This Mat & Chat was hosted on on Instagram Live on Sunday, February 27th, 2021. The chat followed a 25 minute mat workout.
Victoria: Thank you so much, that was so hard! Oh my God. Halfway through I was like: “Uh oh.”
Christina: I was like: “Is she going to hate me?”
Victoria: No I loved it, but I will say- at the very beginning we did 50 of the hundred, so every time you were like: “Straighten one leg, straighten a second leg out” I was like: “Is this it? Is this it?” but then it wasn’t. So I was like: “Maybe she forgot, maybe she’s not going to make me do the second half!” But then you brought it in. I was like: “Oh no….”
Christina: I think that hallowed-out canoe shape is the quintessential Pilates shape. It’s in the hundred, it’s in double leg stretch, backstroke, it’s in and out of your teasers. I just love that shape, and I thought: “Okay, let’s try and do it.” I was also inspired by one of the quotes- Romana did an interview once with I think the Washington Post? And she said something like: “When you do Pilates at a very high level, one exercise will melt right into the next.” And it’s very hard to do! But I thought: “Okay, with a very short amount of time, I want to give something that was seamless.” You barely got a chance to rest your head down there on that mat!
Victoria: I was so grateful for that little single leg stretch- but even that, it was an active rest!
Christina: Active rest, yeah.
Victoria: It was fabulous. So anyways for any of you tuning in late, we are live with Christina Gadar, and she is a classical instructor based out of Sarasota, Florida. It’s on the west coast, which is why she had me swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
We just got a comment saying: “I love Christina’s class, I can only imagine how I look doing these moves.” From Anna Clarke. Thank you! If you tuned in late, I highly recommend rewatching and then also trying it at home. It was so challenging- I’m not sure if it looked as challenging as it felt. It’s one of those that you really need to try to feel the burn.
At the beginning of class, you made a comment like: “Bundas up!” or “Bundas…something.”
Christina: Oh, yeah. Romana spoke Spanish and she knew some Portuguese too, and both of us have Brazilian blood. Bunda is a slang word for your bottom. My mom is Brazilian, so I grew up using my bunda for everything- if the car door didn’t close all the way in? You don’t use your hands, you use your bunda to get it in all the way! You just get rid of the wushy-tushy and use your bottom.
Victoria: Someone commented on that, so I wanted to make sure that we knew your background- you do have a Brazilian background. We spoke at length on the phone yesterday and we talked about so much, but your background was so interesting. You were born and raised here, but you have heavy Brazilian influence with your mom and especially her mother, your grandmother, who you were so close with. Now your children are being raised to speak Portuguese, and I think it’s so cool. Now you also speak Portuguese, although you didn’t really growing up.
Christina: Yeah, I just heard it. I would hear lots of music, like Roberto Carlos, Carmen Miranda, and that’s one of the best ways to pick up a language I think- listening to music. Because of the rhythm and melody- you have less likelihood of picking up a heavy accent. Although, who cares; accents are fine- being able to communicate is the main thing. My mom came to the United States as a Fullbright Scholar- all of my family, they’re all scientists. She went to the University of Pittsburgh, and then I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while she was getting her PhD in Human Genetics. When I was just a year old- which is why I consider myself a Massachusetts girl- we moved to Massachusetts. She did her Post-Doc work at Harvard and set up all of these Biotech labs, and yeah!
Victoria: We talked for a long time yesterday about your mom, but you never mentioned her amazing background!
Christina: She’s amazing, yeah! The thing is, we actually do share something in common in her profession. Even though she would go and set up all of these Biotech labs, then they would get it all set up, and then they would get someone with a lesser degree to come and finish it. So she would hop from industry to industry. She used that experience. I think she’s been doing it for 30 years now, but she’s a teacher! And she prepares people for the Biotech industry. My sister is in Biotech, my brother-in-law is in Biotech. So she’s a teacher too, so we share that in common! We are both introverts, and we are both animal people, but we both say that aside from our human students, we would rather be with pets. Pilates people, her Biotech students, those are our exceptions to feeling introverted all the time. So I got that from her for sure.
Victoria: Cool! So we got a lot from your mom, and your grandmother of course- really, the ultimate Brazilian influence there. As I’ve spoken about in the past, I’m adopted from Brazil, so it’s a cool little connection to have- you and I- Brazilian Pilates instructors. And I see that a lot of the people watching are Brazilian too!
Christina: Yeah! And I was saying- it’s never too late to learn the language. I mentioned to you yesterday that when I was pregnant with my son, that’s when my grandmother got very ill. We were very, very close. I always spoke a little bit of Portuguese with her- and you can always understand more than you can speak- they always told me: “You need to start reading in Portuguese more and that will give you the vocabulary.” So ever morning at breakfast, I would read words I didn’t know- I would keep a running list. I have notebooks and notebooks of words I would just write the definitions for, and I just kind of taught myself. When she passed away and I was pregnant, I said to my mom: “I want my son’s first language to be Portuguese. From now on-” and I was 30 going on 31, I said: “Let’s only speak to each other in Portuguese, no English.” So that helped a lot.
Victoria: Right- which is totally different than what you had been doing your whole life.
Christina: Yeah, it was really different. My grandmother has an interesting background too, because she was born in Manaus, in the Amazonian states. Her father was one of the rubber barons when they didn’t’ have synthetic rubber. But then when they formed synthetic rubber, the whole industry went kaput, so they moved. When my mom was doing her Human Genetics work at the University of Michigan, they were doing some sort of study she said, where they were checking the proteins in the blood and comparing it to the proteins in the blood of the Yanomami Indians in Brazil, and when they used my mom, she had the same proteins as the Yanomami Indians, so they said: “Well why are we spending money getting the cells from Brazil, let’s just use hers!” So every time she saw a needle, she would go running in the other direction.
Victoria: That’s so funny, that’s a really cool background. Ok- so you spent a lot of time growing up in Massachusetts, and then at some point you came to Florida. What brought you to Florida?
Christina: Well I was a dancer, so gradually I worked my way down the east coast. I danced for a few companies before I landed here. Actually, with our “wedding theme”, one time when I was in an early dance job, to help keep ends meet, I could never see myself waiting tables- it would be terrible and so stressful for me- so I worked part-time at a bridal boutique. That was awesome because I was helping all of these brides, and I learned a lot about wedding dresses! That was a lot of fun. I worked my way down to Sarasota, and met my husband while we were dancing.
Victoria: Oh, really?! He was a dancer too? Wow!
Christina: Yeah! So he danced with Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, and then he came to the United States. Sarasota Ballet wasn’t his first company- he was first in Charleston, South Carolina. At the time, we had a lot of Russian influence here. I had a lot of Russian training too, so a friend of mine, who is a Pilates teacher- Robin Warden-Blum in Atlanta- we were dancing together and she said: “You need to audition for Sarasota Ballet. They have ballet masters who are Russian and they’re going to love you.” So I tell her: “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have met my husband!”
Victoria: Exactly!
Christina: I just did a class with her this morning- we stay in touch. I have a lot of my friends from my ballet days who are also now Pilates teachers. There are some people in the Pilates industry that I’ve known for 30-something years. Now in April, my husband and I are going to celebrate our 20th anniversary! Our wedding anniversary.
Victoria: Wow, that’s awesome. Congratulations.
Christina: Time flies. I was telling him: “What can we really do?” because there are still so many limitations. So I came up with something. I said: “I’ll get the photographer who does our family photos, our book photos, and I said: let’s take some wedding photos, some new ones!”
Victoria: Your mom is here! Your mom and sister are here. They said: “Your mom and sister are here listening in from Boston and are so proud of you.” That’s so sweet!
Christina: I didn’t think that they would! That’s so awesome. It’s just hard with the WiFi and everything.
Victoria: They made it! That’s so nice.
Christina: Well I was going to say that I brought up the idea of doing these wedding photos. And speaking of my mom, she gave me this beautiful vintage dress- a spider-web laced dress. It’s from 1930s and it’s in ivory, so it can easily pass as a wedding dress. So I told my husband: “I’m going to wear that dress!” I was going to wear it last March to go to the opening night of Sarasota Ballet’s “Swan Lake,” but this time it will be for our photos. I said: “Do you think maybe we should renew our vows?” and being from another culture, that’s maybe not something that they do- at least not when he was growing up in Russia- so he looked at me and said: “Why? Do our vows have an expiration date?” So I said: “Okay, forget it- let’s just do photos.”
Victoria: You’ll find a way for sure.
Christina: I just try to find ways to stay creative during all of this craziness. You saw that my daughter did pictures of me last weekend where I was just trying to have fun reenacting Elaine Malbin’s poses- you just have to find something to do.
Victoria: Yes, those were so fun. A lot of people connected to those photos. Elaine Ewing found photos that she had never posted before of Elaine Malbin working with Joseph Pilates, and they are on a new Instagram page that Elaine created- do you remember the handle?
Christina: I think it’s called @originalpilatesphotos, I believe. I check it almost every day. It’s just so generous that she’s done that and I’m so grateful. I really love that, and we can have an inside glimpse to what the studio looked like, the equipment, the colors, it’s really quite a gift. I just love it.
Victoria: It really is. So you wound up in Florida, you met your husband, and how did you find Pilates after dance- or during dance?
Christina: Oh, actually, probably when I was around 14 or 15, I had Pilates mat classes as part of my curriculum with the Boston Ballet School. So I had been doing mat for probably a good ten years prior to going in to the training program and getting in to the equipment. I have to admit, I would sometimes cut class as a ballet student, because I would want to go in to an empty studio and put my pointe shoes on, but then I would also see these professional dancers taking the class at the time I was in the school, and that said something to me- that the professionals see value in it. When you see that, then you’re like: “Okay, I better pay attention to this.”
You know, I had multiple injuries. I’m the type of person where if you say I can’t do it, I’m going to try harder. I didn’t have the strongest feet, and I broke my feet a total of five times throughout my dancing. Most of it was when I was a student, but I had muscle imbalances, knee things. So Pilates became my go-to place when I had an injury. It was the best way to try and stay in shape. One summer I was in class and my pointe shoe, as I was turning, slid out from under me. They were new pointe shoes and the weren’t broken in really well- it was a slippery floor! So I slid- all of the other time I had broken my fifth metatarsals, all four times before. But that time, I broke my leg. I broke my fibula, and I sprained my ankle. So while I was home that summer in the off-season from Sarasota Ballet, I was doing my Pilates. That time I couldn’t convince the orthopedist to not give me a cast- I had to have a cast- so I would do my hundred with my cast leg resting on top of the other, and I would just try and stay in shape that way.
I met this Russian guy who I think is the modern-day Joseph Pilates- Igor Burdenko. He worked with a lot of ballet dancers and a lot of athletes in the Massachusetts/New York area. I would see Merrill Ashley, a famous NYC ballet dancer in the pool doing his water therapy. So we would do exercises in the pool. There would be rings, and I would pull myself out- it was really something special. When I got back to the ballet company at the start of the season, I was back dancing and everything, but barely. I could shave my legs and still feel the spot where I had fractured my fibula, but I was given the okay to go, so I just went with it. The director came to me and said: “You look a little bit out of shape.” I didn’t tell him that I had broken my leg, because I didn’t want him to know. You kind of hide those kind of things when you’re dancing, because you want to seem invincible. So I just thought: “Little do you know!” This is good! I just came from a broken leg and sprained ankle. It was very helpful to have Pilates through my dancing.
When I was 25- I’m 46 now- that’s when I went through the program and I was really fortunate because at the time, Romana was working with Sean at the time and they had a training center one hour and a half away in Fort Meyers. So I would drive there very day. I did a 12-day intensive with Rocky, and I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher- she was amazing. They would fly down all of the other amazing teachers- Juanita, Lori Coleman-Brown, Shari- they all would come. I went through it very fast because I had to. I had to get to work. I didn’t have anything else. I wasn’t working part-time. Honestly, it was like four months and I was ready to get certified. I spent every waking minute at that studio. I went through it very fast. I was constantly there. I got sciatica from driving!
Victoria: That’s so fast!
Christina: I know, it was like a record! But I got to New York and Romana wasn’t so used to all of these satellite studios- it was still kind of new. I had to win her over, but I did my final training with her there at Drago’s gym. That was like a controlled circus, it was crazy!
Victoria: I have heard so much about Drago’s- I wish that I had had the chance to walk on in.
Christina: Speaking of rings to pull yourself up, there were rings hanging from the ceiling. I’d be teaching a mat and stand up and hit my head on a ring. It was phenomenal. It was one of the best times of my life. It was so phenomenal. When I had to leave- because I had to work- I just cried so much when I said goodbye to Romana. She reminded me a lot of my grandmother in Brazil. The way they both kind of flirted with guys, loved to have a little to drink, loved the arts, loved to travel, spoke many languages. There was a connection there that I felt with her. Just being so grateful. You’re lucky I think if you can find one passion in your life. If your professional can be a passion, you’ve hit the jackpot- and I did that twice.
Victoria: Right. Dance and Pilates! You certified through Romana’s Pilates, and that is the program/school/affiliation you are still with today!
Christina: Yes. I’m with Romana’s Pilates.
Victoria: Yesterday we spoke about something that is very unfamiliar to me, but I thought it would be interesting to bring up here today, because I think people that are not affiliated with the actual business Romana’s Pilates- obviously I am certified under Alycea [Ungaro] who is certified under Romana- so my lineage is still Romana- but I’m not a part of Romana’s Pilates. Something that I have seen in passing, I’ve seen comments on Instagram and I’ve seen people mention it in their bios, but I’ve never really known what it meant to have levels in Romana’s Pilates. I don’t even know how many levels there are or what they mean. I would like to be educated about that. I think some people who aren’t familiar would also like to know what it means and why.
Christina: Okay, so when I got certified initially, we only had our Master Teachers- there were a dozen, handpicked teachers that Romana picked, like Lori Coleman- Brown, Roxane Richards Huang, Anthony Rabara, etc. Those were our teacher trainers, and then there were the rest of us. To help out with the testing, Romana’s daughter Shari, who is a Grand Master Teacher, and her daughter, Romana’s granddaughter Daria, who is also a teacher trainer, they came up with the idea to create these levels so that Shari doesn’t have to go all the way to Asia to test out. So before, Romana was the Grand Master, Level 1, we had Juanita Lopez, Shari Mejia Santo, and then we also have Cynthia Lochard there in Australia. The original Master Teachers they then called Level 2’s, and they created a Level 3. Those Level 3 teachers can teach a basic seminar- so that saves a lot of traveling for the other master teachers, because that can be done locally. Then they created a Level 4, so that an apprentice can come to your studio and those hours of observation, and taking lessons, can count on their apprentice log. Level 5+ would be if you’ve been teaching for more than 10 years, and Level 5 are the newly certified teachers.
Victoria: That’s a lot of levels.
Christina: It’s a lot of levels.
Victoria: So what level are you?
Christina: I am a 5+. People are very surprised to hear that. The reason being was that almost 15 years ago, June 2006, I was doing my continuing education here with Romana in Fort Lauderdale, and I was asked to become a leveled teacher. The timing just wasn’t the best, because I was hugely pregnant. In a month, I was going to give birth to my son. So we agreed that it just wasn’t the best timing, and I’m just honored that that was asked of me of Romana, when Romana was around. Since then it just hasn’t come up, and I think in a way-
Victoria: Do you think it matters? Do you think people look for that if they’re in the Romana’s Pilates family, teacher program, teacher training? Because I’m not a part of the Romana’s Pilates family, I would never question or wonder about that, I just wonder- is that important?
Christina: It’s a very good business model, because like I said, it helps spread the work of training the apprentices. If they were to ask me again, I would probably say yes, but I don’t feel comfortable asking. I was asked when Romana was right there next to me and that’s the most important thing. Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve written one, let alone 6 Pilates books had I had that additional workload. It just depends on the person- some people like to have that number by their name, and honestly I work with many Pilates teachers. I don’t pay attention to that. Especially now with Zoom, we can see the capabilities of so many teachers. If Romana trained you, or if you were trained by someone trained by Romana, chances are you’re a pretty darn-good teacher, and it’s up to you to self-educate and continue your education as well.
Victoria: Yes. And you’re always looking for someone whose teaching style meshes best with your learning style-
Christina: And personality too. You can have all the knowledge in the world, but if your personality doesn’t mesh with your student- I can’t be a good teacher for everybody. It’s not saying saying I’m a bad teacher, but I’m not the best one for a certain student. I love all of my students, I’m so proud of them, and they support me and I try to support them.
I think that going back to the leveling, for some teachers it can be a sense of validation. For me, just being asked was getting that sense of validation from Romana. But the real validation comes from our students. When my 91-year old came in yesterday morning and she had a really rough week- I’ve never seen her ever walk in to my studio with a cane, and she did- and she just looked different. Her image of herself was different. But she got on the reformer and she said: “I come here because this always makes me feel better.” She was so kind- the things that she said were so kind to me that they almost made me cry. I’m an emotional person, and I was like: “Hold it together!” That to me is the biggest validation you can get. Seeing that it’s making a difference. It’s not just the 45 to 55 minutes in the class; you want it to be a lifestyle.
To me, Pilates is a culture. It’s the history, it’s the equipment, it’s the exercise, it’s how you use it to reach into your closet for a heavy suitcase- you’re thinking about your Pilates principles, you’re using your mind. I just go back to what Joseph Pilates used to describe his method: “The art and science [so I have something in common with my mom as a scientists] of body, mind, spirit development.” That development is an on-going thing. It’s not like you get it, and what’s the next thing I can learn? So, that’s what I really love about it and that’s what I love- when I can see that click in my students, when they see that it’s more than just a workout- it is so much more.
Victoria: There’s so many place I could take what you just said. I’m nervous we’ll get cut off in a few minutes, so I don’t want to go too deep-although I want to go deep! The one thing I will say-
Christina: I love talking to you! We were talking so long yesterday. I only had to leave because I had to pick up my daughter and she was going to wonder where I was at the bus stop!
Victoria: *laughs* Yeah, exactly. “I gotta go! My daughter’s been waiting!” Exactly. I do think it’s probably the best pivot point from that is just to talk about what you’re saying about investing in the method and Joseph Pilates work. We spoke yesterday on the phone about delineating and really making the different between what is Pilates versus what isn’t, and why we’re so specific about preserving this specific method. Not things that people have taken from the method and made into their own, but what for you is so special about the classical work, and why is that what you stick to specifically?
Christina: Well, I stick to it because it makes sense for me. If I get a student who is an out-of-towner and they want to do something that’s not the way that I was trained by my teacher, Romana, I’ll say: “You know what, I already have something in my syllabus that can do that exact same thing. Let’s do that!” So that’s how I get around it. I don’t see a need to add something to it if there already exists something in the method I’ve been taught, and I can take advantage of it.
Victoria: I feel the same way. I always think back in the day, I did film my WTF Wednesday videos, and I had a lot of fun doing it, but I really thought of it like a teaching moment. It really was. Because I was filming myself asking: “Why do we see people doing this exercise on the reformer- something that someone created or got creative with- when we already have this exercise in the system that’s accomplishing the same movement in a more systematic and safer way.” It’s not always that it’s safer, but it already existed. I think that’s important and it’s why I choose to stick to this classical syllabus as well, because it’s so all encompassing. Everything is there. Everything exists within his full body of work. I don’t think by any means that it is incomplete. There is always somewhere to go with it.
Christina: You can still be creative while still being classical. I tried to do that today- we had a short amount of time, but I tried to give you creative transitions and things to do, showing you some pre-Pilates, some archival Pilates, some physical culture. Putting those little things and using imagery. You can get really creative- but you don’t need to create a whole new exercise to be creative.
Victoria: Right. I love that. You don’t need to create a whole new exercise to be creative.
Christina’s Speed Round
City or beach
Sweet or savory?
Cat or dog?
Adventure or comfort?
Books or movies?
Nights in or nights out?
Summer or winter? Summer in Massachusetts , winter in Florida
Tea or coffee? neither
Early bird or night owl?
Pizza or pasta?
Europe or Asia? South America! Brasil
Spring or fall?
Breakfast or dinner?