joseph pilates

Joseph Humbertus Pilates lived to be a vigorous and vital 87 year old icon. Looking at pictures of Joe, it is hard to imagine he had ever suffered from physical ailments and grew up a sickly child. Born near Duseldorf,Germany in 1880 Joseph Pilates faced rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever. At a young age he began to study the Eastern disciplines of yoga and martial arts and blended them with Western forms such as body-building, gymnastics, boxing and skiing. By age fourteen he had sculpted his physique so well that he was asked to pose for anatomical charts. Pilates spent his life obsessed with restoring his health and body condition, and over time, he overcame his frailty and became an accomplished skier, diver, gymnast, circus performer, self-defense instructor, boxer, and a yogi.

In 1923, Pilates emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City with his future wife, Clara, whom he had met on this journey to his new home. It was here where he opened a studio on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan and began training and rehabilitating professional dancers, soon attracting the 'elite' of New York. With the top of leading ballet dancers coming to him because his exercises perfected and complemented their traditional exercise programs. In 1956, Dance Magazine reported in its February issue, "At some time virtually every dancer in New York had meekly submitted to the spirited instruction of Joe Pilates." He then built various pieces of equipment to enhance the results of his exercises.

His motivation for building the equipment was to replace himself as a spotter for his clients. He developed 20-odd contraptions, some of which look a little a like medieval torture devices. They were constructed of wood and metal piping and used combinations of pulleys, straps, bars and springs. Even now, the equipment found in Pilates studios across the world, are built and based upon these same features. Shown right is Josephs Original New York studio.

Over a decade, his philosophy led him to develop a regimen with more than 500 exercises which he originally termed contrology, the complete coordination of body, mind, and spirit. Acquiring control over your body through his system of exercises would provide suppleness, muscular power, with corresponding endurance, good posture and alleviation of body strain as well as invigorate the mind and elevates the spirit. This system has since come to be known as the Pilates Method.