Yesterday at my lesson, my teacher was talking about breath support and said that I should do pilates and that it is good for breath support on the flute. I thought that sounded weird, does anybody else think that pilates helps with flute playing?? how can flute playing and doing pilates be connected??

Pilates are a valid form of exercise. Advocates of pilates will say that they will held your body with almost everything. That is probably also the case with MOST exercise.

Breath support means blowing with more air PRESSURE. That means blowing HARDER, even if there is no more FLOW of air, i.e. QUANTITY of air passing the lips.

Blowing harder requires certain muscles to be in good shape. These include the abdominal muscles (in front of the tummy) and the intercostal muscles, which are between the ribs. These are all used for blowing out. Also, the diaphragm is used for taking a full, quick breath IN.

There are many different types of exercises which benefit these muscles, including sit-ups ("crunches"), blowing up balloons, CERTAIN of the pilate exercises, etc.

my friend from the saxophone section told me they used to go swimming to improve their breath support. i have no idea if it worked though.

any cardiovascular exercise will help your breath support, in addition, yoga, feldenkreis, alexander technique, are all methods of relaxation that will also help

What is Alexander Technique?

My impression of Alexander Technique is basically not using any muscles that you don`t need to use for whatever you are doing.
A Google search will produce over 1000000 hits.

Well I did notice after consitent daily belly dancing I coud produce stronger air support! And swimming helped but I`m a couch potato. When I excercise regulary I feel my breathing is better and support is better. Also running up stairs. As one can see I also believe ANY exercise will help. Especially someone like me.

If anyone has ever played while in the last trimester of pregnancy, that gives you an entirely different view of you breath support (especially if you are short, and your lungs - and everything else - get all squished up).

Then, after delivery, when all of the abdominals are just hanging around trying to figure out what happened to them, you have an entirely different perspective. Amazing what a body goes through, and can "recover" from.

It sure is amazing recovery after a prolonged, almost total stuff-up of the breathing equipment!
I can only imagine how odd the process must seem.