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History
of Pilates
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 1923, 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.
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
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.
History
of Pilates was provided courtesy of Balanced
Body, Inc.
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