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Joseph Pilates
"Physical fitness can neither be achieved through wishful thinking nor outright purchase."
THE HISTORY OF PILATES
Joseph H Pilates said "physical fitness is the first requisite to happiness"
Joseph Pilates was born in 1883 in Germany. As a child he suffered poor physical health, reportedly suffering from rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever. Rather than giving in to ill health he resolved to overcome it and become stronger. He took up many different sports such as skiing, diving, body building and gymnastics. By the age of 14 he was fit enough to pose for anatomical charts. He maintained his system of exercise and when he moved to the UK in 1912 his excellent physical condition allowed him to earn a living as a boxer and circus performer.
During the first World War because Joseph Pilates was of German nationality he was interned in the UK and spent his time nursing others in the camp, rehabilitating them using his own developed exercise technique which he called “Contrology”. There was an epidemic of influenza which produced many fatalities in other camps, but in the camp where Joseph Pilates was nursing and rehabilitating patients, not one person died from the influenza.
Joseph Pilates was then transferred to a hospital to work as an aid and he started improvising by using bed springs attached to the wall as fitness equipment. Modern day Pilates equipment such as the Reformer and Cadillac were developed by Joseph Pilates from his original improvisation.
After the war he returned to Germany briefly, but was disillusioned by life in Germany and moved to the United States in 1926. He set up his first Studio in New York where he took the dance world by storm and his method “Contrology” then became known simply as the “Pilates” method. It is said that every dancer in New York including George Balanchine and Martha Graham submitted to his training and those who came with injuries were able to repair their bodies with the technique and went away to teach and pass on The Pilates Method. From these early days Pilates gained its reputation as being the exercise technique for Dancers.
When Joseph died in 1967 at the age of 84, his wife Clara continued to run the New York Studio and a former student Romana Krzanowska became its Director a few years later. There were only ever 2 Pilates teachers, who were officially certified by Joseph Pilates himself to teach Pilates: Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel.
Kathy Grant a legendry teacher dedicated more than 50 years to teaching the Pilates method and died just 2 months short of her 90th birthday in 2010. In 2008 Lolita San Miguel celebrated her 50th anniversary of practicing the Pilates method, and today in her middle 70’s, she continues to be in great demand worldwide as a Master Pilates teacher and presenter
www.LolitaPilates.com
Joseph Pilates was greatly critical of the pressures and pace of life and blamed them for mental and physical problems. This is why the Pilates method has stood the test of time and during the course of nearly a century has evolved to be one of the most popular and effective exercise techniques worldwide, for everyone, not just dancers.