Joseph H. Pilates; Circa 1920

Joseph H. Pilates was born in Germany in 1880 to a gymnast father and naturopath mother. Plagued throughout childhood with rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever, he plunged himself into sports such as gymnastics, wrestling, skiing, and diving, determined to overcome these illnesses. While living in the United Kingdom in 1914, he was interned with other “enemy aliens” in a British internment camp. Along with teaching wrestling and self defense to healthy prisoners, he worked in the camp hospital with the infirm. Taking the springs from the patient’s beds, he developed a pully system, enabling the bedridden to stay as healthy as possible while hospitalized. During the great influenza Pandemic which killed millions of people the world over and hit the camp heavily, legend has it that all of Joe’s trainees survived.

After the war ended, Joseph H. Pilates returned to Germany, where he continued his interest in holistic medicine, homeopathy, meditation, breath work, yoga and Trigger Point therapy. He trained the Hamburg Military Police, as well as private clientele, until he was approached by the Brown Shirts to be their trainer. Not wanting to be involved with their politics, Joe left Germany by ship and immigrated to the United States. On this long trans-Atlantic journey, Joe met his future wife, a nurse named Clara. On arrival in New York City, they were married, opened a studio, and began to teach “Contrology”, Joseph and Clara Pilates’ body of work.

Word quickly spread through New York about the Pilates’ genius and strange machines. They worked for many .years with athletes, business people, trades people, actors and dancers. Among their famous clientele were actors Sir Lawrence Olivier and Katherine Hepburn. Among their famous dancers were George Balanchine and Martha Graham, who also sent them many of their company dancers for strength training and injury rehabilitation.

Over the past eighty years, thousands of dancers, the vast majority in or around New York, have known the power and injury prevention of the Pilates technique. Many dancers traditionally have been introduced to Pilates after injury or surgery. They have often discovered that with Pilates training, they have returned to rehearsals stronger then they were before their injury!

In the last ten years, modern day movie stars and professional athletes have re-“discovered” the incredible potential of their bodies with Pilates. Hence, Pilates has dramatically exploded almost overnight onto the mainstream stage. Joseph Pilates always knew that his and Clara’s work was fifty years ahead of its time. What a wonderful era that we live in that so many people now get to experience it!