A few months ago, I moved to London—and my yoga practice had to move along with me. As I explored new yoga studios, I couldn’t help but notice that most of them also offered mat Pilates classes. Honestly, I’d been intentionally avoiding Pilates for years. I associated it with some fitness classes I’d tried in the early 00s from which I mainly remembered a lot of huffing and puffing. Besides, between yoga and strength training, didn’t I have enough movement in my life?

Still, I’d been doing so much walking in my new city that any class in which I could spend time lying on my back or side seemed infinitely preferable than any other way of moving.

Fast forward three months and I’ve been taking Pilates classes weekly. Although it’s been long enough that I’ve stopped raising my hand when the teacher asks if anyone is new, I can never guess which movement will be cued next. Most of the time I’m not even sure what movement I’m doing while I’m doing it.

Pilates has been disorienting, but also refreshing. The experience has helped me bring a beginner’s mindset to my yoga practice—to be more open to possibility and a little less hemmed in by habit and expectations. And how I move and breath on the Pilates mat has enhanced my yoga practice in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

5 Ways Pilates Has Changed My Yoga Practice

After just several weeks of practicing Pilates, I’ve experienced some transformative shifts that are making yoga itself feel new again.

1. My core feels more engaged.

It’s probably no big shocker that Pilates does what everyone says it will do and helps activate the “powerhouse” of the body—the core. But now when I practice yoga, I can actually feel my belly, lower back, and hips participating in poses in which they used to take it easy. My belly is no longer dipping toward the floor in Plank or Chaturanga, and my hips are not swaying forward in Mountain Pose or Triangle. (Well, at least not as much as in the past.)

2. I’m less concerned about the “rules” of breathing.

Years of yoga have habituated me to exhaling anytime I fold forward; in fact, I thought I “had to” breathe this way and that some unspecified bad thing would happen if I didn’t. However, in Pilates, instructors ask us to inhale when I expect that we would exhale, and vice versa.

As different as the breathing cues in Pilates are from those in yoga, no sky has fallen. They work just fine for me. In fact, the challenge has been more mental than physical. Although it’s been challenging for my brain to get used to inhaling while I flex my spine, it’s surprisingly not uncomfortable for my body.

This has helped me bring a more playful energy to the “breathing rules” in yoga. Thanks to Pilates, I’m less wedded to the idea of breathing in or out at any particular time in my yoga practice as long as I’m doing so with awareness.

3. I’ve embraced my full range of motion.

In yoga, doing too much spinal rounding (flexion), even rolling up to stand, felt uncomfortable in my sacrum and lower back. However, in Pilates, I’ve reintroduced myself to this type of movement—mostly because there’s a lot of rolling up and down the spine in mat class. Not only has it felt absolutely fine in my body, but I can feel it strengthening my entire spine in a way I hadn’t felt in yoga.

Now, I practice slightly rounding my spine in Boat Pose or “rolling” into Plow Pose from a reclined position instead of coming into it from Shoulderstand. My new experiments with spinal flexion are showing me that what works for me—and what doesn’t work for me—can change over time. Also, that I’m allowed to overcome an old fear about a particular way of moving.

4. I’m mixing up my physical practice.

After doing Pilates, with all its lifts, pulses, and circles, my yoga practice has felt a little static. So in yoga poses, I’m now moving parts of my body in different directions for a few breaths before finding stillness.

For instance, I do Pilates’ “Swimming” arms and legs in Locust Pose. From Cobra, I’ve been lowering my chest and lifting my legs a few times so I’m gently rocking my entire body back and forth. I’ve been pulsing my arms up and down in Warrior 2—maybe not the requisite 100 times, but a lot. Pilates has also inspired me to point my feet more, whether in Three-Legged Dog or Warrior 3, which makes me feel like I’m regaining awareness of my often overlooked feet and ankles.

It feels energizing to mix things up in poses I’ve practiced thousands of times before. Plus, these micro movements help me feel places in my body that might need more attention, and that I would’ve otherwise missed by keeping my body in the usual alignment of a pose.

5. I’m feeling more inspired and more creative.

Pilates names for poses aren’t better, but my understanding of the shapes is refreshed when I call something familiar by a new name. When Cobra Pose becomes Swan, as it is in Pilates, I suddenly feel as if I’m floating on water. When Downward-Facing Dog becomes Elephant, I feel sturdier and stronger in my limbs.

This made me wonder what new energy I might invoke if I came up with my own pose names. What if “Plow” became “Snail”? If “Savasana” became “Dusk Settling”? If that chaotic, unnamed period at the end of practice when everyone is rolling up mats and putting props away became “The Grand Egress”?

Pilates has opened up a new set of creative possibilities and gotten me out of some ruts I didn’t realize I was in. But it will never replace yoga for me. I love yoga’s full-body attention, its joyous backbends, its long wind-downs, its languorous stretch-outs, and its Savasanas that send me floating through space.

Plus, I hold dear yoga’s quest to make us better people. So far, none of my Pilates instructors have invoked intentions or philosophical themes, and I miss that. But sometimes, when teachers count repetitions in a mantra-like way, there is a pause in which I can remind myself of my own intention, or just watch the hazy light come in through the windows, and that, too, feels like yoga.