Touch, Trans-Affirming Movement, and Pilates for the Revolution With Sofia Engelman

You know that thing where a fitness instructor grabs your knee without asking? Yeah, we're done with that. Sofia Engelman — owner of Brooklyn's Queer Body Pilates and genuinely one of the most thoughtful humans working in movement today — joins me to talk about what consent actually looks like in a Pilates class, why the word "burn" is doing a lot of dirty work in so-called body-positive spaces, and how cueing into the posterior chain can quietly sidestep a whole lot of dysphoria. We get into trans-affirming movement, supporting clients through gender-affirming surgery, Sofia's upcoming book Pilates for the Revolution, and why your language IS your politics whether you meant it to be or not. Also: haunted speaker systems, leather jacket divination, and why I — a Gen Xer who got hit as a kid — am still unlearning a lot. Sofia is 28, deeply wise, and I'm taking notes. You should too.

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Transcript

Julia 0:00

Are you haunted by the thoughts that show up at 3 a.m.? Good. This is where we follow them. With science, we're switching to working and painting and identity of these eyes of a blue tablet. And we got to find the question that matters.

Intro

Julia 1:02

Specifically, the language I use in my Pilates practice and the assumptions that can quietly, you know, sneak in alongside it. Now, I've been thinking a lot about consent, touch, and the ways we navigate bodies in movement spaces. And as a Gen Xer, I can say with some confidence that my generation was not always stellar when it came to conversations about consent. A lot of us were taught to assume rather than ask, to correct rather than collaborate, and to treat bodies as projects instead of people. And the more I teach, the more I realize how much there is to learn from younger generations, particularly around consent, identity, and the simple but profound practice of asking instead of assuming. Because it's surprisingly easy to make unconscious assumptions about someone's gender, orientation, relationship to their body, or what they need from a movement practice. And if we're being honest, Pilates, it's got its own baggage here. You know, we inherit language, teaching habits, and traditions that often go unquestioned. But what happens when we start questioning them? There's also been a lot of noise lately about tradition, about what Pilates is supposed to be, what Joseph Pilates may or may not have wanted, and who gets to decide what counts as real Pilates? And look, I think there's value in understanding where our work comes from, but I'm not interested in sacrificing adaptability, accessibility, or inclusivity on the altar of tradition. If we're preserving a method that requires ignoring the needs of actual human beings standing in front of us, then I think it's worth asking whether we're preserving the right thing. And that's exactly why I'm so excited about today's guest. Sophia Engelman is the owner of Brooklyn-based Pilates studio Queer Body Pilates. They are a Pilates and movement educator, choreographer, and one of the most thoughtful voices I know working at the intersection of movement, consent, and queer and trans affirmation. Sophia works with queer and trans folks and their allies supporting people through surgery, rehab and rehab, hypermobility, chronic pain, and somatic re-education. Through continuing education workshops, writing and teaching, and the occasional Instagram meetings, Sophia is developing a framework for queer and trans-affirming Pilates in the set-centered teaching, harm reduction and Pilates pedagogy, and the use of Pilates to support gender-affirming surgery. In other words, they're asking some of the same questions that have been rattling around in my brain at 3 a.m. And they're doing the work to find better answers. So let's get into it.

Interview

Julia 3:45

Hi, Sophia. Welcome, welcome, welcome. How are you today? I'm doing good, Julia. Awesome. So I'm gonna have you start by stating your name, your pronouns, age, and what's keeping you up at night.

Sofia 4:04

Ooh, okay. So I'm Sophia Ingelman. My pronouns are she and they. I'm 28. I know I'm a baby. And what's keeping me up at night? I've just been thinking and like obsessing a lot lately about the word burn, um, how it shows up in fitness, how it shows up in anarchy, um, and sort of like parallels and lack thereof between the two.

Julia 4:38

Yeah, say a little more about that because I've been following this journey on the insta. Yeah, yeah.

Sofia 4:45

I mean, I was I was just noticing like a lot of Pilates Instagram accounts that are presumably kind of maybe a little leftist, but they were advertising all of these classes that like had the word burn in the name, and it felt like there was like this dissonance for me between this like kind of like body positive thing that they were saying that like they were acting like they were preaching, and then this languaging. And I think that like oftentimes it sort of gets like the word burn gets delivered as like, yeah, like feel the burn, like feel your muscles working, but that doesn't like really mean anything. And I think like actually usually people are talking about burning fat. And so it's like, what is happening here? This doesn't feel quite aligned with what you're saying that you're preaching. Yeah.

Julia 5:54

I agree with you, and I you you talk a lot about language, and we're gonna get into that in a minute. Um, I think language, what we use and what we say is very important, especially in that context, and especially in the Pilates space when we're teaching as instructors. But I agree with you. I think there's a major gap between this idea of pain and fitness, or like, I don't know, associating pain with the body and what we're doing and whether it's appropriate. And like I understand, I'm like digressing under certain circumstances, like in physical therapy to an extent for sure. But even then, it's usually a signal that we should listen to. And there's lots of things. It's a deeper conversation. We're gonna get more into it, but yes, yes to everything that's coming out of the mouth for sure. Second question I ask everybody before we spin off where are you right now in the liminal space of aging and identity? And by that I mean like, does anything feel like it's ending or beginning or emerging? Even at 28, which you might be young, but you are very wise.

Sofia 7:00

This is a good question. I've been talking a lot with my therapist lately about like owning what I'm doing a little bit more. And I spent a really long time working at a Pilates studio that I won't name, where I worked for someone who was really, really like on it about making me feel inexperienced. Like she like till the very end, she was calling me green. Like, no matter what, no matter, like, even though I like had 20 clients a week that I was regularly seeing for her, I was green in her eyes. And so it's been like a couple years of like unpacking that experience after leaving and starting to kind of like let go of some stuff that I think got like even though it didn't feel right as it was happening, stuff that like got got in there, got in there.

Julia 8:02

It it's insidious, yeah, yeah, yeah. As if we need help with imposter syndrome, just in general. Like, by the way, like whether, you know, however you identify, whether you're queer or you're female or what have you, also especially when you're young. And by the way, you know, I came to this practice late in life. I got certified in my 40s, and there were younger people in my class that grasped it much quicker, much easier than I did. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But I certainly was not one to say, well, I'm older or I don't know. I just think that to your point, I think that there's experience and then there's what you know. And people need their flowers, like for whatever it's for, and that kind of respect. And if you're bringing people in that says something about the way that you work in your practice, and it should be honored and it shouldn't be dismissed just because, well, you know, you've only been doing it for this long or whatever. I hate that for you. I'm glad you're out of there.

Sofia 9:02

Totally. I mean, I think just like in most body-based forms, women of all ages sort of like feel like they're like really fighting to have a place. And so I like understand why this former boss felt like she needed to like really like prove something and own something about where she was at. And it felt easier to do that by putting her employees down.

Julia 9:28

But you're very empathetic with that. I I love that you're very understanding and sure. I I see that yes, okay. I'll I'll go along with that. You know, I'm a coach, I'm like, okay, I can get I can get on board with that, but I'm also like, don't do that. Also, like, you know, check yourself. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. So I want to start with a topic that I know that you enjoy talking about, and that's gonna be consent. We talk about this, you and I both on social media, you much more than me. What does consent actually look like in a Pilates class? And how is it different, if at all, from the way most fitness spaces operate? Totally.

Sofia 10:08

So I think a lot about consent as being like practice or methodology to reduce harm. And so even if you're like perfectly doing everything about I'm about to describe by the book, there's no guarantee that harm won't happen. But we're trying to do our best so as little harm as possible happens. Um, and so often this looks like for me, I don't teach a lot of group classes anymore, but when I teach an in-person group class, I like to have a moment when I'm checking in with everybody before and I'll ask them where they're at with touch that day. Sometimes I might take a moment, this is kind of like an old classic, like at the beginning, if we're like in a little forward fold or child's pose, just to give people an opportunity to like put a hand behind their back or raise a hand or put a hand on their heart just to flag that they don't want to be offered touch at all that day. So I don't even go to them. And then if people have opted in to the offer of touch, then I'm still going to ask them if it's okay for me to make contact with the specific part of their body before I go and go ahead and do that because their consent might be body part specific, it might be situation specific. So I don't ever want to it, they might have changed their mind at this point, might be like time specific. So I don't want to make an assumption that anyone has ever sort of like given me the 100% go-ahead, especially in a group class setting where we're not building like necessarily like the deepest, most intimate relationship. When I'm working with people one-on-one, I usually integrate a lot of this into my intake form process because I have this sense that as soon as someone is in the studio with me, we're you know, around all of this weird-looking Kalates equipment that maybe they've never seen before, I'm suddenly the expert in the space because I know how to use it and what we're about to do and they don't. That power dynamic. Exactly. There's like this inherent power dynamic. And so I want them to have to have an opportunity, even if they're not necessarily super familiar with what touch might look like in the Pilates studio, in the intake before, before we're in that power dynamic in person, to be able to take a moment, like without any time constraint, also of like, okay, we got to get the session started. I want to just give an answer quickly, like to reflect. And if there's anything they want to let me know is off limits, or sort of like their own processing around giving consent to touch, or like they don't really want it for the first few weeks, but then we can maybe get into it. Like I want them to be able to express those things. Obviously, there's even a power dynamic in the intake form, but there's much less of one. Um and then I am always, yeah, again, really clear, even one-on-one, about what exactly I am gonna do. And once I've been working with someone for quite a long time, my big thing is just more so like rather than asking if it's okay for me to do something, if it's just been like months and months and like it's been a consistent yes, and more so like you're gonna feel me put my hand on your knee, you know. So I'm gonna tell them what's gonna happen rather than just doing it. And so I'm still leaving the line of communication open, even if we're not going through this like process of like asking and answering every single time. So it can get like a little more fluid and casual, but I'm making sure that there's still conversation happening around it rather than like absolute assumption that this is always gonna be okay. And I guess the other like kind of like big part of this for me outside of like the verbal part of it, is it's important to me that the touch that we're doing in the Plotti studio is always really collaborative and is kind of highlighting the client's agency rather than just my own. So, like I come from a dance improvisation background and we talk a lot about like, especially in like contact improvisation and like partnering practices, like hands that don't want anything is like a big thing that I was like trained, like like even when I was a teenager. And so I think about this a lot of like, I'm gonna place my hand on your knee, and can you press your knee into my hand? So I'm not moving your knee with my hand, I'm offering a surface for you to do something into and even giving you're giving feedback, exactly. It's it's really just a tool for us to like attune sensation and attention rather than like I'm gonna fix you and put you in this spot, like yeah, my little puppet.

Julia 15:30

Yeah, exactly. I that's and it's interesting, you know. I I have a background in contact improv too, and I never I didn't even connect this until this very moment when you mentioned it. But that is such an interesting point because contact improv is an agreement, you know, and it if it doesn't work if you're if you're both not present, if you're both not like working together, that synergy, if it's not there, it's clumsy and weird and it feels funky, it doesn't feel good. It's like you've always, I mean, we've all been partnered with someone where you're like, I don't know what's happening right now. Totally. But yeah, and I I have to say, like you, you have definitely inspired me by the way that you speak. So 28 or not, I mean, like again, right? Because as a Gen X person, you know, we were definitely raised in a particular way. And it wasn't great. Like we brag a lot about how like tough we are, like whatever. But, you know, we all got hit. I don't agree with that. Like, I don't think that was okay. So our sort of relationship to bodies and the way that we communicate and we do things, just because we think it's normal doesn't mean it's right. And I have really been taking time to think more about the way that I work as a teacher and the way that I use consent, especially in in private, yes, but because I still teach, you know, like three group classes a week again, I'm dialing that back. But, you know, I I teach at a more of a franchise in a larger place. I love my job. I I have no problem with that, I love my clients. But I find that I make assumptions a lot. I make assumptions a lot. And you're absolutely right. You, you know, I especially you had said something about a person may not feel comfortable saying no, right? And so I've been giving that's the thing that I've been really sticking with lately and thinking a lot about. So I think as teachers, we're using all of our tools, we're using verbal, we're listening to what people say, but we also we have to read the room, we have to read the body. And so it's it can get very complicated, but I think bringing your attention to it is all that matters, doing our best and bringing it to our attention and trying to incorporate some of these skills. So thank you for that. I'm learning a lot. I appreciate that. Yeah. In a world where bodies are constantly being judged and like optimized or corrected, what does it mean to create a movement practice that is actually about, you know, bodily autonomy, like being grateful for what the body can do, meeting people where they're at, reframing, adaptability, all of these wonderful things.

Sofia 18:01

Yeah. It sort of goes back to a little bit of what I was talking about in the consent conversation about and like also my contact improvisation background of like I want this to be a collaborative experience between the two of us. And so I'm really interested in like being in kind of constant communication with my clients about what they're genuinely like curious about right now. And like I'll always ask them at the beginning of a session if they're like having anything they're like wanting out of me or they want us to like get into that day. And often they're kind of like, do your thing, but sometimes like it'll bring up stuff that's like really interesting that I wouldn't have necessarily brought to them, or I get to understand a little bit better what's been kind of like hitting home for them.

Julia 19:01

I feel like it's when you think they're not gonna say something, that's the day to you, right?

Sofia 19:05

Yeah, totally. I'm like, you're good, right? And they're like, no, actually, I'm really curious about how my rotator cuff works. Okay, great. Let's do it. Yeah. So that's that's a big one, is just like I always tell people when it's their first session with me, like, this isn't like a performance or like a presentation where I'm delivering you this information. Like, I really want this to be like a both like verbal and movement conversation between the two of us.

Julia 19:40

What comes to mind when you're speaking is this idea of collaboration, like collaborative care, because as a health coach, I work very much in partnership. And sometimes I forget the way that I work as a coach is the same. I should be working as a teacher and bringing that into the space, this collaborative care, this partnership. And, you know, and I'm sure you encounter this, or maybe you don't, but I I certainly do. I have a lot of people who come in and I'm like, you know, well, you know, I always have things planned, but I want to know what's going on with you, and I'm ready to throw everything out the window immediately. In fact, that happens all the time, you know. But especially when I first meet a person, and especially, particularly women of my age, I get a lot of, I want to lose weight. I need to do this when we talk about goals, and goals can be anything, it can be anything like that, but it can also just be I want to move my arm better, you know, it can be very simple. And so I always do a reframe and we talk about it's not about weight, you know. I'm like, and I just say I don't do that. That's not what we do here, but I we build stronger bodies, we build better functionality, you know, and usually that conversation leads to, oh, well, you know, I really wish I could like bend my knee a little bit more. And I'm like, okay, well, like let's start there.

Sofia 20:53

Yeah.

Julia 20:53

Right. So it's that, you know, meeting people where they're at, that adaptability also, I think, you know, being ready to partner and more conversation you have, the more, like the closer you can get to the goals, what the goals really are.

Sofia 21:07

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like usually underneath, like, you know, people will come to me and they're like, I want to run a half marathon. It's like, like, or like, I want to lift 300 pounds. And it's like some kind of like arbitrary, like athletic goal. Yeah. And so we have to like get under that and be like, okay, what is going on here? And like, usually it's that they're they're like arriving at that goal and they're arriving in front of me because they're wanting some kind of change. And so we need to figure out like exactly what that is. And obviously, like movement is the opposite of being static. And so coming to movement to initiate change in your life is like the best thing to do. But it's it's always really interesting when people come with those goals and we have to like dig a little deeper to figure out what exactly is going on.

Julia 22:03

Yeah, there's always something more. There's always something more. Which again, you know, you were talking about this earlier is that having those conversations, that, that, that collaboration early on in the beginning to really get to what people are thinking and what they're, what those goals may be and understanding that, you know, from a coaching perspective, you know, we use SMARK goals, but there's always a one larger thing, which is like run the marathon. And then when you really talk about it and you whittle it down, it might be more something like, I need to feel in my body. I need to feel better in my body. And the ultimate goal is running the marathon, but we have to start here. You have to start smaller before you can get there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Now with gender affirming care, which is a huge part of your practice and what you do, it's often talked about in medical terms. We hear a lot of that like on social, like in medical terms, but movement and body awareness also play a huge role. So how do you see Pilates supporting gender affirming experiences in the body?

Sofia 23:04

Yeah. So a lot of people will come to me non-binary and trans folks and also queer folks and I'll talk more also about how like I think that movement and just gender affirming care in general is also relevant to cis people as well. Yeah. But yeah, but queer and trans folks will come to me because oftentimes all of the fitness experiences that they had made them feel really ostracized. They didn't feel like they could like fully arise as themselves. And so I'm really interested in figuring out how to like build a movement space where they can feel as in touch with themselves as possible without to the best of our ability triggering dysphoria and any other kind of discomfort, which I think sort of like goes back to that idea of like this is harm reduction. We're not looking for no dysphoria to come up shit happens, but we're going to do what we can to have as little as possible. And so a big thing that I think about because in Pilates we do we do a lot of work that's kind of like specifically oriented around like the four corners of our trunk. And so our chest and our hips and pelvis are really big part of like all of our cueing and just generally our focus in the Pilates space. And these are both areas that are like actually highly sexualized and highly associated with gender. And so it's not necessarily that we like need to pretend that they don't exist but I think there's all these sort of like backdoor cheats we can use to get at all of the really good like mobility and strengthening and stability work that we want in those regions of the body without necessarily getting into a gendered or sexualized relationship to them. So for example I'm always really curious about the use of the word hips in movement spaces because I think like when the average person walking off the street hears the word hips, what they're thinking about is your hip bones at the top of the pelvis. And a lot of the time what we actually are referring to in Pilates is the hip joint which is lower down and it's a place of mobility. And so I like to be really clear about what I'm talking about when and so that we're not getting into this gendered thing about like talking about the hip bones. And I kind of work similarly around the chest. And one of the big ways that I work with both of these areas is I like to kind of like cue into the back chain, the posterior chain of the body a lot more than say more like yeah front ventral surface that you know it's like turtle on your back we've got all these vulnerable soft bits in front and I think that like a lot of you know like access to a lot of our organs and like our breast tissue and all of this stuff is in the front of the body. And so oftentimes also because we're such frontal creatures our eyes are on the front of our body a lot of us don't have bad associations with say like the back of the rib cage or like our sacrum. We just haven't thought about them that much. And so by cueing into the back of those regions I'm able to help people build a new relationship and connection with those areas of the body without kind of like hopefully getting into some of those deep triggers that we would have if I was like reach your chest forward or I want you to swish your hips side to side. We can kind of like fully kind of like circumvent all of that shit. And I find that this is a really useful perspective also just like in general working with folks that like potentially have a history of like any kind of trauma but especially sexual based trauma just to be able to kind of like repattern how we're thinking about those areas of the body and be able to reconnect with them in new ways. So I find that these tactics are fantastic when working with queer and trans populations but like I also find them like broadly applicable to larger populations and especially like straight women as well.

Julia 28:10

Yeah I I can totally see that. And I would even say too I like how you're talking about we, you know, not many people have a lot of awareness of their posterior chain and and to our audience posterior chain just means the back of your body. We'll keep it simple. So you know for example a lot of people associate their ribs with the front they're touching their like ribs ribs and I'm like yeah but your ribs wrap around you got ribs in the back in the back too. And so I I love this idea of also bringing attention to something that maybe people aren't completely aware of and it gives them like this new proprioceptive cue you know particularly when it's it is in contact with something it gives really good feedback and I love this. I and I love the idea of just learning more cues and you because we you know you just different things that work for everybody. So the more we have in our toolbox to use the better we can work with our clients. So I fully appreciate that. Sophia you write beautifully in general on the socials love to read about the body especially as something that is both political and personal. When did you realize movement work could also be activism?

Sofia 29:18

Always from the beginning Yeah I mean so I got like I got thrust into dance when I was well actually okay so like my dance journey was like it started a little bit when I was like three four years old. My parents put me in Isadora Duncan dance classes so I was not a ballet child. I was like and so like like really basic modern dance history Isadora Duncan really early like modern dance choreographer her whole thing was that she wanted to be allowed she wanted women to be able to express themselves in a way that wasn't limited to what was allowed in the ballet industry essentially like George Balanchine classical yeah yeah yeah exactly she was yeah she wanted women to be able to like tell stories and she was like dancing around naked at parties in San Francisco and then like in the Coliseum like this is her thing. And so that was my introduction to dance. I took a very big break and I was just generally like not a kid that liked connecting with my body. I was like I could read on the couch for 10 hours straight. I didn't want to like get up and play and move around at all. And I was like really bad at soccer but my parents were making me do soccer because I needed to do some kind of movement. And finally I discovered like a modern dance class and I was like I'm gonna go do that. And I was in middle middle school at this point. And it felt like really interesting to me that modern dance felt at that time anyway like really aligned with my values and I just felt like clear even at that age I was like ballet has all of these gender roles and this strictness and rigidity that doesn't feel in keeping with who I am as a person. I'm like I was like really into like being creative my mom is an artist and so I wanted something where I could like really express myself and it felt like modern dance was that thing. And that's sort of like where I fell in love with movement and connecting with my body and I felt like really aware and kind of like attracted to like that form of dance and like creative movement in general because it felt like inherently a challenge for me and like who I am as a person. It's just like I like I am not naturally an intuitive mover. And I was like this is like a challenge that I want to dedicate myself to and so in high school I was working a lot with choreographers who are making like really expressly political work. And like when I was 15 I think I like made this dance that it was it was like this little work in progress showing at a dance festival and it could be three minutes long. And I was like I am gonna just play the national anthem and eat a tomato like it's an apple and pick the produce stickers off of it to like create the American flag and it's this comment on capitalism and the United States you were feeling yourself. You were feeling yourself I was like I was all in right away yeah and then you know and I like did some ballet because my teacher said I need to do that for my technique but I was like this is not the thing this doesn't feel right to me and so this was just like always my way into movement. And so as soon as I was like the Kane school doing my mat training I was immediately trying to like figure out for myself how to connect this work to my politics how I could apply it to my queer and trans community I felt really acutely aware because like I'm really a writer at heart and so much of how we teach movement is in our languaging which I kind of like think of as like kind of like live like live real time like writing improvisation practice. And yeah I was noticing that so much of the cueing we were being taught was really gendered we were talking a lot about our sexual organs all this different stuff and I was very binary. It's very binary language just in general yeah yeah totally and I was like I think I want to figure out another way of offering this. So even when I was in my training I was already trying to rework the language being taught.

Julia 34:16

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I can see that that doesn't surprise me any at all about you and I would say you know the interesting thing about Kane since we both went to Kane I do think it is it was a good place for that because it supports that kind of discovery and not all schools not that this is an advertisement for this game the Kane school of company but you know they definitely support exploration and changing they're all up for that like anything that's going to be more inclusive. So I'm I'm so glad that you have that experience and you came to you arrived at this where you are because it's it's working and it's needed. It's really needed. Yeah you just you talked about like how writing is kind of like performance these are all together. Say a little bit more like about how they inform each other and then I want you to tell us more about the book that you're working on.

Sofia 35:01

I think yeah for me like language has always been such a huge part of what attracted me to teaching and even like pre-Pilates when I was teaching dance I think it was really sort of like curious to me how we used our words to kind of apply to movement and it felt like this like really exciting way to be like breaking up this like body-mind dichotomy that we have so much in our society. And I like even noticed for myself when I was taking other people's dance or Pilates classes that what would really excite me about a teacher is if they were speaking about the body or movement in a way that like I hadn't heard before and was like really exciting me. Like there's something about how they used those words that brought me into a new physical experience I hadn't had before and like those were the classes that like I'd get really really obsessed with and so I knew for myself that that was like always going to be a big part of how I taught and sort of like how I like to kind of like gather up gather up that information.

Julia 36:26

Yeah yeah yeah those those moments are so wonderful and so inspiring when you even if it's a even if I'm taking one class I feel like and even if I take one small thing away that completely changes my life oh it's just so delicious.

Sofia 36:40

I'm like I need more of that I need more of that I need more of that in my life it's so curious when like a cue that really has nothing to do with biomechanics like brings you into such a like groundbreaking experience. I'm like wow it's so amazing that you can say this thing that doesn't even sound like it would get you to do that. And yet we're all collectively having the same experience.

Julia 37:07

Well doing it. Yeah yeah yeah yeah like witchcraft yes yeah oh it's very witchy well everything we do is so witchy I mean that we could that's like a whole other episode but yes I mean there's and especially depending on you know one of my mentors is like is Megan Capel Duffy over at the Neuro Studio and talk about witchcraft. I I have seen things I've seen bodies that were told they would never be able to walk again I've seen bodies be told they weren't able to do things you know by by doctors by physical therapists and I've seen her work magic literal magic it's that's insane it's totally inspiring. But let's talk about your book before we completely spin off into witchcraft tell me the title of your book tell me everything about the book and what we're we're looking to expect.

Sofia 37:54

Yeah so it's called Pilates for the Revolution it's in the proposal stage right now so I've written a few chapters of it. This book for me is really like an offering for folks who are wanting to create I like to say like a Pilates based movement experience. I'm never teaching classical Pilates but you know we're in that realm Pilates based movement experience which feels really aligned with your values. And so I'm offering up stuff inside of the book around how I do that but also there's a lot of like writing prompts and exercises in it for folks to kind of like work out for themselves what their own kind of like prime like life values are and how they want to bring that into their movement practice.

Julia 38:44

So there's like a little bit of there's a bit of a workbook aspect to this which I enjoy.

Sofia 38:48

Yeah yeah yeah yeah so we've got some theory we've got like a whole big chunk of it is exercises that I'm offering then I'm off like providing modifications and progressions in the format of a flow chart which feels really exciting to me so that it's a little bit more like in line with the experience I have as a teacher when I'm working with people of like okay if X is feeling like this we can go in this direction and then based on that we can go this other way. And so it's really about like inviting people to ask questions and check in over and over and like get to know themselves as they make in choice make choices that I'm kind of guiding them through. Yeah.

Julia 39:36

I enjoy that kind of guidance because I like a lot of structure and I think that that's often missing from things because I you know talking about classical Pilates sometimes it doesn't okay foundationally you and I are in this we're in the same spot. I don't necessarily teach classical Pilates I certainly use the work like we both do. But there is no there is no direction where like if they can't do this you do this. Now Kane, I will say they're very good at providing more modification and options and there is more of like if you can't do this, you do X, Y, and Z. But I think we need more of that because a lot of us as you know we're just inventing it in the moment and I've seen it there are teachers who cannot do it. They don't know how and they can't and we need more of that. You can't just tell someone not to move or stop them from moving. You've got to give them something else. We've got to create more adaptability so I like I like a flow chart.

Sofia 40:31

Give me more of that my big thing in it is sort of like often I feel like because I I did do my I kind of like cobbled together my training through a couple different places Kane is where I started but I noticed sort of like in looking at all of these training manuals that it tends to be sort of like this binary of like if someone has these issues, we modify it. If they're up for more we progress it. And what's exciting about the flow chart is like actually like maybe we add in this modification but once we do that we can also go into this progression. So like maybe we need to shift something about how your weight is in your hands because your wrists are hurting but once we do that you're able to up the AMT. So it's not one or the other we can both yeah yeah no I love that and again you know more the more tools we have the better we can become as teachers the more options and the more flow chart give me more of that yeah what is something you wish more Pilates teachers understood about working with queer trans and non-binary clients a great question the the big thing that I've been deep into because there's all of this work just sort of like in general trying to create like a firming space for queer and trans people but I do a lot of work with folks like prehab and rehab for gender affirming surgeries and everything kind of inherent to our priorities in Pilates in general is so directly applicable to what is needed for these specific surgeries. And like this work is so beautifully designed so that it can help people as they're getting ready and as they're recovering. And so I think folks just need to be more like fluent in understanding the specifics of what these surgeries look like and some comfortability like in like talking around queer and trans identity and like consent practices. And then from there I feel like everyone who is like confident Pilates facilitator totally has the tools to help guide them through the surgery process. And so I would just love to see more and more people kind of like hopping on this train.

Julia 43:15

I like how you're saying like we already have the tools I think sometimes it's confidence also. And from my perspective and from the way that I work, you know I'm very I'm I just I want to always ask a lot of questions. I want to be I want to be careful I want to be you know I want to be aware of the way that I'm doing it. But I think most people if you're curious and you really want to know so that you can do better, people will tell you anything for the most part you know everybody wants things to go well and the more you share, the more you can communicate the better you communicate yeah I think it's better. You'll do okay. And like you said we have the tools. We have the tools.

Spooky Story

Julia 43:55

Yeah yeah Sophia everyone on agecraft after dark has to tell a spooky story Story. It can be a literal haunting, like you know, ghosts, but it doesn't have to be. So we're just as interested in like high strange moments or moments of kismet, you know, eerie coincidence, eerie coincidences. It's early. Oh, it's not that early, whatever. It's like 11:50. I feel like I've already had a long day. I've been up since 6 a.m. In any event, you get the point. Tell us a little story where you've had a strange experience like that.

Sofia 44:28

Yeah. Okay. I'm bringing this to you as like a deep skeptic. And that's just because being a skeptic is like a key part of my personality in all realms. Fair. But I, my partner and I, we make dances together, and we had this really wonderful mentor who ended up dying from cancer a few years ago, you know, as a young 50-something. And she always had our mentor had an incredibly fraught relationship with technology. And like during, even like during her Zoom funeral, because this was like deep COVID when she passed away, like the like speaker system went down. And like it like the like Zoom was making like dramatic sounds with all of this reverb. And my partner and I and a couple collaborators who also worked a lot with this mentor sometimes make dances together. And regardless of where we are rehearsing, oftentimes, if we're like at a key moment in the process and we're trying to make like a big decision, or someone just like came up with an idea, there will be like this huge kind of like wail that comes out of the speaker system. Usually the music is off, that someone's phone is connected to it. And that's just how we know that like we're going in the right direction. She's like, You got this, that's correct. She's communicating from the beyond. Yeah.

Julia 46:14

I enjoy that. I and look, we're all we should we should all be skeptics. Honestly, we really should. And there's nothing wrong with that. But at the end of the day, I feel like if these things are happening and it's a positive experience and it is giving you information in a particular direction that you need, then who cares if it's real or if it's not? It happened and it's working. So let's stick with it. Yeah, that's what I said. For sure.

Bibliomancy

Julia 46:40

So speaking of being a skeptic, we're gonna move into more woo-woo shit. Here we go. We are gonna do something called bibliomancy. This is it's like a tarot card reading. It's like a, you know, doing an Oracle deck type of thing, except I use two books. You have choices of which we're gonna choose from. Uh, the way that this works is you are going to think of a question, you're gonna hold that in your mind, and then I am going to pick a page from the book and I am gonna read from the book, and we're gonna decide if the reading has anything to do with a question whatsoever, which it may or it may not, but it often does. So we'll see what happens. Your choices. We have ornithography, which is bird stuff. And then we have floriography, which is flower stuff. So basically the choices are flower or bird. So flowers, always flowers, yeah. 100% flower stuff. Okay, so you are gonna hold the question in your mind, and I am going to pick a page. I will read from the page and we'll see what happens. Are you ready? I am okay. Interesting. Okay, you got the holly, which is a very seasonal flower, but here we are. We've got the holly, and the meaning of the holly is foresight. In many European pagan traditions, holly branches were hung in homes to protect against misfortune. This custom was later adopted for the Christmas holidays by the Victorians, did not know that, learn something new every day, who loved to indulge in superstition. That is true, those Victorians. Holly often figured in fortune-telling games as well. And in Wales, it was said that if a girl ran seven laps around a holly tree one way, then seven times around the other way, her future husband would appear to her. And then it goes on to say you what to pair it with and what it's for. So it says you should pair it with eucalyptus to indicate looking out for a friend, or with Lily of the Valley to show that better times are on the horizon. But in general, the meaning is foresight. So tell us your question and tell if it's tell us if that had any any kind of bearing on your question.

Sofia 48:48

Okay. My question was because this is sort of the other thing that's been keeping me up at night, slash putting me back to sleep, which is I've I've gone through about a week of just obsessively scrolling through used leather jackets on the Depop app. Okay, where you can buy people's old crap. And I've been thinking about this because I had inherited this leather jacket from my mom. And I like I remember being with my dad when he bought it for her when I was like two or three years old. And I just lost it over the years and I've been feeling bad about it. And I was like, do I want another one? But I yeah, I just haven't pulled the plug on one, and so I was I was curious to see what the book would have to say about that. I feel like maybe it's it's telling me that like I need to I think it's important that I choose one from the right person because like I'm thinking about like superstition here and like good and bad luck. And if I'm like bringing in a jacket from the wrong person, I don't know what kind of like energy is gonna be coming with it. So I don't think getting a used jacket is a bad idea, but I think that I need to be aware of kind of like the vibes I'm getting off of the seller, and I think that's like gonna be a big factor. And so I have to wait it out yet. I think I haven't found the right one yet.

Julia 50:27

I agree with you 100%. I think having the foresight, yeah, to select the right item is very important because objects have vibes. You can't, I mean, again, being skeptic, you can be a skeptic about it, but you can't tell me you haven't picked something up or held something and tell and tell me that you haven't had a vibe from something. I I don't know, one thing, anything, name a thing. Like there are there are just certain things that inherently have vibes. And if you're gonna wear an item that someone else has worn, I'm telling you, it's probably got vibes. So we should, you should like be, you should be discerning about the vibes of the jacket you pick. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Support this 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Sophia, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. I respect your work so much. I'm learning so much from you, and I'm so glad you're here. Before we wrap things up, I want you to tell everyone how they can find you, how they can book you and learn more about you, all of the things.

Sofia 51:26

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram as Queerbody Pilates or my website, queerbodypilates.com. I work with people on Zoom and also in person in various spots in Brooklyn. I work with people for the private Pilates sessions. I also do like a lot of mentorship and apprenticeship work with other Pilates people. And you can always ask me to teach a continuing ed workshop at your studio. I love to do that.

Julia 52:01

Yeah. Excellent. All right. Don't worry, listeners. I will put all of their information in the show notes. If you can't memorize it, don't worry. It will be there. Sophia, thank you so much for coming. This was so much fun. Yeah, and I look forward to your book and everything, everything coming from you. So excited. Thank you, Julia.

Sofia 52:20

I appreciate it.

Julia 52:33

Have a question or a spooky story? I want to hear it. Leave me a message at speakcraft.com or slash agecraft. And you'd like to spend yourself on your.com. Thanks for listening. Remember visibility and activism. And until next time, stay curious, stay a little haunted. And I'll see you in the dark.