Meet the Estonian trainer: PilateseTuba owner Liis Arula
I’m Liis Arula, and I’ve been working as a group training instructor since 1999, when I started leading a women’s aerobics group in my hometown because the previous trainer quit and we wanted to keep training. I was 15 or 16 years old at the time. After that I attended EEVL and FAF Estonian aerobics instructor courses and coached my female classmates and schoolmates.
After finishing high school I moved to Tallinn, where I got my first official group classes at the Tulbi sports club and a job as an administrator at the Fittest sports club. At Fittest I occasionally had to substitute for the trainers there, including the “mother of aerobics” of the time, Kaisa Teimann (now Marran). Kaisa was a huge role model for me and still is. Kaisa has moved into the Pilates field, and I too now work mainly with Pilates. In between, though, I was both an aerobics and an indoor cycling instructor, as well as a licensed instructor of the LesMills programs BodyPump and BodyBalance.
Alongside my career as a trainer, I also became a mother – I have 3 sons! After my first and second children were born, I started training hard relatively quickly. My good colleague Kaia Heinleht recommended starting with Pilates exercises, but at the time it didn’t yet seem to be my calling, and I never thought it could become my lifestyle. That changed after my third child was born, when I felt my body needed correcting. Not in terms of weight, but in terms of posture and muscle balance. I started private sessions with Kaia, and right at that time very high-quality Corpus Pilates courses were being offered at Kaisa Marran’s Pilates Studio. I gave Pilates an inch and it took a mile – Pilates has become my lifestyle.
Right now I run a small sports business in the small town of Peetri – we offer various aerobics-style training sessions, LesMills BodyPump and BodyBalance, and yoga. And since February 2014, TrenniElamuse PilateseTuba has been open at the Tere Tennis Center.
On exercise for health
My path to sport wasn’t, so to speak, a natural choice. At school I did take part in dance groups, but PE classes weren’t my favorite. I loved music and movement, but I hated meeting the performance norms. You could say I discovered sport for myself when aerobics arrived in Estonia. But at some point aerobics and group training stopped giving me the main thing I needed – getting my body in order and strong. Of course, carrying three children and caring for small ones leaves its marks on a woman’s body – tension in the shoulder girdle and lower back, low tone in the upper back and core muscles. Pilates lets you correct all of this without having to crawl home from a workout half dead.
On Pilates
For me, Pilates has become a lifestyle, because everything you learn and do in training you can apply in everyday activities and in other training. I like that Pilates has a class system, that is, different levels. Whether someone is a strong athlete or a person with little training background, everyone starts training at the foundation (beginner) level. From there you progress according to your personal development. I have practiced Pilates regularly since the autumn of 2011, yet I’ve only reached the end of Level1 and the start of Level2. The highest level is actually Level 3. In three and a half years Pilates has never once felt boring, because every class has its own small point and goal.
Every class and every small goal brings me closer to the bigger goal – to walk with a straight back even at 80, and to be physically active and capable.
On goals
Right now I feel that I want to keep working with Pilates and also give other people the chance to experience that your body can be changed. One leg doesn’t have to be shorter than the other, your lower back doesn’t have to hurt, your shoulder girdle doesn’t have to be stiff. Pilates teaches the body to analyze and to look for solutions through physical exercises. Sometimes this journey can seem very long and bumpy, but I’m certain it leads to the destination – a sound mind in a sound body!
Author: PilateseTuba
Source: Turg.Fitness.ee
Come and train! ArtGym
