Halle Clarke's Hip & Hamstring Series

March 13, 2020 by Kate Singleton

Halle’s Bio

Halle Clarke, NCPT, is a second-generation master teacher who has studied closely with two of the greatest protégés of Joseph Pilates: Kathy Grant and Romana Krysanowska. Halle pursued extensive studies in biomechanics and bodywork, and she has integrated her detailed knowledge of the human body into her Pilates practice as an instructor and teacher trainer. She owns Mongoose Bodyworks, a Pilates studio in New York City, which has been in operation since 1999. Halle is also a teacher trainer for Balanced Body since 2006 and has taught at the PMA Conference and Mind-Body Expo.

Halle’s Interview

What made you go to KSG in the first place? How long did you stay?

Like many dancers majors attending NYU, Tisch School of the Arts I was referred to Kathy to help with the multiple overuse injuries I was beginning to develop. When I walked into her studio in 1988 she probably saw a scared young dancer with an earnest desire to improve and a willfulness that was getting in her own way. My passion to become a dancer translated into me inadvertently working with a lot of tension and missing a deeper strength. After that day, I worked with Kathy on and off for the next 10-12 years. Through this time, Kathy helped me unearth my deeper power and stay true to my movement practice.

Did KSG ever make up an exercise for you? If so, what was it? Do you still do it?

At Kathy’s studio all of us had our own set of warm ups that prepared us to move, to dance or to do Joe’s exercises. Many of these warm ups she created out of a necessity for a particular student - the dancer with the tight hip had one thing, the business women with a painful neck had another and the older women with a bad back had yet another. I don’t recall if my many injuries inspired an exercise made expressly for me. What I do know is that I had an especially long pre-pilates warm up, which meant it wasn’t unusual for me to be there upwards of two hours!

Is there something in your movement practice or teaching practice that came from or evolved from a movement or an image from Kathy Grant?

The pre-pilates exercises that she taught me have morphed over the last 20 years. I too have created my own versions, both out of need and because time has a way of changing things. I think Kathy would have wanted it that way. She recognized that nothing stays the same - each body is different and each day presents different needs.

What has stayed with me most is not so much a particular exercise but the process of working from the inside out. Kathy worked with our minds, our inner strength and our imaginations. She treated us more like actors than dancers. Kathy insisted that we embody the movement from inside, become baby birds or a weathervane, or a wave of water or a key in a lock. She was relentless in saying “No, that’s not right.” as many times as she needed to until we either burst into tears or became the “baby bird”. And to my surprise, only when I embodied what it meant to be her image from deep inside was the movement right. The day that I expressed the spirit of a tiny helpless bird just learning to move its wings for the first time was the day I realized how transformative imagination could be and that I was capable of it - not to mention the healing power it had on my troubled and painful shoulder.

What do you think is an important thing for people to remember about Kathy?

Although the Pilates community has made a wonderful effort to preserve Kathy’s work, sometimes I think her process defied codification. I am not sure anyone can really know her exercises unless they worked closely with her.

How do you think Kathy would feel about the current atmosphere of the Pilates world?

Kathy used to warn us about the unmindful way of doing Pilates. In her words she would say, “ Don’t slam the door shut. If you keep slamming the door shut, it’s eventually going to break.” That was her way of describing how some studios taught Pilates, always slamming the door. She was advising us to take care of our bodies, to listen to them. Kathy’s packaging was sometimes harsh but her messaging was often something soft and tender. There was love and understanding at the core of her work.

If you could ask Kathy one more question, or say one more thing to her, what would it be?

Thank you for teaching me how to dig deep- really deep, to stretch my imagination and for inspiring my life long career.

How do you think Kathy would want to be remembered today? What do you think Kathy Grant’s legacy is?

I think Kathy was proud that she launched so many careers in Pilates, helped so many dancers prolong their professions, and reached a wide diversity of people. Her legacy is in her out-of–the-box thinking, adapting exercises for the needs at hand and using the mind to change the body. She was way ahead of her time!

Liz's Chee-Chee and Malik’s Exercise

February 16, 2019 by Kate Singleton

As Kathy said “Once a knee person, always a knee person.” Two of the most grueling exercises, which addressed knees, were ‘Chee-Chee’ and ‘Malik’s Exercise.’ The joke about the former’s name was that a person traveling in the deep, dark jungle encountered a group of cannibals. The traveler was offered the choice between being cannibalized or “chee-chee,” which was equally painful.

Cheryl's One Arm Hug A Tree

June 04, 2018 by Kate Singleton

For me, the most important thing to remember is that Kathy cared. She cared a lot about her students and clients and that she worked hard to help each and every one. She had a great sense of humor and she was a wonderful story-teller. I studied with her such a long time ago. I am sure others can be more specific about her teaching style, but I remember the person. She was direct, honest, and playful.

Orly's Roll-Up

December 04, 2017 by Kate Singleton

I came to Kathy after the PMA conference. At that time she was teaching in her studio, but she let me in and we started talking. She understood that I felt magical so she continued to talk about Pilates and Joe. I stayed that day for about two hours and we kept talking and talking. And in those two hours I learned about Pilates more than I ever learned before even though I was part of the biggest Pilates school in Israel.

Diana Simkin's Leg Ball Work

October 23, 2017 by Kate Singleton

[Kathy] taught me that my bow legs caused my pelvis to be out of alignment... She created an exercise for me, having me lie prone on the long box on the reformer with different sized ball between my ankles, calves and thighs, and I would simply bend and straighten my knees trying to keep those balls in place. It may sound simple, but it was anything but.

Melissa's Abdominal Twirl

September 18, 2017 by Kate Singleton

It was 1989 and I was in my last year in the dance dept at NYU. I knew someone named Kathy Grant was working with people in a tiny studio, tucked away on the 5th floor... and I was curious. Students with injuries were allowed to work with her one on one. I didn't have an injury but I was struggling with the program and whoever was in charge of the referrals agreed that I could see her. I was lucky enough to study with Kathy until she retired.

Kate's Side Push-Up

August 23, 2017 by Kate Singleton

I continue to do variations on KSG’s pre-Pilates warm-ups with all of my students... Kathy used a lot of imagery: rolling balls of yarn, soup head, Ray Charles, doorknob and key, and baby birds to illustrate what she was trying to have you do. I like to find my own imagery to describe the feeling of the work, but still use a lot of the imagery she instructed with. One of the things she said to me was a clue to her teaching philosophy. She said to, “approach an exercise not with the goal of perfecting it, but to learn from it each time.”

Karen's Doming

July 30, 2017 by Kate Singleton

I feel like I am inspired by Kathy daily! While I was studying to become a PT, I went through a painful phase of questioning everything I had known and taught up to that point. As I integrated my new medical paradigm, I recognized that I needn’t throw any past information away. In fact, I am frequently reminded what a self-taught genius Kathy was.

Rebecca's Pregnant Lady Upstretch

July 15, 2017 by Kate Singleton

Kathy was brilliant, innovative and her imagination was astounding. She would teach an exercise that had been created by Mr. Pilates and then suddenly reconfigure it to make sense to each individual body. She also believed heavily in the mind doing a major part of the work and quieting the body to follow the brainwork. Sometimes, she would put us in a position where we were almost unable to move. She would quietly suggest an image or a thought and, with her hands on the area that was being worked, she could tell if we were using our mind correctly.

Blossom's Cat

July 01, 2017 by Kate Singleton

Kathy made up a Cat exercise for me after I complained about the tightness in the front of my hips from long dance rehearsals. This became Blossom's Cat. I still do Blossom’s Cat, it still feels good. Now the emphasis isn’t on stretching my hip flexors as much as it is to lift my spine. I do it a little different every time depending on how my body is feeling.