What's all the fuss about?
Pilates seems to have burst on the scene out of
nowhere in the last 10 years. After decades as the
workout of the elite, Pilates has entered the
fitness mainstream. What's the fascinating store
behind how Pilates began, and why the recent
“overnight success”? Here's a brief look at its
history.
How Pilates Began
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 for her modern dance
curriculum, and they are still part of the "Holm
Technique." When German officials asked Joe to teach
his fitness system to the army, he decided to leave
Germany for good.
The Pilates movement gains in popularity – from
Europe to the U.S.
In 1926, Joe 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.
By the early 1960s, Joe and
Clara could count among their clients many New York
dancers. George Balanchine studied "at Joe's," as he
called it, and also invited Pilates to instruct his
young ballerinas at the New York City Ballet.
"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."
His students begin to teach
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 by becoming a performing
contortionist, after fleeing a Nazi holding camp in
France. 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. Joe and Clara remained close
friends with Trier until their deaths.
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 in
1967, he left no will and had designated no line of
succession for the "Pilates" work to carry on.
Nevertheless, his work would remain. Clara continued
to operate what was known as the "Pilates" Studio on
Eighth Avenue in New York, where Romana Kryzanowska
became the director around 1970. Kryzanowska had
studied with Joe and Clara in the early 1940s and
then, after a 15-year hiatus spent in Peru, returned
to renew 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 and 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
became 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
Rico 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 certified officially by
Joe.
Other students of Joe and
Clara who opened their own studios include Eve
Gentry, Bruce King, Mary Bowen and Robert
Fitzgerald. Eve Gentry, a dancer who taught at the
Pilates Studio in New York from 1938 through 1968,
also taught "Pilates" in the early 1960s at New York
University's Theater Department. After leaving New
York, she opened her own studio in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. A charter faculty member of the High School
for the Performing Arts, Gentry was also 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 1960s, 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, over 10 million
Americans practice Pilates, and the numbers continue
to grow. "Excerpts from the Balanced Body Inc web
site, www.pilates.com
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