CANTIENICA® training is a challenge not only for the student but also for those around them. Preparing for classes is especially tough—anyone who isn’t up a tree by the count of three is roped into helping out.

My very first group lesson was a substitute class. Naturally, I wanted to do everything right. Very well, in fact.

I spent days preparing for the class. I shuffled index cards around, drew little figures and sequences. I tried things out, discarded them, and tried again. Every now and then, my partner, my daughter, and whoever else happened to be nearby had to go through a test run with me.

Too long—too short—too confusing—too difficult. I kept trying new variations, which I first went through on my own, quietly mumbling each necessary instruction to myself.

As soon as it felt right to me, I set out to find the next test subjects. Sometimes acquaintances of mine would say they’d love to meet up with me again, “but only if I don’t have to join in the exercises.”

Well, over time you learn who you can ask and who you’d rather not. In any case, the date of my first group class was drawing inexorably closer, regardless of whether the people around me were more or less happy to be my guinea pigs. D-Day was approaching; I had to practice and test things out. That’s just the way it was.

In the nights leading up to it, I slept restlessly. Sometimes I dreamed that the clients were running away in panic, that they were complaining, even slamming the door as they stormed out of the room, and spreading the word throughout the Bernese Oberland that the “garden lady” had now completely lost her mind with this new “thing-y” exercise.

Finally, D-Day arrived. My nervousness hadn’t subsided in the least. I paced back and forth from the kitchen to the garden, driving myself half-crazy—not to mention my husband and the dog.

Had I really practiced enough? Did the choreography I’d finally settled on make sense? Was it easy to follow? Was it too difficult? Too easy? Would my teaching style even appeal to my colleague’s clients? How would they react?

In fact, it turned out to be much easier than I’d imagined.

I laid out the mats and set up the stools. I had my laminated handouts ready. The seven older ladies from the Pro Senectute class entered the room chatting cheerfully and greeted me warmly.

Some already knew me from my gardening books and were extremely pleased to see me in this new setting. The others were kindly curious. They looked with interest at the illustrations of the ischial tuberosities and the levator ani muscle.

I began to lead the first exercise. I looked around the room. Everyone joined in.

They aligned their spines toward the crown of their heads, felt for their sacrum, and pulsed with their ischial tuberosities. “Very good, that looks fantastic,” I praised them. We mastered the first seated segment with flying colors, so to speak.

Afterward, when we moved to standing, it became more challenging—not everyone can just stand up straight like that. I gave instructions, demonstrated the movements, and began coaching. They listened, nodded, and tried to bring their sacrums into the desired position.

And now, raise your arms! That’s when I realized I absolutely couldn’t assume my own flexibility. Not everyone can raise their arms above their heads.

So I had to adapt and simplify the exercise. Back to the beginning.

Step by step, we worked our way through the prepared choreography. When I glanced at my watch, I was startled. Three-quarters of the hour had already passed!

And we hadn’t even done half the exercises yet.

I didn’t let on, and decided to skip the third set of back exercises entirely—they could do the abdominal exercises next time, when my colleague was back.

Instead, I wanted to get the ladies into the all-fours position and show them the CANTIENICA® push-ups. I demonstrated the exercise without using the word “push-ups”—hands in an “A” shape and then pull your elbows outward.

“Oh, great,” said one of the participants, “that doesn’t hurt at all!”

Since the group was doing the push-ups so well, I added a set of C-bends.

I glanced at the clock. Four minutes left.

Now I was a little unsure whether the older ladies would be able to get out of the all-fours position and into a squat. Should I try a pyramid with them, or would that be too much for them?

Finally, I said, “Anyone who wants to and is able to can now elegantly lower themselves into a squat.”

I admitted to them that I couldn’t demonstrate it very well myself because of my knee, and encouraged them: “Just give it a try if you’d like, or come up from the side—do whatever feels comfortable for you.”

Most of them actually squatted down, looking at me cheekily as they proudly rocked back and forth on their toes.

Now it was time to guide the group together to a good conclusion to the class. So, let’s stand up and take one last little breathing journey to finish.

By the time we’d worked our way up from the base of our big toes to the crown of our heads with diagonal breaths, I glanced at the clock: half a minute left!

We breathed into the greatest possible length, and then I said, in essence, the phrase I’d heard so often when participating:

“Now let’s all go out into the afternoon with this beautiful sense of alignment.”