straightness. But what happens when what feels straight isn’t actually straight?

Our bodies develop familiar patterns of movement and tension. Over time, those patterns become our reference point for balance. We may feel perfectly centered while unknowingly favoring one side.

One of my favorite classical Pilates exercises for exploring this is Rolling Like a Ball.

What Can a Little Rolling Tell Us?

Rolling Like a Ball may appear simple, but there’s a great deal happening within this small movement.

Begin seated on your mat, with your knees drawn toward your chest, hands holding your ankles, and your feet lifted from the floor. Find your balance just behind your sit bones, maintaining the rounded shape of your spine.

Before you roll, pay attention.

• Are you balancing equally between your right and left sides?

• Are you gripping somewhere to maintain your position?

• Does your weight naturally shift toward one side?

Now, maintaining your shape, roll back toward your shoulder blades and return to your balance point without allowing your feet to touch the floor. Avoid rolling onto your neck.

Notice what happens.

Do you consistently return to the same side? When you roll, do you turn or veer toward one side? If you do, that may be a sign that the hip on that side is tighter. Does one hip seem reluctant to fold? Do you need to tighten your shoulders, arms, or hip flexors to find your balance?

These observations can tell us a great deal about our habitual holding patterns.

Bringing It Into the Saddle

Now consider what happens when you sit on your horse.

You may believe you’re sitting equally on both seat bones, but are you?

Perhaps one hip is tighter than the other. Perhaps you habitually shift your weight to one side or use tension to create a sense of stability.

And remember, your horse has its own asymmetries, too.

The relationship between horse and rider is constantly changing. What we feel as straight may simply be what we’ve become accustomed to.

The Pilates Connection

The purpose of Rolling Like a Ball isn’t to force ourselves into perfect symmetry.

It’s to become aware.

Where do we find our balance? Where do we lose it? Do we roll straight, or do we turn toward one side? And what do we do with our bodies to get our balance back?

A tendency to shift or turn to one side doesn’t automatically tell us exactly why. But it gives us a valuable place to begin investigating. If you consistently turn toward one side as you roll, that may indicate that the hip on that side is tighter.

Before we can change a pattern, we first have to recognize it.

And sometimes, a little rolling can teach us quite a lot about how we ride.