PRACTICE TEACHING HOURS GUIDELINES 

Craft/development Student teaching/apprenticeship component

A student teaching apprenticeship can be a valuable part of any course, under the right conditions. However, not all students require a formal apprenticeship and may prefer to go it alone. At the end of the day, an apprenticeship is preparation for your final assessment and should be completely flexible to suit your needs and the conditions around you. It’s also important to remember that any course takes several years to fully root in your mind and body and development really starts to occur once you are working independently. Therefore, a rigid approach to ‘apprenticeships’ can’t yield universal results. 

Comprehensive programme – at least 250 hours of practice teaching across the full apparatus family and taking a client through a training programme from day one to wherever you get in the system with them. This should include clients who are fit and healthy, clients who are new to exercise and clients with common issues for presenting to a Pilates studio.

Module programme – at least 50 hours purely on the Mat or Reformer, less on the smaller apparatus. The key is that you are confident teaching all of the exercises to a variety of clients and can problem solve when things don’t ‘work’ straight away.

Option A – The local mentor: 

We recommend you find one or many local mentors that you have an existing relationship or take the time to build one. Not all studios can offer a mentorship and these conditions and expectations will vary from teacher to teacher including the cost which is not covered in TMRACADEMY fees. This would generally look like you ‘shadowing’ the mentor and observing them teach and over time, being their student teacher, co-teacher and finally running sessions regularly. 

 An industry standard is a minimum of 200 hours of teaching skills development across the entire apparatus family. We recommend: 50 hours Mat, 50 hours Reformer, 30 hours Cadillac, 30 hours Wunda Chair, 20 hours additional chairs, 20 hours auxiliary equipment and additional time for special populations if this interests you. Use the logbook to record and revise these hours to ensure you are distributing your time evenly towards your assessment. 

Start this process once you have a supreme grasp on the course material and can truly offer something to your mentor studio and client community.

We offer an open-minded course, focussed on the original method that aims to prepare instructors to work with all clients, today. It is vitally important that the mentor is ‘on board’ with the TMRACADEMY philosophies. Don’t assume because they are ‘Classical’ that this is the case.

TMRACADEMY bears no responsibility for this process, but we will check on you and your mentor periodically to ensure that the relationship is in tact, supportive and adequately preparing you for your assessment. If it is not doing so, changing it up to reach your final objective will be required.

Option B – blended support:

An example of an apprenticeship/supervised teaching with Nicholas Psarros either virtual (zoom) or IRL in Melbourne might look a one hour meeting for every ten hours of practice teaching with your own clients. This meeting would include goal setting, session planning, case management and trouble shooting and can be a cost-effective way to prepare for your assessments while developing your independence and own voice as a proponent of the method. This method will also permit you to charge a fee to your client.

Option C – independent:

Lone wolf? No worries! As long as you are ask for help as via paid private sessions, take as much freedom as you need. We recommend at least 200 targeted hours preparing for your assessments with a variety of real-life clients. Keeping a clear log (provided) can assist you to reach your goals and direct how you work constructively and independently. This method will also permit you to charge a fee to your client.

ASSESSMENT OUTLINE

1.     Progress physical assessments 

2.     Pilates teaching assessments 

3.     Written Case studies 

4.     Written Learning tasks

Progress physical assessments

Certification requires all participants to demonstrate proficiency and understanding of all exercises in the syllabus. This provides quality control to ensure that as the teacher, you are able to execute and explain exercises as part of your own practice before passing the information on to your client community.

Note: You will need to execute one assessment for each of the major apparatus certifications; this can be done face to face or by Zoom. Allocate 90 minutes per assessment which includes up to 30 minutes feedback designed to guide your future learning.

·       Mat      

·       Reformer

·       Cadillac

·       Chairs

·       Barrels

Pilates teaching assessments 

Course participants are required to participate and pass an assessment to demonstrate their capability and suitability to teaching the work. This will involve a teaching simulation of up to 90 minutes to show your progress in the work and demonstrate your level of understanding of how to best work with a client. You may choose to use your own client or ‘borrow’ a course participant. This can be done IRL or over Zoom.

Comprehensive participants - You will need to complete one assessment for Mat and one for Reformer. A third, combined assessment includes the Chairs, Cadillac and Barrels.

Module participants - You participate in an assessment for each apparatus you wish to be certified in.

Written Learning tasks

These are designed as a soft assessment and learning process which aim to build you up and enrich your learning. Each task asks you to go beyond the surface and consider how you look at the method, the body and how to get the most out of your craft for your client.

You will receive feedback on each task to guide future study and support assessment readiness.

All tasks need to be submitted and passed in order for certification.

Written Case studies

Comprehensive: Eight outcome-driven written client case studies will assist you to work with the full apparatus family and help you to join the dots in the last stage of your teaching apprenticeship

Module : Three outcome-driven written client case studies will assist you to work with your certifying apparatus and help you to join the dots in the last stage of your teaching apprenticeship.

PILATES TEACHING ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Essential knowledge in assessment 

·       Name of each exercise

·       Order of Mat and Reformer including sets / reps

·       Apparatus detail e.g. springs / headpiece up / down

·       Safety concern/hazard management and mitigation for any apparatus

·       Hands on and alternate ways to cue the exercise

·       The parts of each exercise so that if a client can’t work one part, you can modify or even change apparatus to help develop them

You need to show

·       How to move a client through a workout at any level

·       How to coach / teach to enhance their work

·       That you ‘know your stuff’ and are comfortable in any teaching environment

·       That you are able to take direction and guidance without being thrown

·       Compassion and support to your ‘exam body’ 

·       Agency to suggest why / how an examined exercise may be inappropriate for the ‘exam body’

Teaching style

·       Possess vocal authority and vocal technique

·       Stay on the front foot to avoid being tripped up by assessment mistakes

·       Excite and inspire a client to reach for more or to soothe them as needed and temper their enthusiasm to avoid over-doing it

·       Go beyond the manuals and teach with intuition and vibrancy