HISTORY OF PILATES
In the Beginning (Who is Pilates?)…Born in Germany in 1880, Joseph H. Pilates was a frail, sickly child, suffering from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. Growing up, Pilates was enthralled with exercise and continuously searched for new ways to strengthen his body and improve his health. His personal quest for better health and well-being, eventually led to the creation of his unique method of exercise.
In 1912, Pilates moved to England, where he taught self-defense to military police and detectives. At the onset of World War I, due to his German citizenship, Pilates was interned in a camp for “enemy aliens” on the Isle of Man. During his internment, he began experimenting with exercises using springs attached to hospital beds, to keep him self and other internees healthy. Over time Pilates refined his revolutionary ideas into several pieces of ingenious exercise equipment (apparatus) and developed a series of over 500 different exercises.
Pilates
Comes to the New World….jpg)
After his release from internment, Pilates returned to Germany, where he trained
the police force in the city of Hamburg. In the early 1920’s, Pilates immigrated
to
America, in part to help train the German boxer Max Schmelling. Along with
his
wife, Clara (a nurse he met on the ship to America), Pilates opened his first
studio
in New York City in 1926, where the couple trained many dancers, athletes,
actors
and circus performers in the method they called “Contrology”.
The
New York dance community enthusiastically embraced “Contrology”.
Both
Martha Graham and George Balanchine were his clients and referred their
dancers
to him. Upon Joseph Pilates’ death in 1967, his method became simply
known
as “Pilates”. Today, with more than 4.7 million Americans
practicing Pilates
(including many of the country’s top athletes), it has
become the fastest growing
method of mind-body exercise in the nation.
