Five ways to plan
and record a Pilates session.

It's easy to lump these together, because they look alike on a screen: a list of exercises with some notes attached. But they answer different questions.

A class plan answers "what am I going to teach?" It's written before the session, and it's most useful for group classes, where the plan and the class are close to the same thing.

A session record answers "what did I actually teach, and how did it go?" It's written after, and it's most useful for private clients, where the plan and the session come apart the minute your client mentions their shoulder is cranky today.

Pen and paper

Still the most common system, and for good reason. It's fast, it's free, it never needs charging, and nothing about it gets between you and your client. Plenty of fifteen-year teachers still keep an index card per client.

Where it runs out: it only holds what you write, and you write it after the session, from memory, usually tired. You can't search it, you can't send it to anyone without taking a photo, and a progress report means flipping back through months of cards.

A Word or Google doc per client

A running doc is a real step up. It's searchable, it's backed up, and you can copy a section into an email when a client asks what you worked on. Many instructors keep one long doc per client with the newest session at the top.

Where it runs out: it's still typing after every session. Notes aren't five minutes, they're fifteen, times eight clients. When the roster fills up, the doc is the first thing to fall behind, and a doc that's three weeks behind is worse than a blank page because you stop trusting it.

Notes in your scheduling software

Most booking and scheduling platforms have a notes field on the client profile. The appeal is that it's already open: the client's name, their booking, and your notes all live in one place.

Where it runs out: those fields are built for admin notes, not session notes. They're usually a plain text box, so a real session record (exercises, springs, sides, modifications, cues) gets squeezed into a sentence or two, if it gets written at all.

A class planning app

Class planners are genuinely good at planning. You get an exercise library, often with video, filters for apparatus and level, a drag-and-drop builder, and a way to read your flow off your phone while you teach. If the hard part of your week is choreographing group classes, a planner will save you real time. Some will even suggest a flow for you.

Where it runs out: a planner holds the plan. When you adjust on the fly, and on a private session you always do, the app still shows what you intended. The session itself isn't recorded anywhere unless you go back and edit the plan by hand.

Remo

Remo doesn't plan. It listens. You put your phone down, hit record, and teach the way you always do. Remo turns the session into notes: the exercises in the order you taught them, in your own words, with springs, sides, modifications, and the cues and corrections you gave. It also maps the session with a muscle heat map and a spinal motion chart, so you can see at a glance what you worked and what you didn't. It's a strong read, not a perfect one, and everything is editable.

Because the record builds itself, everything downstream of it gets fast. Before a session, Remo summarizes your last three sessions with that client so you walk in knowing where you left off. After, you can email the client a copy of their session in about thirty seconds. When you're away, a substitute brief (their intake, body map, and up to three recent sessions) goes to the covering teacher in a couple of minutes instead of an evening. And when a client asks whether they're getting anywhere, a progress report on any of their goals is one click.

That last row in the table is a "No" on purpose. Remo records what you chose. It doesn't suggest exercises or build next week's plan, and it isn't trying to.

The hard part of teaching privates was never deciding what to try next. You've been doing that for years. The hard part was remembering what you already did, across a full roster, week after week. Take that off your plate and you get to spend the time on the part you're actually good at: looking at the record and deciding what it means.

If you want suggestions, a class planning app is the better fit, and there's no reason you can't use one alongside Remo. One holds the plan, the other holds what happened.

• You mostly teach group classes. A class planning app, or a good template in a doc. Your plan and your class are close to the same thing, so planning is where the time goes.
• You have a few privates and time to write after each one. Pen and paper or a running doc will serve you well. The system only has to survive the week.
• You have a full roster of recurring privates. That's a recording problem. Remo is built for it: it keeps the record you don't have time to write, so every client gets the version of you that remembers exactly where you left off.

Whatever you use, the goal is the same. Your clients should be able to see what you've been doing for them, and you should be able to show it.