Remember when social media used to be …. Seems like eons ago, right? At first, it was fabulous, reigniting old friendships, forging new ones. I was particularly chuffed to connect with fellow Pilates teachers from around the globe.
Pre-Facebook, I had participated in the now defunct Pilates Connections forum online, but the Pilates Facebook community numbered in the hundreds, then thousands. Of course, there were arguments, but the positive largely outweighed the negative. And disagreements are natural and even healthy. Listening to and considering viewpoints that differ from our own help us grow as individuals and become more open-minded and tolerant. We started having Friday questions, a great and fun way to interact with other Pilates geeks, learn more about the history of Pilates and early forms of physical culture.
There were also technical and business questions. The forums were informative and amusing. The honeymoon phase was unfortunately short-lived. Lively discussions turned heated, and then venomous. I learned that there was a classical and contemporary Pilates divide. People were kicked off of some forums or left of their own volition to create new ones. In this new social media world existed forums for classical Pilates teachers, forums for contemporary teachers, forums for contemporary teachers who wanted to become classical, forums for people with no particular affiliation.
I participated in all of the forums, choosing to interact with a variety of people instead of isolating myself among teachers who had the same training that I had. Some of the discussions in which I did get involved in were animated, and at times, tense; but overall, I mostly managed to avoid being sucked into conflict.
I was fairly successful at maintaining friendships with diverse people, although some of them actively disliked each other. During the last few years, navigating the tricky Pilates waters became increasingly challenging. Facebook had already become rife with bitter disputes about politics and, more recently, subjects relating to the pandemic- masks, vaccination…. Although I used to enjoy the occasional debate I used to be in the debate and Model UN teams in high school, and am an ex-lawyer , these arguments were neither productive nor constructive.
