The History of the Pilates Method
It is the fastest growing fitness trend of the decade and people are raving about its benefits but few people know that the Pilates method is the brainchild and the life's work of Joseph Hubertus Pilates. A health visionary, fitness pioneer, author, inventor,and self-proclaimed hedonist, Joseph Pilates was a man ahead of his time that cared passionately about people's mental, physical and spiritual health.
JosephPilates was born in München-Glebach, Germany in 1880. As a child he suffered from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever, which inspired him on a lifelong quest for greater health and fitness. He taught himself human anatomy using a discarded anatomy book and studied natural movement by hiding in nearby forest stand watching animals in the wild learn to move. His commitment to improving his health paid off; by the time he was 14 he was modeling for anatomy charts and eventually taught himself to become an all around athlete, excelling at skiing, gymnastics, diving, and boxing.
In 1912, Joseph moved to England. The reports of why he went are varied. In one account he went to train as a boxer and in another he went as a part of a German circus troupe, performing a Greek statue act. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Joe was interned as an enemy alien, first in a camp in Lancaster and then later on the Isle of Man. He shared his passion for health with his fellow internees, training them in wrestling and self-defense. His training was so powerful that he is credited with having saved the internees from the devastating influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed millions of people worldwide. During his captivity Joe also worked with the camp's bedridden patients. He fashioned exercise equipment out of pulleys, bedsprings and straps so that they could exercise while still in bed. He reasoned correctly that it would speed their rehabilitation if the patients didn't wait until they were able bodied before exercising. These machines were the forerunners to the Pilates equipment Joe would later use in his studio.
After the war Joe returned to Germany where he continued working on his method. He worked with Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman, both choreographers and important movement innovators. He trained the Hamburg Military Police in self-defense and was asked to train the new German army. However, in 1926 he decided to leave Germany and move to New York City. On the boat trip to America he met his future wife Clara, a nurse and kindergarten teacher for whom he created a series of exercises to cure her arthritis pain. The pair set up a studio at 939 Eighth Avenue in NYC where they taught 'Contrology', the art of 'gaining the mastery of your mind over the complete control of your body'.
The building that their studio was in was also home to a number of dance studios. It was this proximity that forever married Pilates to the dance community. Choreographers such as Martha Graham, George Balanchine, Ted Shawn and Jerome Robbins became fans of Joe's work, sending their dancers to Joe when they needed rehabilitation and strengthening. In the summers between 1939 and 1951Joe and Clara taught at Jacob's Pillow, a well-known dance camp in the Berkshire Mountains. There was wide spread rumor that in those years every dancer in New York City went to 'Uncle Joe' for training.
In 1945 Joe published his treaties on health and wellness, Return to Life. In it he expounds on the perils of modern city living which deplete the body of vitality and health. Joe urged readers to combat these modern stresses through physical fitness, 'the first requisite of happiness' which would also bring mental and spiritual health. It is fascinating to contemplate how Joe's perspective is even more relevant today in our age of blackberries, computers and multi-tasking than it was when he authored his book in the forties.
Joe continued to develop his method and teach at his studio well into his 80's. He enjoyed the great vitality and vigor his method gave him right up to his lastdays, proud that he had 'never taken an aspirin, never had a sick day in (his) life'. In 1966, the Eighth Avenue building suffered a fire. Later, as Joe was inspecting the damage the weakened floorboards underneath him gave way. Even though he was 86 he was able to catch a wood beam and pull himself out ofharm's way. However, it is believed that he suffered smoke inhalation, which led to his eventual death a year later, at the age of 87.
While Joe was the outspoken force behind his method, his wife Clara Pilates, a trained nurse, quietly incorporated his concepts and exercises in ways thatbenefited more seriously ill or injured clients. Her approachable style and special techniques spawned a dedicated lineage of teachers whose work flows through and uniquely colors the landscape of the Pilates method today. It is perhaps because of Clara that Pilates is clearly recognized as a positive form of movement-based exercise that truly can be tailored to any level of not justfitness, but also of health. Clara, an extremely gifted teacher who was said to be able to 'look right through you', continued to teach at the Pilates studio, as it was becoming to be known, until 1971 when she passed the running of the studio and the Pilates legacy to their long time student, teacher and friend Romana Kryzanowska. Clara passed away in 1977.
Luckily for the world, some of the students Joe Pilates trained over his long and dedicated career carried on his message and his work, becoming teachers themselves. These five first generation master teachers, Romana Kryzanowska, Kathy Grant, Carola Trier, Eve Gentry and Ron Fletcher, have given much to ensure that Joseph Pilates' legacy not only lives on, but also thrives. Because each studied with 'Uncle Joe' at different times during his career, each impart a different perspective on the Pilates Method and have brought rise to the different schools of Pilates that exist today. All of these Pilates Elders were dancers who came to Joe Pilates to rehabilitate an injury thatwould have ended their careers and in return have given back to the Pilates community immensely.
Romana Kryzanowska was a ballet dancer who came to Joe to rehabilitate an ankle injury in the early 1940s. She felt improvement in her ankle in just 3 sessions and continued to study with Joe and Clara until she moved to Peru. Fifteen years later, she moved back to New York City where Joe helped to rehabilitate a knee injury shesuffered when she fell into an open manhole with her baby. She began to teach the Pilates method and later became the studio's director when Clara retired. She remained the director until the studio eventually closed in 1989 when she opened her own studio in Drago's Gym. She continues to teach there in addition to her workshops and seminars around the world. Romana is credited with keeping the classical legacy of the Pilates method alive.
Kathy Grant worked as a chorus girl at New York's famous Zanzibar Club and had a long and prestigious career as a dancer and choreographer, working throughout the world in theatre, television and film. She came to Joe Pilates to rehabilitate a knee injury and became a life long convert as well. She became the director of the Pilates studio in the famous Henri Bendel department store from 1972 until it closed in 1988. She is one of the only two teachers to be officially certified by Joseph Pilates through the New York State Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. She continues to teach Pilates and train instructors as an adjunct professor on the faculty of the Department of Dance at the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Dance department.
Carola Trier was a professional dancer and an acrobatic contortionist who performed an act onroller skates. A severe accident while she was performing brought her to Joe and Clara Pilates who helped rehabilitate a back injury that would have debilitated her for life. She studied and taught with Joe and Clara and, in 1958, they helped her open her own studio, where a number of the other first generation teachers taught. Carola studied anatomy and worked in conjunction with Dr. Jordan at Lennox Hill Hospital rehabilitating patients. She also identified and developed many Pilates-based exercises to correct common problems found in dancers. Carola taught and trained other Pilate's teachers into the mid 1980s and passed away in October of 2000, at the age of 87.
Eve Gentry was a master of modern dance. She was a lead dancer with the Hanya Holm Dance Company beforeeventually starting her own dance company, the Eve Gentry Dancers. She came to Joe and Clara Pilates with knee and back pain and was amazed at how afterworking with Joe her pain was gone. She taught with Joe and Clara at their studio from between 1938 to 1968 and taught the Pilates Method in the early 1960s in the Theatre Department at New York University. She eventually moved to New Mexico to open her own Pilates Method Studio in Santa Fe. She developed and taught her own body conditioning method based on her work with Joseph Pilates, Hanya Holm and other movement innovators, working with many injured people. She help to establish the Institute for the Pilates Method, was a charter faculty member of the High School of Performing Arts, was co-founder of the Dance Notation Bureau and was given the 'Pioneer of Modern Dance' award by Bennington College in 1979. She continued teaching clients and teachers in Santa Fe and around the world until shortly before her death in 1994 at the ageof 84.
Ron Fletcher was a Martha Graham dancer in New York City in 1946 when a chronic knee injury brought him to Joseph and Clara Pilates. His dancing career was long and illustrious but notwithout its pressures. After battling alcoholism through Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and daily Pilates sessions with Clara, Fletcher was inspired to teach Pilates. With Clara's blessing he opened the Ron Fletcher Studio for Body Contrology in Beverly Hills, counting such famous celebrities as Barbra Streisand and Candace Bergen among his clientele. Using the methods he learned from Joe and Clara Pilates along with the work he did with Martha Graham and Yeichi Nimura, Fletcher developed new innovations such as The Standing Towel Work and Percussive Breathing. He now lives in Texas and runs two teacher training schools in Arizona and Colorado.
Lolita San Miguel is one of only two teachers to receive a certification from Joseph Pilates himself. She suffered a knee injury from dance in her 20s that led her to Carola Trier. After completing a training certification with Trier she studied with Joe in 1966 and later moved to Puerto Rico to found the Ballet Concierto of Puerto Rico where she infused everything with Pilates. Recently she started the Pilates y Mas Studio in Puerto Rico.
Mary Bowen was a comedian and actress when she came to study with Joseph and Clara Pilates. She suffered from a bad back and began to feel relief after two sessions. She studied with Grant and Kryzanowska as well as with Bruce King. She opened her own studio, Your Own Gym, in North Hampton, Massachusetts in 1975. A Jungian analyst, Bowen developed her Pilates Plus Psyche system to fuse movement with the unconscious.
Bruce King trained with Joseph Pilates for many years and was a dancer with the Merce CunninghamCompany, the Alwyn Nikolais Company, and his own Bruce King Dance Company. Heopened his own Pilates Studio in New York City in the mid 1970s.
Robert Fitzgerald was a dancer who worked with Joe and Clara Pilates as well as Carola Trier. He opened his studio in the mid 1960s and developed a large following within the dance community.
Mary Pilates LeRiche is the niece of Joseph and Clara Pilates and worked in her Uncle's studio since her20's. Mary has been teaching Pilates in South Florida since the 1960s as her uncle taught it to her and is a shining example in her 80's of how the PilatesMethod's of keeps us young.
Joseph Pilates held a vision of a better world where people were happy because they were in touch with their bodies. He saw that people living inside their own physical pain lacked energy and vitality and that it robbed them of enjoying their lives to the fullest. To that end, he and his wife Clara dedicated their lives to the betterment of others' health. To this day, their passion inspires others to carry on his legacy. Joe Pilates never received any recognition during his lifetime, stating that his work would not be understood for another 50 years. Today, millions of people around the world benefit from Pilates' vision, passion and genius.