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 The
Pilates method of exercise was created by Joseph Pilates, who was
born in 1880 near Dusseldorf, Germany. Joe was frail as a child,
suffering from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. He overcame
his physical limitations with exercise and body building, becoming
a model for anatomical drawings at the age of 14. He became accomplished
in many sports, including skiing, diving and gymnastics. Joe went
to England in 1912, where he worked as a self-defense instructor
for detectives at Scotland Yard. At the outbreak of World War I,
Joe was interned as an "enemy alien" with other German nationals.
During his internment, Joe refined his ideas and trained other internees
in his system of exercise. He rigged springs to hospital beds, enabling
bedridden patients to exercise against resistance, an innovation
that led to his later equipment designs. An influenza epidemic struck
England in 1918, killing thousands of people, but not a single one
of Joe's trainees died. This, he claimed, testified to the effectiveness
of his system.After his release, Joe returned to Germany. His exercise method
gained favor in the dance community, primarily through Rudolf von
Laban, who created the form of dance notation most widely used today.
Hanya Holm adopted many of Joe's exercises in her program, and they
are still part of the "Holm Technique." When Joe was asked to teach
his fitness system to the German army, he decided to leave Germany
for good. In 1926, he emigrated to the United States. During the
voyage he met Clara, whom he later married. Joe and Clara opened
a fitness studio in New York, sharing an address with the New York
City Ballet.
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The
Pilates movement gains in popularity
 By
the early 1960s, the Pilates' could count among their clients many
New York dancers. George Balanchine out "at Joe's," as he called
it, and also invited Pilates to instruct his young ballerinas at
the New York City Ballet. In fact, "Pilates" was becoming popular
outside of New York as well. As the New York Herald Tribune noted
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."While Joe was still alive, only two of his students, Carola
Trier and Bob Seed, are known to have opened their own studios.
Trier, who had an extensive dance background, found her way to the
United States after she fled a Nazi holding camp in France by becoming
a contortionist in a show. She found Joe Pilates in 1940, when a
non-stage injury pre-empted her performing career. Joe Pilates assisted
Trier in opening her own studio in the late 1950s and the Pilateses
and Trier remained close friends until the respective deaths of
Joe and Clara.
Bob Seed was another story. A former hockey player turned "Pilates"
enthusiast, Seed opened a Studio across town from Joe and tried
to take away some of Joe,s clients by opening very early in the
morning. According to John Steel, one day Joe visited Seed with
a gun and warned Seed to get out of town. Seed went. The
second generation of Pilates teachers
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When
Joe passed away, he left no will and had designated no line of succession
for the "Pilates" work to carry on. Nevertheless, his work was to
remain. Clara continued to operate what was already known as the
"Pilates" Studio on Eighth Avenue in New York where Romana Kryzanowska
became the director in around 1970. Kryzanowska had studied with
Joe and Clara in the early 1940s and then, after a fifteen year
hiatus due to a move to Peru, re-commenced her studies.
Several students of Joe and Clara went on to open their own studios.
Ron Fletcher was a Martha Graham dancer who studied and consulted
with Joe from the 1940s on in connection with a chronic knee ailment.
Fletcher opened his studio in Los Angeles in 1970, where he attracted
many Hollywood stars. Clara was particularly enamored with Ron and
she gave her blessing to him to carry on the "Pilates" work and
name. Like Carola Trier, Fletcher brought some innovations and advancements
to the "Pilates" work. His evolving variations on "Pilates" were
inspired both by his years as a Martha Graham dancer and by another
mentor, Yeichi Imura. Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel were also
students of Joe and Clara who went on to become teachers. Grant
took over the direction at the Bendel's studio in 1972, while San
Miguel went on to teach Pilates at Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rica
in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1967, just before Joe's death, both
Grant and San Miguel were awarded degrees by the State University
of New York to teach "Pilates." These two are believed to be the
only "Pilates" practitioners ever to be certified officially by
Joe.
Other students of Joe and Clara who opened their own studios include:
Eve Gentry, Bruce King, Mary Bowen and Robert Fitzerald. Eve Gentry,
a dancer who taught at the Pilates Studio in New York from 1938
through 1968, also taught "Pilates" in the early 60s at New York
University in the Theater Department. After she left New York, she
opened her own studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Gentry was a charter
faculty member of the High School for the Performing Arts, as well
as a co-founder of the Dance Notation Bureau. In 1979, she was given
the "Pioneer of Modern Dance Award" by Bennington College. Bruce
King trained for many years with Joseph and Clara Pilates and was
a member of the Merce Cunningham Company, Alwyn Nikolais Company,
and his own Bruce King Dance Company. In the mid-1970s King opened
his own studio at 160 W. 73rd Street in New York City. Mary Bowen,
a Jungian analyst who studied with Joe in the mid-1960s, began teaching
Pilates in 1975 and founded "Your Own Gym" in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Robert Fitzgerald opened his studio on West 56th Street in the 60s,
where he had a large clientele from the dance community.
Joe continued to train clients at his studio until his death in
1967 at the age of 87. In the 1970s, Hollywood celebrities discovered
Pilates via Ron Fletcher's studio in Beverly Hills. Where the stars
go, the media follows. In the late 1980s, the media began to cover
Pilates extensively. The public took note, and the Pilates business
boomed. "I'm fifty years ahead of my time," Joe once claimed. He
was right. No longer the workout of the elite, Pilates has entered
the fitness mainstream. Today, five million Americans practice Pilates,
and the numbers continue to grow.
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