Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born in Monchengladbach, Germany in 1883. While he was a young boy, he suffered from asthma and other diseases, so he turned to athletics to help improve them. He would study many types of exercises eventually to create his own. It is said he became hooked by the classical Greek ideal of a man balanced in body, mind, and spirit, and he began to develop based on this concept. As he was now older he had gotten over his diseases and was a gymnast, skier, diver and a boxer.
In 1912, Joe traveled to England where he worked as a self-defense instructor for detectives at the Scotland Yard. In World War I, he was an “enemy alien.” While he was an internee he continued working on his exercises and taught fellow internees.
He was also an innovative man. He rigged springs to hospital beds, enabling bedridden patients to exercise against resistance.
An influenza epidemic struck England in 1918 killing thousands of people, but not a single one of Joe’s trainees died because of his bed systems. After he returned his exercise method became favored in the dance community, through Rudolf von Laban and his dance notation.
Hanya Holm also adopted the exercises and put them in her modern technique. He was asked to teach the army his exercises; that’s when he left Germany.
In 1926, Joe moved to the United States. On the way, he met Clara Zeuner, who became his third wife. Together they opened a fitness studio in New York, with the New York City Ballet. New York wasn’t the only place catching on. The New York Herald Tribune stated in 1964: “in dance classes around the United States, hundreds of young students limber up daily with an exercise they know as ‘a pilates’, without knowing that the word has a capital P, and a living, right-breathing namesake.”
Though Joe was still living his student Carola Trier and Bob Seed, opened their own studios. Trier fled to the U.S. from a Nazi holding camp in France, then discovering Joe in 1940. Joe helped her open her studio by 1950. Seed was a former hockey player who opened his place across town from Joe. It is said that one day Joe went over to Bob’s place with a gun and told him o take his business elsewhere and he did.
Joe passed away in 1967 leaving no will. Romana Kryzanowska became the director around 1970. Kryzanowska had studied with Joe and Clara in the early 1940s. After a 15-year hiatus spent in Peru, she returned to renew her studies. Many other students opened studios including, Ron Fletcher was a Martha Graham dancer who studied and consulted with Joe from in the 1940s.
Fletcher opened his studio in Los Angeles in 1970 and attracted many Hollywood stars. Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel were also students of them who became teachers. In the late 1980s, the media began to cover Pilates extensively because of Fletcher’s studio in Hollywood leading it to enter the fitness mainstream.
Pilates is a system of exercises using special apparatus, designed to improve physical strength, flexibility, and posture, and enhance mental awareness that is all about technique. It's demanding, but it's not the kind of workout that will make you hot and sweaty. It’s about concentration and breathing, but you’ll definitely feel it in your muscles during each exercise. Most of the time it is done for an hour. It works the core mostly, but also the legs, back, and glutes. The exercises will enhance your strength and flexibility. Some moves include the dynamic core plank series or the Swan also known as superman. This is a very good exercise for most athletes and has been known to cater to dancers needs.
