The Jerusalem Post – Aligning Your Future

THE PILATES METHOD STRETCHES YOU INTO SHAPE – 1999

BY GREER FAY CASHMAN

Fitness enthusiasts will go to extraordinary lengths to fuel their passion. But few would go as far as Meira Eliash-Chain and Nina Waldman. When Meira couldn’t find an outlet in Jerusalem that featured her favorite form of exercise, she opened a Pilates studio with partner, Nina Waldman which they called Body In Mind.

Waldman, a Personal Trainer for over 4 years, moved from Las Vegas to Jerusalem when husband, H Waldman signed with Hapoel Jerusalem Basketball Team. When partner, Meira Eliash-Chain hired Nina Waldman as her Personal Trainer, Nina was introduced to the Pilates Method and returned to Jerusalem after completing her certification in the Pilates Method back at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Once she was certified, it was simply a matter of time before the Pilates Method took hold in Jerusalem.

The small studio in an office building on Emek Refaim officially opened in December of 1998 with no fanfare and minimal publicity.

Nonetheless, there are already more than 60 regulars, with more people wanting to sign up all the time. The popularity of the program compelled Waldman to train more teachers. Once there is a larger staff, a lot of people whose work schedules precluded them from signing up for the program will have more options available.

The Pilates Method is geared toward correcting spinal alignment, lengthening muscles, increasing flexibility, and strength, and doing away with bad posture.

Says Waldman, who has been practicing the Pilates Method for a year, “My body never looked as good as it does now.” Her abdominals, she adds, “are the strongest they’ve ever been.”

Waldman laughs. It’s not the first time that question has been put to her.

“Very few people stretch their spines to maximum capacity. Most of us allow our spines to dip or to bend with the result that we look shorter than we really are. The Pilates Method calls for the spine to be lengthened to maximum capacity. It is stretched as far as it can go, and the stomach muscles are simultaneously strengthened.
The result is that people stand and look taller.”