A short resume of the history of the founder of Pilates method

Joseph Hubertus Pilates (1883 – 1967)

Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born the 9 of December 1883 in Mönchengladbach (Germany), near Düsseldorf.

He was a frail and sickly child suffering from rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever. Driven by the wish and the necessity to improve his health, Joseph Pilates became interested in anatomy and sport, and practiced with great passion and success, gymnastics, bodybuilding, diving, boxing and skiing.

At the age of 14, his musculature was so well developed that he posed for anatomical charts as an example for the ideal muscular body. He soon understood the connection between the mental and physical health and started to practice disciplines that were quite unknown at the time in the west, like martial arts and yoga.

In 1912, Pilates moved to England where he trained the Police School of Scotland Yard in Self Defense at the same time as he pursued a career as a professional boxer and circus artist.

When the First World War broke out two years later, as all German citizens in Great Britain at the time, Joseph Pilates became a prisoner of war, interned in a camp with extremely poor living conditions. During the period of internment, Joseph Pilates put in place the foundation of what was later to be known as the Pilates method. He trained his fellow prisoners to maintain their mental and physical health. Many were wounded soldiers, and driven by the wish to help everyone, he got the idea to develop the beds and bed springs as training equipment, and so he created the first demo of Pilates machines. None of his fellow prisoners died from an epidemic flu that was raging England at the time, killing thousands of people. The merit was attributed to the training method of Joseph Pilates.

After the war, Pilates returned to Germany where he continued to develop his training program. In 1926, he was invited to train the German secret police force, and not agreeing with the social and political climate of Germany at the time, he decided to immigrate to The United States. It was on the boat trip over that he met his future wife Clara, a trained nurse. Together they opened their training studio in New York. His method was soon to get adepts from the world of sport, art and dance. Martha Graham and George Balanchine are just some of the great dancers who embrace his training program and sent their dancers and students to be taught by him.

Clara and Joseph Pilates taught for more than 40 years in NY and Joseph Pilates continued to develop his method that he called Contrology.

Joseph Humbertus Pilates died in 1967, in New York. He became 87 years old. The once sickly and fragile child had become an old man. His method to which he had devoted his life to, had in return granted him a long and healthy life.

To day the Pilates method is taught all over the world, in dance and theatre companies and schools, and in Pilates studios to professional athletes, to frail people with poor health, to people who wants to maintain good health, and to people who simply enjoy moving their bodies.