Cats Love Pilates

It is a widely held belief that Joseph Pilates invented Pilates, a stretching and toning techinique, in the early 20th century. In reality, he ripped off the exercise from his cat, Pickles. Cats have been doing "pilates" for hundreds of thousands of years.

During some Pilates moves, cats will often meow loudly and run under your body while you try to do the rapid motions of "rolling like a ball." Do not be confused or upset-- the meowing is actually encouragement as the kitty says, "get your fat butt moving-- it's about time you started working out." Kitty yoga, of which all cats are natural masters, is very similar to Pilates and cats instinctively understand what you are doing; their apparent distress is actually an attempt to push you to your peak Pilates and/or Yoga technique.

Your yoga/pilates master cat's darting under your body is not designed to throw off your workout, as kitties understand that good workouts actually push you into physical "overload" and you boost your metabolism by adding complex motions like the advanced move titled "avoiding-crushing-10-pounds-of-cat-under-the-rapidly descending body" (it's actually very hard to translate into English; you should hear the name in felineglais). As you attempt to avoid squishing the kitty under your rapidly rolling body, remember that bleeding from multiple kitty scratch wounds burns calories-- so if you come a little "too close" for the kitty's comfort, they might swat you. This swat is to be taken as a compliment.

An added bonus to kitty Pilates is that by properly positioning kitty, you can pet them while doing your "hundreds." However, be sure to keep your powerhouse engaged while removing kitty from your tummy, where she will have settled during your brief rest period between sets. Again, this is not an attempt to distract you but to remind you to keep your abs flat and comfortable for kitty rest. The longer you can stay with kitty on abs and abs engaged, the better your physical conditioning.

Kitty Pilates and Kitty Yoga are advanced, very spiritual practices which I'm sure you will come to love as much as I have. My kitty yoga master, Tituba, (which means well-stretched-one in felineglais) leaves you with a calming "namaste" as she enjoys her catnip tea and contemplates the Nirvana of the couch.