Joseph Pilates (1880 – 1967)

Began developing the Pilates Method in Germany in the early 1900’s. His childhood had been plagued with ill health and this inspired his fascination with the human body. He had access to a private medical library and devoured any book he laid his hands on. He overcame his poor health with exercise and became accomplished in many sports. He called his method ‘The Art of Contrology’ and it was a unique approach of using the mind to master the body. He had total belief in the power of the mind over the body and used his own life experience as his initial experiment. Joe was working as a Self Defense instructor in England for the Detectives in Scotland Yard at he outbreak of WW1. He was interned and utilized his time by training his fellow internees with all his knowledge about exercise and trying to achieve optimum health.

During the flu epidemic of 1918 when thousands of people died he successfully kept his trainees in good health. During the later part of the war Joe was working as a hospital orderly and rigged spring systems to the hospital beds to enable the bedridden to exercise. These beds where later developed into the Reformer Beds and Cadillac.

In the late 1920’s Joseph and his wife Clara opened their first Pilates Studio in New York and began working with dancers and performers. His unique approach to movement focused on strengthening the stabilizing muscles of the joints, which in turn allowed the mobilizing muscles to work more effectively, provided his students a balance to their workouts and movements, which had previously been missing. His method became very popular to the dance world. Several students of Joe and Clara went on to open their own studios and the rest as they say is history.