It's our 2nd Anniversary!!

Blog Layout

It's our 2nd Anniversary!!

TWO YEARS ONLINE!

Happy 2 years ONLINE!!!

I mean technically I was not fully yet online - but the cogs were whirring, the plans were forming and we were, as of 8pm 2 years ago today, locked down.

THREE DAYS…. No sleep, a lot of tears and some pretty fantastic anxiety attacks and we were off!!! Straight into a full month of Facebook lives… every single day… It was very exciting and very terrifying and so we were launched online!!

WHAT a couple of years it has been. To think back to those early days when we were all a bit trepidatious of this thing “Zoom” and how did one sign up and what was mute and quite honestly, just what was the etiquette?

Passwords did NOT work, wifi was being stolen by children homeschooling and it was too much bother. Spouses tended to wander semi naked, post shower in the back ground and pets and small children bombed the class….those days when no-one was quite sure who could actually see what and OH the delight when it was realised that you could stay in your pyjamas and forget about your hair.... well, YOU could....!!!!

Fast forward and we are quite the online community. I am proud to have taught live into 11 countries and counting with the grand accolade of being recognised, half asleep and staring at my coffee, at 6am at Bristol Airport just a few weeks ago by someone who’s mother had joined from Bahrain. Bertie has been recognised several times as “the Pilates dog” … we are, I believe, quite established!

Think back to Lockdown 1 when lots of you joined every single day and how STRONG and FLEXIBLE you all became with your daily practise. Lots of you accomplished some moves that had evaded you for years and with the help of toilet rolls, tins of soup, towels, dressing gown cords and a lot of laughter, we got very creative and incredibly strong.

Do you remember our first online Summer party when we all wore hats and danced to ABBA in our sunny gardens or going into Autumn and playing online Charades which worked suprisingly well.

We have had “From the Sofa” sessions including our wonderful Pelvic floor workshops, cookery demonstrations, read the book and meet the author, skincare tutorials and our back care and common injuries tutorial.

We had the 28 days live on Facebook at the start of Lockdown, all free, all recorded and all loaded into my blog, we had the November challenge which saw me posting every single day, including dressing for dinner Friday, socially distanced sparklers, relax and read a book, dancing for exercise….. and who could forget or indeed, keep requesting Pilates and Prosecco (oft repeated elsewhere but you saw it here first and it even got a mention on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen!!

Who could forget the Bond inspired week of classes to celebrate the new movie launch, our Olympics themed month of classes and two year’s of Christmas jumper day and The 12 moves of Christmas…. Not to mention HIIT, Circuits, Power, Back care, Mobility and Stretch, small equipment, Technique Tuesday, upside down and back to front, Pilates and the wall, my Teacher trainer workshops, sequence and flow, Abs burner, weights and bands…Rollers, Magic Circles, The Pole, The fit band, resistance band, The 34 moves.. forwards AND back again, our “between lock down” live classes with coffee and cake in the Forest when we got mugged by a herd of donkeys……We have had Sports Specific classes where I have welcomed horse riders (we used kitchen chairs), Pilates for Golf, for Running, for Tennis, for Sailing....

We have got to know each other virtually. Certainly we have missed the face to face interaction but we have shared SO much by zooming into each other’s houses….. We sing happy birthday, greet new babies and puppies…admire house moves, envy at holiday destination zoom ins, .....there have been new friendships formed when people realise that they live near by, we have sourced exclusive wallpaper, dog sitting companies, flight dilemmas, plumbers and decorators, advice on technology admin - only recently one member visited another who they found lived very close to research rowing machines…. We have house guests and family members joining in, mothers and daughters, sisters and friends all zooming in from different countries to see each other and to say that they can do the same class together from London, Dubai, The USA, Greece, France, Bahrain and so many more as well as those scattered across the UK - in one class we had Cornwall to Perthshire to Pembrokeshire to Dublin.

I think one of the best stories is the Grandma FaceTiming family in Canada after one full lockdown and telling her (utterly stunned, teenage) grandkids that her wifi was weak so she was hot spotting from her mobile data and was screen sharing from her laptop onto her tv so that she could see them all so much more clearly. All tricks learned from our community where people found skills they never knew they had and shared their knowledge to help others join in.

So, as I continue to have sound and camera difficulties (consistency is KEY), and we are technically no longer “The Lounge” but “The Studio” aka my spare bedroom… as we no longer have to cope with Bertie the Brilliant Barging into class (do miss that a bit), as we see new members still joining and our online community growing ever stronger, it just remains for me to say THANK YOU ALL for your support, your humour, your energy, your friendship, your loyalty, your checking your phone when you think I can't see you, YOUR CRAWLING ON HANDS AND KNEES TO GET YOUR COFFE THINKING YOU ARE BELOW THE CAMERA, views of your ceilings, your wonderful pyjamas, your pretending to freeze when really you are just having a lie down….your pets and kids joining in, your cat's bottom in front of your camera, your patience, your hard work and last but not least, your subscriptions…. Here’s to a very happy life online.

So - WHY are we staying online? Well, here are a few from me and below are a few from you!!!

Cost - for the same price as you used to pay for one class a week, you now have access to 7 live classes a week and a library of hundreds of classes on demand

Convenience - no parking, petrol, commuting, traffic jams and faffing. No childcare issues when someone is ill at home. Being able to sign for a parcel, let the builder in, be around for the isolating child. Being able to join in when you are isolating. Being able to join in when I am isolating!.

Time - opening your screen 5 mins before and being straight back into your life seconds after.

Accessibility- from wherever you are which includes bedrooms, kitchens, landings, hallways, conservatories, garages, Premier Inns, holiday homes, motor homes, gardens, abroad and at home.

Community - being able to sit in your own kitchen with a coffee and chat with your online friends before the class

There are just a few reasons why I think it works!!!

As to WHY JULIET’S PILATES ONLINE? ……in your words…

“‘Why Juliets’s Pilates Online’

The only good thing to come out of the pandemic was to be reunited with Juliet’s Pilates again.

The only downside to moving to Somerset in December 2021 was leaving Juliet’s Pilates behind, and the friends I had made at the gym and in the classes. So when Juliet went online in March 2020 it was a pure joy to be reunited, to be able to do ‘real time’ classes with others at a time we could only leave home for an hour a day and to feel we hadn’t been truly cut off from humanity.

Now, even though we are free, it is just perfect to connect online to do just as strenuous classes as if we had Juliet breathing down our necks in the flesh, four days a week, with others we can count as friends, and all without having to drive and park. Even from miles away Juliet’s beady eyes can see if we aren’t doing it right! If we can’t make a class there is an online library of countless classes of all abilities.

The true joy to be able to do regular Pilates with Juliet online, who makes every class interesting and different, is immeasurable. It may be virtual but we still have time for a chat and a laugh and it really is as if we are in the same room.

Keep up the good work Juliet and never come offline.

------------------------------------------------------------

“Dear Juliet,

Your Zoom class has been a wonderful link to normal life from the grey clouds of the Covid pandemic. Juliet M remembers me saying, as we heard of the first outbreak in Wuhan, that it would be with us within two weeks! I got back from NZ on 16th March and J encouraged me to sign up almost immediately.

Your determination to master the necessary technical skills has always amazed me and I am sure you have had to pay considerable amounts for all sorts of kit. The Green Goddess look is one I remember!“

------------------------------------------------------

“Hi Juliet,

Simple. Because you are the best of some ten Pilates Instructors I have had in over twenty years and I have now been working with you for over ten years. I can understand what you are attempting from your instructions without having to watch your demonstration so can close my eyes and concentrate on getting it right. From you I have learned a massive amount about how my muscles and skeleton work.”

---------------------------------------------------------

You kept us sane when we needed you most. Now we have fabulous classes we can do anywhere, anytime. xx

--------------------------------------------------------

You've been incredible - you bring so much enthusiasm and joy xxx

---------------------------------------------------

Happy 2nd Anniversary! And thank you for helping me get through the last two years - I love my mat time with you, even if sometimes it might not look like I do!!!!

-------------------------------------------

SO glad I was introduced to @julietspilates!

-----------------------------------------------

............and HERE'S to the next 20 years!!!!!!

< Older Post

Newer Post >

Weekly Wrap up. Week 8. 2025. There's none so easy to delude as oneself....

By juliet • February 20, 2025

Ok, full disclosure. I think it was me that dropped the clanger yesterday morning... those of you who joined me would have seen that I was not at home, and when I arrived at my destination the night before, I realised I didn't have a magic circle with me and went into the 8am class and edited it to avoid the little hiccough and I THINK I may not have saved the changes. I may be wrong as I am in and out of the library ever such a lot but I am going to put my hand up and say it was me. I could probably wing it and get away with it but I have never been very good at lying and dishonesty does not sit well with me. Mind you, I say that..... I remember many moons ago... many, many moons ago when I was 15. My parents had a bar at the side of the lounge - terribly "all the rage" at the time, then terribly naff and I believe, quite the rage again now. Anyway, I was home on my own, I was bored and I started looking for mischief. I took the carefully hidden key ( hidden above the door as we all knew very well) and let myself into the little bar. I worked my way through the optics of many, almost certainly past their sell by date bottles of revolting sticky liquid and tried each and every one. Needless to say it was not long before I thought I was going to die. I staggered out of the back door to find somewhere to hide (and possibly die) and spied my sister's Hillman Minx which I crawled into and gratefully slept. When I woke, the effects were swift and I just managed to wind down the rear window and get my head out before events overtook me. As I was walking slowly back up the garden, my mother and sister arrived home and my sister was horrified at the state of her car. I still, to this day do not know how I did it but without missing a beat, I just informed her that there had been a load of seagulls flying overhead and they must have poo'd down the car door. Im still laughing now, some 42 years later, at how I just came out with that line and that, as I was staggering up the stairs "with the start of a bad cold", I heard my mother and my sister discussing how shocking it was that the seagulls had done that.... dear reader, we lived in Enfield, North London. There is not a coast for a hundred miles. My mother told us stories about when we were little and I recall the story of how my sister furiously denied writing all over the new wallpaper in her bedroom with a crayon. It was the fact that she would not back down and insisted it could not be her that saw her sent to bed. "But how did you know it was me?" she sobbed and my mother told us that the writing was, quite literally on the wall - all around her bedroom in wonky letters read "Louise 4" Yet, as the saying goes, there is none so easy to delude as oneself. I can say for fact that I have on many occasions talked myself into or out of situations, telling myself I could justify that cake because I deserved it, I could have that drink because I had earned it, I could slack off work because I had earned the right to... How many times have you gone to do something and then given yourself permission not to because of the story you came up with? I guess that can go too far and I know more than one or two who have lied for so long that they started to believe their own warped narrative. One such was my ex husband who lied to me about his age... when he asked me once to get his passport from his laptop bag, I flipped to the photo page to see how bad his picture might be, only to be confronted with a date of birth quite different from the one he had told me.. and he admitted that he had been telling me for so long that he had actually convinced himself he was indeed 8 years younger... Mind you, I still married him so who's the fool!! We all tell white lies and we don't want to cause unnecessary discomfort - if someone has just spent a fortune on a new outfit and they are thrilled, would we honestly tell them we didn't like it? ..... on that note though.... when we were teenagers, a friend of mine's mum and her neighbour went down their road to the church to watch the arrival of a bride for her wedding. Maybe it was because they hadn't been invited and were a bit miffed but they were less than complimentary and I can honestly remember this to the word and I am laughing as I write this ..."Crikey, the bride has clapped some weight on, hasn't she? I thought brides were meant to lose weight in the run up - do you think she has already eaten all the wedding cake? I would definitely wear sleeves with those arms" ... "And WHAT is Sheila wearing on HER HEAD? Call that a hat? ".... all this said unfortunately, very close to the videographer, back in the days of wedding videos being very new and with none of today's editing available. Every word was captured and saved.... on their ACTUAL wedding video... I kid you not... Learning to be brutally honest with ourselves is one of life's greatest lessons. One of my favourite books is Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes. Marian is an addict in recovery and weaves addiction of many forms into all her novels (also brilliant - Again Rachel and Grown Up's) and she talks with such candour on the subject of addiction - I have heard her interviewed many times and it is the power to delude ourselves that is so shocking. The lies we can tell ourselves when all around us can see through it. Another great speaker on the subject is the mighty Edith Eger, who I have mentioned before. A holocaust survivor, she continues to lecture as a psychotherapist in her 90's - her books The Choice and The Gift are absolute must reads. She talks about healing without distraction - whether that is alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, exercise, scrolling social media... it takes so many forms but it is only when we remove the many distractions that we can start to sit with ourselves, get to truly know ourselves and then, and only then may we move forward. We know the need to be present, to be still, to be quiet but sometimes it helps to hear it delivered in a different voice or explained around another approach for us to see how it may benefit us. Anyway - my name is Juliet Nicholas. I am 56 and when I was 15, I vomited down the outside of my sister's car. There are no seagulls in Enfield.