If a journey of a thousand steps begins with a single step, then Martina Enschede’s pathway to becoming a Pilates instructor a quarter-century ago started with a single injury. A dancer who taught at a gym, Enschede suffered a herniated disk and was in terrible pain. She sought out and did Pilates training and exercises. Within a short time, her pain was gone.
“This is what I must do,” Enschede recalls in making a decision about her own pursuits.
So began her professional journey to help, heal and teach. That decision has in turn rippled into instructing and aiding many, many people in Pilates.
This mind-body method, developed by Joseph Pilates in the early 20th century, is a system of exercises targeted to strengthen, balance and stabilize one’s core muscles. It involves precise movements, proper alignment and focused breathing.
Pilates’ efforts with injured soldiers in Europe during World War I shaped Pilates’ thinking early on. The exercises center on the core muscles of the abdomen, pelvis and back.
“If the core of your body is not stable, then the rest of you is not going to work,” says Enschede.
Enschede has broadened her practice in the past decade with clients to do neurokinetic therapy (NKT), a bodywork modality that is both an assessment and a rehabilitative technique restoring muscle balance. Developed by David Weinstock, neurokinetic therapy assesses a client’s issues to determine which muscles are out of balance and then prescribes corrective exercises to ameliorate pain, weakness or tightness. Enschede gives as one example how scars can distort the balance of muscles.
Enschede exudes a graceful positive presence and exhibits much passion for what she does with a compassion for her clients. “I love my job,” Enschede says, “because it’s a job of helping people to feel better and helping them to get out of pain.”
The body’s powerhouse
When Enschede describes her Pilates exercises, it can sound deceptively simple. Core is a basic word that might sound vague or be misunderstood in terms of its meaning within the body’s anatomy.
The core is more than just one’s abdominal muscles. It comprises muscles of the lower back, the pelvic floor (the group of muscles and ligaments in the pelvic region), hips and abdominal area. This is known as the “powerhouse” of the body, a term that Joseph Pilates first coined. This core, when stabilized, strengthened, and made mobile, produces the foundation of movement.
Pilates invented an apparatus – originally known as the Trapeze table and named the Cadillac table – that used bedsprings for resistance. Pilates invented various other apparatuses, and he designed more than 600 mat exercises. Pilates emigrated to the United States in 1926.
It is not clear when he met Clara Zeuner, whom he married, but she became a partner in teaching and developing the Pilates method. They opened a Pilates studio in Manhattan, and Pilates gained a reputation for the benefits of his method for ballet and modern dancers. George Balanchine and Martha Graham were among the famous dancers who studied with Pilates.
Knowing why helps
Enschede has an airy, light-filled studio where clients learn how to use the modern Pilates machines and mats in ways tailored for them. With a new client, Enschede begins with a detailed intake process that “starts with questions.” She looks at how someone walks, stands, moves, and rolls down. What do they do for exercise? “I ask them everything about their bodies,” Enschede says.
A client’s learning is vital to what Enschede does. “That is my goal. I will rehab people, and I want to educate them so they can get out of pain,” Enschede says, adding, “That is important because injuries can come back.” A person seeking to relieve pain, therefore, can understand the need to start the Pilates program again. With Pilates, the exercises are about the core, and by strengthening the core, a lot of problems go away.
While Pilates has become linked with dancers and athletes, its benefits are good for an array of conditions and needs, and for people from young to old. Pilates “can be a great thing” for women who have been diagnosed with osteoporosis. She cites clients whose bones had gotten brittle, due to low bone density. A careful, specialized Pilates program can in a year or two stabilize bone loss.
Balancing out the body
Each day in Enschede’s studio is varied in terms of clients. She now incorporates neurokinetic therapy, estimating that her practice is 50-50 of that and Pilates. She assists and rehabilitates a wide range of clients with knee/hip replacements; shoulder, neck, and back injuries; carpal tunnel syndrome; multiple sclerosis; and other conditions. Enschede has helped pregnant and post-partum women.
NKT is aimed at re-educating the brain’s motor control center to restore functional movement and balance. This is done through hands-on techniques and specific corrective exercises. With neurokinetic therapy, “what I do then is balance out the body,” Enschede said.
Has she seen particular trends recently? Enschede says wrist and neck problems “skyrocket” with the constant use of cellphones. “I see this in children and cellphones,” she added.
A conversation with Enschede imparts a sense of how deeply attuned she is to balance, healing, the mind-body connection, anatomy, and the mechanics of body movement. It is not surprising that she reads books on anatomy for fun.
As one of the studios where Enschede encapsulated her gift. “[Martina] will strengthen your body where it needs it.” Said the owner of Pilates on Hudson, retired professional ballerina, and master Pilates instructor Marilyn K. Miller. She wrote of how Enschede’s Pilates instruction and exercises brought Miller relief after countless consultations for years with doctors, physical therapists, and other healthcare practitioners for various injuries and aches.
“Finally, a very wise person, Martina Enschede (she happens to be one of my instructors!), took a look at me, listened to my history of injury, and said, oh, well, this is the reason you’re in pain, because this muscle is supposed to do this, but see – it can’t. It was like a bomb went off in my head. Really?”
With Enschede’s lessons and Pilates exercises to balance the strength of very specific, small, hard-to-access muscles, Miller wrote, “I am more or less out of pain.”
Join the family! 
