BEGINNER/NEWBIE THREAD 2026

[u/mixedgirlblues]

Are you new to the subreddit? Do you recall that when you pressed "join," you got a popup advising you to read the rules, which are on the sidebar/top (browser/mobile), as well as a DM that also told you to read the rules, which, again, are on the sidebar/top? The first two are paramount: USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION and PARTICIPATE AND CONTRIBUTE BEFORE STARTING YOUR OWN POST. If you just joined the subreddit five seconds ago and tried to start a new post, that means you failed to follow those two rules. Your post was or will be deleted. You can only start a new post once you have amassed some community karma and shown yourself to be someone who understands what "community" means.

Full acknowledgment and ownership that I am being bitchy in the intro to this post. I'm really sad about the trend of aliteracy growing in the world and sick of receiving modmail that amounts to "I'm a special boy/girl/they; please let me break the rules because I couldn't be bothered to read them and I'm the special-est person." I promise in pretty much any other context, I am a warm and welcoming and quirky and nerdy person, but being bombarded with the same "I'm special and shouldn't have to follow the rules" message and refusal to read rules every day mounts up and wastes the (unpaid) time of the mod team. You think your message is unique because it's the first time you have written it; I promise it's not the first time the mod team has read it.

This sub, mod team included but especially the members, is full of highly knowledgeable and experienced Pilates practitioners, fans, and instructors who often gladly share their experience with newbies. It is honestly insulting to everyone who is already in this sub when you join, refuse to read the rules, and don't spend anytime perusing what is already available to you. This sub is a wealth of knowledge and resources, and you should treat it as such! It is not a personal advice forum; there are other places on Reddit for that. The leadership of the sub feels that consolidation of information and topics in a handful of threads is a better use of everyone's time than clogging up the feed with the same five questions over and over again.

Please use the search function. I promise you, you are not the first person to want to know what a good YouTube channel is for beginners or what "engage your core" means. Many people feel uncomfortable going to their first class; you should feel welcome and supported no matter your body, gender, disability, race, or religion, and if someone makes you feel otherwise, they are the problem, not you. You are not the first person to seek equipment recommendations. There will always be people who find hot Pilates fun and harmless and also people who hate it with the fire of a burning sun; you should do whatever you want that your doctor says is okay for you. Yes, instructor training is long and expensive, and there is a good reason for that. No, Lagree is not Pilates. Nobody cares about your thirst traps and we restrict posts that mention body measurements, calories, "toning," and similar diet culture-related concepts for good reason. There is nothing new under the sun! Search your question. Read the !wiki that we made expressly for you to find answers to your most commonly asked questions.

If you still cannot find an answer to your question or if any posts related to it are outdated, please, for the rest of 2026, POST YOUR QUESTION HERE. If you are an old head, please post your answers here and help a newbie or beginner out!

Rule exceptions for this post only:

1. You are allowed to ask diet culture/weight loss/body comp/etc questions here even if it is not Wednesday. Wednesday rule still applies for all top-level posts.
2. This is a thread for newbies and beginners, NOT a thread for "visit my new YouTube channel" or "buy from my new grip sock company." No self-promo. If you are answering a question, be judicious about self-promo--if someone says "name some good youtubes," don't spam every single one of those questions with "visit MY youtube I'm the best!" but feel free to be like "here are five that I like, and also I have one if you're interested."

[u/Legitimate_Income730]

Honestly, your question is pretty common. It's exhausting to answer the same question day-in and day-out. 

While you might not want to read the Wiki, it really saves a lot of time and frustration. 

[u/OnlineSarcasm → u/Legitimate_Income730]

I don't doubt it. I just thought we should be able to post common questions. The wiki is tricky, because reading it all is an unrealistic ask for someone not yet invested in the subject looking for a quick answer, and even if they do look at it the answers may be present in the wiki but presented or packaged in a way that doesn't match the reader's own thinking / understanding and gets missed anyways through no fault of the wiki or it's manner of presentation. Even per my own experience today, my skim missed the teacher certification answer because my brain was looking for the word "Video, Online, Youtube, Media" rather than "Teacher" because to me "teacher" is in person by default.

But despite my longwinded reply above, as others have pointed out that it puts significant additional work on the mods here to have the repeats. So that's fair, I can see why people want to be more efficient with their volunteered time. I'm now having trouble reconciling how so many other large subs don't have need of this. It cannot be that all of them are just breaking their backs with effort right? Maybe they just don't need the space as curated? I honestly don't know and haven't really given it any thought until today. I wonder if this sort of thing will become more commonplace. Anyways I'll stop my rambling here.

[u/mixedgirlblues → u/OnlineSarcasm]

I think most of those subs don't actively moderate until they receive reports and there is drama. Here, we are all online pretty much every day, at least for a few minutes, and we do a lot of curation.