Gillian defies description but I'm going to try; dynamic, a world-changer, gifted, sassy, funny and an impressive physical specimen, just to name a few. After her knees took 50 years of dance, they gave in and in late January 2011 she had to get new ones. As in two new ones. As in the at the same time. Bilateral knee replacement is not for the meek, the weak or the daunted. Bilateral knee replacements are for people like Gillian. When I rolled into Waccama Pilates (Waccama River is nearby) in Pawleys Island, South Carolina for a weekend of teaching Developmental Privates, Gillian booked in not really knowing what we would work on but as a true gamer, ready for anything. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The night before I began teaching we had an open house at Waccama Pilates so I could meet the staff and clients of the studio and that's where I met Gillian for the first time. She showed us how she gets up out of a chair and it can only be described as a combination heave/throw/rocket launch. Both unsafe and unsustainable, this had to change. And it did. After her session, her studio teacher Sandy Goodin, another teacher who was observing me teach and I all sat down over lunch to talk about Gillian's session. That footage is at the end and I think you'll especially enjoy the conversation between the three of us about how and why I did what I did and how and why it works. And OF COURSE I wish I'd gotten to Gillian BEFORE she had her surgery. That's the thing that always gets me. Enjoy!
