Joseph's father was a prize-winning gymnast of Greek origin - hence the Pilates family name (the original Greek name was spelt "Pilatu"). His mother was German, a naturopath. Naturopaths believe in stimulating the body to heal itself, and it is likely that his mother's healing philosophy coloured his own approach to therapeutic exercises. Pilates was skinny, sickly child. He suffered from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. Older boys would taunt him and call him "Pontius Pilate, killer of Christ". He was so skinny that he could not fight back and it was these conditions that caused him to begin his life journey to fitness and health.
A family physician gave him a discarded anatomy book: "I learned every page, every part of the body; I would move each part as I memorized it. As a child, I would lie in the woods for hours, hiding and watching the animals move, how the mother taught the young." He studied both Eastern and Western forms of exercise including yoga, Zen, and ancient Greek and Roman regimens. By the time he was 14 he had developed his body to the point that he was modelling for anatomy charts!
Growing up in Germany, he achieved some success as a boxer and a gymnast in addition to being a skilled skier and diver. In 1912 he went to England for further training as a boxer. He found employment there as a circus performer. By 1914 he had become a star and toured England with his troupe - he and his brother performed a Greek statue act!!!!
During the War Years, his Life was spent as a Hospital "Nurse-Physiotherapist":- In 1914 after WWI broke out he was interned along with other German nationals in a "camp" for enemy aliens in Lancaster. There he taught wrestling and self-defence, boasting that his students would emerge stronger than they were before being interned. It was here that he began devising his system of original exercises that later became "Controlology". He was transferred to another camp on The Isle of Man where he became something of a nurse and worked with many internees who suffered from wartime diseases and incarceration. He then began devising equipment to rehabilitate them, taking the springs from the beds and rigging exercise apparatus for the bedridden! In 1918, a terrible epidemic of influenza swept the world, killing millions of people, tens of thousands in England. None of Joe's followers succumbed even though the camps were the hardest hit! Previous to his internment camp life, Joe was a circus performer and part time fitness and defence trainer. Subsequently, it could be said that Joseph Pilates had become a "Nurse-Physiotherapist", with a powerful and revolutionary approach to life enhancing therapeutic exercise. Joseph called this approach "Controlology", and explained it fully in his book "Return to Life through Controlology".
After the war Joe returned to Germany and began training the Hamburg Military Police in self-defence and physical training as well as taking on personal clients. He said, "I invented all these machines. Began back in Germany, was there until 1925 I used to exercise rheumatic patients. I thought, why use My strength? So I made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it." It was at this time that he met Rudolf von Laban, a famous movement analyst, who is said to have incorporated some of Joe's theories and exercises into his own work. In 1925 Pilates was invited to train the New German Army but because he was not happy with the political direction of Germany he decided to leave. The Last Half of the "Life of Pilates Bio" was spent in America...
On the urging of boxing expert Nat Fleischer and with the aid of Max Schmelling, Pilates decided to move to the U.S. It was en route to America that Joe met Clara who was to become his second wife (there is really no information available about his first wife). She was a kindergarten teacher who was suffering from arthritic pain and Joe worked with her on the boat to heal her and give her a new lease of life.
Upon arriving in New York City he and Clara opened a gym at 939 Eighth Ave, in the same building as several dance studios and rehearsal spaces. It was this proximity that made "Controlology" such an intrinsic part of the life, rehab and training of many dancers: They were sent to Joe to be "fixed".
In the Pilates biography, 1926 until 1966 were the golden years - From 1939 to 1951 Joe and Clara went every summer to Jacob's Pillow, a well known dance camp in the Berkshire Mountains. He was a friend and teacher to many renowned dancer/choreographers, and many required their dancers to go to Joseph. One - Hanya Holm - even incorporated Joe's exercises into her students' lessons. Joseph counted many socialites, plumbers and doctors, (just to list a few), as his clients as well.
Nevertheless, he was renowned for liking cigars, whiskey, and women. He was the life of many parties, and was to be seen running on Manhattan streets, in the dead of winter, in his habitual "bikini bottom" training attire! - He believed in fitness supporting life's rich goals.
The 86 year old Joseph Pilates did not charge into a burning smoke filled studio to rescue valuables, and firemen did not find him hanging from burning floor joists! The following is a quote by Pilates "Elder" Mary Bowen:
"The Fire" - People often ask me "Did Joe Pilates die in a fire?" One woman in London where I was giving a workshop at the Pilates Foundation of UK last May said she had read that it was so in The New York Times. To set the record straight - no, Joe did not die in a fire. He died two years later, in 1967, of advanced emphysema from smoking cigars for too many years (which he took up out of disappointment that he wasn't taken more seriously by the powers that be, especially physicians, during his lifetime). His personal friend, Evelyn de la Tour, shared that with me. There was a fire in 1965 in the storage room at the back of his floor. The studio and his and Clara's apartment were in the front of the building and were undamaged. Bruce King had an apartment near the storage room. He had to move out due to severe smoke damage. The day after the fire Joe went to inspect the extent of loss to his possessions in the storage room and one of his feet fell through a hole in the floor scrapping his leg. That was the extent of his injury from the fire.
Clara Pilates, regarded by many as the more superb teacher, continued to teach and run the studio until the end of her life 10 years later, in 1977. Initially, Hollywood celebrities discovered Pilates via Ron Fletcher's studio in Beverly Hills. The Pilates craze presumably blossomed from there. Joseph called his style of fitness "Controlology", but the public call it simply "Pilates". Where the stars go, the media follow, and when the media follow, fashion follows!. It was the late 1980s, and the Pilates fitness boom started. "I'm fifty years ahead of my time," Joe claimed - and he was right. No longer the workout of the elite, Pilates has truly returned to life and entered the mainstream of fitness, and has even established itself as a physiotherapeutic modality in its own right:
Much controversy surrounds the correct pronunciation of his name; however, nearly all publications show it as (Pi-LAH-teez). All instructors crack an amused smile at the mispronunciation of his name by those outside the Pilates loop. Living relatives of Joseph Pilates say that the name was not pronounced as it is popularly known today. Mary Pilates LaRiche, the niece of Joseph Pilates, and a long time resident of South Florida, says her family name, as best she can recall, was pronounced (Pi-LOTTS).
How many of the exercise machines found in today's traditional gym setting can accommodate hundreds of exercises on one single piece the size of a twin bed? The Wunda Chair doubled as a small living room side chair that when flipped upon its back becomes a gymnasium with two bedsprings. Pilates felt that every home should have one. Joseph Pilates' method of physical and mental wellness has been a best-kept secret of the dance and entertainment world since the 1920's when his studio was discovered by Martha Graham, the mother of modern dance, George Balanchine, the artistic director for the New York City Ballet, and Rudolf von Laban, founder of Labanotation. Dancers such as Hanya Holm and Romana Kryzanowska, along with prizefighters, actors, actresses, and traveling circus performers embraced his methods both for the total body conditioning needed for the rigors of their work and also for rehabilitating the injuries that often plague dancers, performers, and athletes.
Dance companies all over the world use Pilates' exercises to keep their dancers in top form. Many dancers go on to become Hollywood celebrities; Patrick Swayze and Madonna to name only two. Due to the attention the mainstream public gives to Hollywood celebrities the name Pilates is now a household word. If Madonna does it, it must work.
Romana Kryzanowska entered Pilates' world as a young dancer in New York. Pilates regarded her as his disciple; she had absorbed and could express the essence of his work as if it were coming from him. She continues his legacy today in New York and has generously shared her knowledge with the world through her students, books, videos, and lectures.
Joseph's obituary, appearing in the New York Times in 1967, reads like an advertisement for his methods. He is described as a white-maned lion with steel blue eyes (one was glass from a boxing mishap), and mahagony skin, and as limber in his 80's as a teenager.
He fine-tuned his wellness regimen while interned in England during the First World War, claiming it helped him and his fellow internees resist an influenza epidemic. Working as an orderly at an infirmary, he engineered a way to rig springs on hospital beds to offer light resistance exercises to bedridden patients, and thus the seed for Pilates equipment was planted.
In 1945, Joseph Pilates published Return to Life Through Contrology which described his philosophical approach to exercise. Soon, some of his students began opening studios of their own - some making subtle adaptations to the method - and word of Pilates slowly spread.
Pilates didn't really hit the big time, however, until the 1990s. The mind body fitness movement took off as baby boomers started seeking gentler paths to health and wellness. Ancient techniques such as yoga and tai chi enjoyed a resurgence of popularity and Pilates followed suit.
No longer that enigmatic workout on strange contraptions, Pilates' reputation broke free from elitist studios and started popping up at neighbourhood gyms. Hollywood celebrities and top athletes started singing its praise and the press picked up the story.
The Pilates "buzz" has taken on a life of its own, perhaps enhanced by Mari Winsor and that ubiquitous Winsor Pilates infomercial, but the positive results purport that this is more than a passing fitness fad. Joseph Pilates always claimed he was ahead of his time, and his legacy lives on beyond his wildest expectations.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, Joe was interned as an enemy alien, first in a camp in Lancaster and then later on the Isle of Man. He shared his passion for health with his fellow internees, training them in wrestling and self-defense. His training was so powerful that he is credited with having saved the internees from the devastating influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed millions of people worldwide. During his captivity Joe also worked with the camp's bedridden patients. He fashioned exercise equipment out of pulleys, bedsprings and straps so that they could exercise while still in bed. He reasoned correctly that it would speed their rehabilitation if the patients didn't wait until they were able bodied before exercising. These machines were the forerunners to the Pilates equipment Joe would later use in his studio.
After the war Joe returned to Germany where he continued working on his method. He worked with Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman, both choreographers and important movement innovators. He trained the Hamburg Military Police in self-defense and was asked to train the new German army. However, in 1926 he decided to leave Germany and move to New York City. On the boat trip to America he met his future wife Clara, a nurse and kindergarten teacher for whom he created a series of exercises to cure her arthritis pain.
In 1945 Joe published his treaties on health and wellness, Return to Life. In it he expounds on the perils of modern city living which deplete the body of vitality and health. Joe urged readers to combat these modern stresses through physical fitness, 'the first requisite of happiness' which would also bring mental and spiritual health. It is fascinating to contemplate how Joe's perspective is even more relevant today in our age of blackberries, computers and multi-tasking than it was when he authored his book in the forties.
Joe continued to develop his method and teach at his studio well into his 80's. He enjoyed the great vitality and vigor his method gave him right up to his lastdays, proud that he had 'never taken an aspirin, never had a sick day in (his) life'. In 1966, the Eighth Avenue building suffered a fire. Later, as Joe was inspecting the damage the weakened floorboards underneath him gave way. Even though he was 86 he was able to catch a wood beam and pull himself out ofharm's way. However, it is believed that he suffered smoke inhalation, which led to his eventual death a year later, at the age of 87.
While Joe was the outspoken force behind his method, his wife Clara Pilates, a trained nurse, quietly incorporated his concepts and exercises in ways thatbenefited more seriously ill or injured clients. Her approachable style and special techniques spawned a dedicated lineage of teachers whose work flows through and uniquely colors the landscape of the Pilates method today. It is perhaps because of Clara that Pilates is clearly recognized as a positive form of movement-based exercise that truly can be tailored to any level of not just fitness, but also of health. Clara, an extremely gifted teacher who was said to be able to 'look right through you', continued to teach at the Pilates studio, as it was becoming to be known, until 1971 when she passed the running of the studio and the Pilates legacy to their long time student, teacher and friend Romana Kryzanowska. Clara passed away in 1977.
Luckily for the world, some of the students Joe Pilates trained over his long and dedicated career carried on his message and his work, becoming teachers themselves. These five first generation master teachers, Romana Kryzanowska, Kathy Grant, Carola Trier, Eve Gentry and Ron Fletcher, have given much to ensure that Joseph Pilates' legacy not only lives on, but also thrives. Because each studied with 'Uncle Joe' at different times during his career, each impart a different perspective on the Pilates Method and have brought rise to the different schools of Pilates that exist today. All of these Pilates Elders were dancers who came to Joe Pilates to rehabilitate an injury thatwould have ended their careers and in return have given back to the Pilates community immensely.
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