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Weekly Wrap up. Week 1. 2025. Happy New Year!

We are baaaaaaack....2025, we are coming for YOU!

                  Happy New Year everyone!


I cannot wait to see you all again and take this opportunity to offer an arms wide open WELCOME to a couple of new members who have just joined. 


 I do hope you have all had a really lovely festive break. Amongst us, I know we have had some holidays to far flung destinations,  a beautiful NYE wedding in Ireland and for my part, a really super week skiing. 

We lucked out with a ski guide who knew the area inside out and was able to take us to best snow, the smallest queues and to a multitude of areas. I did go off her a tiny bit a couple of days in.... "How long have you been skiing?" she asked..."I first put skiis on when I was 3 or 4" I replied... "Oh" says she, " you'll remember lace up boots then" ..... 


Ok... I mean yes, as it happens, I do indeed remember lace up boots... and those hideous wooden T bars that went on for miles and one man chair lifts that would swing manically in the wind.... Yes I do,.. it was just the total conviction with which she said it!!.... 


However, as you know, I only ever speak from the heart and from personal experience and I was really proud of my results this week. 


Only a few years ago, I was faced with constant pain, limited mobility and was discussing a new knee ( and hip, which will indeed have to happen one day|).


  Last year was the start of the turn around on my own personal journey. 

 I lost weight, worked exceptionally hard on my own strength and mobility and was really proud to feel stronger and fitter than I can remember and totally pain free with a well behaved knee. 


 SO - give or take the odd situation beyond our control, I can once again, hand on heart state that we should never be put off by ageing and limitations as, with dedication, commitment and hard work, we can make it happen! 


I saw a post (Mel Robbins)  that I felt was really suitable that I wanted to share -


You'll watch an entire Netlfix series even when the first episodes are slow because someone told you "it gets better" - but what if you looked at your goals like that and watched your life get better instead. 


                      The wealth of health. What else can compare?





And so to the live calendar..... 


I totally respect that you may not want to read my emails every Friday (where, without fail, I put latest class updates and any changes to the schedule). Can't say I blame you at all but it is all there for your reference should you wish!


May I ask in that case that you get into the habit of looking at the calendar that is in real time. Here you will see what is coming up, what equipment you may need and have time to prepare and get in touch with any queries. 


If you rely on a  link from your history  to access the class then it is just that - historic and while it will nearly always work, it is not real time. Attached is a screen shot of what you will see if, over the festive break, you went to access a class on New Year's eve for example..... 


We are going into a lovely long run of classes for the next several weeks and there is no reason to think any class will deviate from the schedule but if you do find yourself trying to access a class (meeting) that noone else is in, please be considerate enough to check the live calendar first as you will find notes clearly explaining if a class is not running.

If you have any questions about using the live calendar, please get in touch. 


We have lots coming up and Clare and I are meeting this week for more plotting and planning! 


In order for your planning the timetable will run along the lines of... 


Mondays 08.45 - the technique class - idenitifying how to avoid a knee replacement or getting those grumpy hips working or getting more movement in your spine to stop your neck aching in abs work. 


Tuesdays 8am - PURE mat. Traditional mat work that will lenghten, strengthen and challenge

Tuesdays 9am - Strength, Always have all your weights, bands etc


Wed 8am - Full Body Power with Clare. Building strength and improving flexibility. Please always have light weights, bands and soft ball handy. 


Thurs 8am - Pilates funk. Maybe sequences or the wall or light weights. Be prepared for any of the above 


Thurs 9am - Pure mat - all levels. Covering all the tradional moves with adaptations and ways to adjust 


Fri 8am - could be HIIT, could be weights, could be Circuits.. always have all equipment handy 

Fri 9am - Full body mobility and stretch


I hope this appeals and will help you plan your schedule. 

We are heading into our FIFTH year online can you believe! Let's make this THE healthiest, strongest, most empowering year yet.

Let's all think of our own goals and objectives, whatever they may be. Have a little check in on your mood, energy levels, strength, mobility, diet, sleep pattern, stress levels, any aches, pains or issues... maybe write some observations and check in once a month, keeping some notes.

It is easy to overlook what we have gained, improved on and grown in because it isn't happening quickly enough or as much as we want, so let's check in, observe our own progress and celebrate our fabulousness!!!

See you online xx

By juliet March 30, 2025
It's a busy one... but then, when isn't it?
By juliet March 21, 2025
Quick weekly touching base!
By juliet March 13, 2025
Juliet's Pilates was live. 17 March 2020
By juliet March 6, 2025
It's a busy one... but then, when isn't it?
By juliet February 27, 2025
I very nearly missed it. I was thinking about an April challenge or similar when I suddenly realised that WE ARE 5! In March, we will have been online for a whopping 5 years and as we grow ever stronger, this needs to be celebrated! Friday 17th March 2020. I was in a totally empty Beaulieu Village hall as everyone was staying home and with legs shaking and heart racing, I leant my phone up against a speaker on the stage and started my first ever Facebook LIve class. A lot has happened in 5 years and we are all far more tech savvy now but this was ground breaking for me at least and I was terrified. Seeing little hearts and smiley faces floating up the screen as more and more people logged on was the biggest support I could have imagined. That week before what we all knew was coming, I was facing the “what’s next” along with millions of others. For me, “what next” was a 3 day non stop run of no sleep (adrenaline has many uses) and a huge learning curve. Along with fellow fitness professionals, I was learning how to use Zoom, membership platforms, booking programs, how to manage my website, multi screening, recording and editing. There were a lot of tears and coffee and I did not see my bed for 3 nights straight. BUT…. (indulge me here please) scrolling back through my old blog posts (still there for you to see!) I saw my first post about Live, free Facebook Pilates on March 20th and my first calendar of classes the same week as we went into lockdown. I went live, online for free every day, one way or another for 6 weeks right at the start. It nearly killed me and how Joe Wicks kept going, I do not know but I am so proud of that and what we achieved together. I was reaching into countries all over the world as at that time, not as many people were offering this and as everyone was at home, time zones were not as relevant. Friends and family were sharing the links so that they could do classes together and see eachother from wherever they were. To be honest, it is all a bit of a blur (as I am sure it is for many, many people) as I just fought hard to save my business and my sanity. I do vividly remember one class where we had zooms from Australia, America, Qatar, Dubai and Mallorca. I wrote it down on my office whiteboard where it stayed for years. It was just surreal and I honestly could not believe this was me! I was doing all this on my laptop mirrored to my TV, in my lounge! You saved me! I was on my own and horribly lonely and isolated and slowly going a bit mad and “having” to log on daily and be positve and upbeat and full of energy to motivate and inspire you genuinely saved me. I have removed most of the old lockdown content and anything that still triggers me into a shivver of how awful it was, but one thing that I hold in my heart with enormous pride is my online community. I am more proud of this than I can begin to descibe. You are my family. I created this, built and nurtured it and continue to be indescribably proud of what we have all acheived together. Our Christmas lunches, when I sit back and see so many friends, the care and what we share - please know that it means the world to me. We have got up to SO MUCH online over 5 years. I am not going to go back over it because a) it is all there in old blogs and social media posts and b) full disclosure, I am only truly, this last year, coming out of what the lockdown era took out of me and I do not wish to revisit it but…. True friendships have grown and we all know we really are “SO MUCH MORE THAN PILATES”. Only last week when a group of us met for a walk, I took so much from hearing you talking about how much YOU get from it - not just the exercise but the daily morning chats and check in’s, the community and support - that you cannot believe how you used to do one class a week, whizz in, whizz out and that was that until the following week whereas now you are doing multiple classes a week and what’s apping fellow members, logging in to see friends and sharing so much. I have been able to teach from Cornwall, Botswana, Croatia ,Pembrokeshire, the local beach…. and as my feet get ever more itchy, the wonders of online means have van, have wifi - you can come with me! I have never wanted to go down the commerical studio route. That was never for me. Far too restrictive - and as online works, the world awaits! So here we are. This last week we have beamed into MELBOURNE (furthest reach so far!), Singapore, Tanzania, Germany, France, Spain, Greece and never forgetting the Isle of Wight… we have more members than ever, a wonderful variety of classes and the library has had another update with more to come. Teatime talks are shaping up (new page on the website under construction), we have 2 socials in the diary and it’s still only February. This year is my 20th anniversary as a Pilates teacher and 22 years since I started out as a Personal trainer. As the wonderful Master Teacher Michael King (who I am going to for a week of Pilates in Crete in May) says - “Old Pilates teachers never retire. We just roll down one day and never roll back up” For our fifth anniversary, it seems only right to go back to where it started so bear with me and watch this space as I plan a collection of extra FREE classes available to EVERYONE, some on Zoom, some on instagram live. This will be week commencing March 24 March and PLEASE put Saturday March 29th in your diary and come to Beaulieu village hall for old time’s sake for a FREE class open to ALL starting at 9am - and coffee and pastries up the road afterwards at Steffs. I will sort the times and days and post next week and in our members’ calendar but everyone is included. Do also keep March 11th in your diary for the first of our Teatime talks - again, open to all. The wonders of being online.
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.
By juliet February 13, 2025
It's a busy one this week! If you just want class updates, please scroll to bottom.
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