In America today over ten million people practice Pilates, but its inception began with just one man. In 1914, German-born Joseph Humbertus Pilates, began developing his unconventional approach to “mind-body fitness”. He was a sickly child and struggled with asthma. It was his early adversity that led him to the search for alternative forms of exercise. Initially Joe’s career began as a self-defense instructor for Scotland Yard detectives before becoming a self-defense and wrestling trainer during World War I for an enemy aliens “camp” in Lancaster.
Upon a transfer to another “camp”, he became the hospital intern. Joe claimed that his training methods had healing and restorative components, so he was assigned to the patients that needed treatment for wartime diseases as well as the incarcerated. His ideas about how to combine strength training with natural movement led him to experimentation and invention. He devised spring rigged hospital beds, which he believed to be the basis for his patient’s recovery. Daily routines could be executed from their hospital room and the exercises were rigorous enough that it quickly progressed their health.
He refined his machines during his time in these “camps”. The evolution of these first contraptions would later be the basis for all “Pilates” equipment. Up until that point he had been using his own body weight and strength to assist patients. In order to preserve his body, he further developed his system of pulleys and springs. With the machines implementing a natural “push and pull” maneuver, the patients noticed a gaining of lean muscle mass and increased strength.
In 1918 a wide spread epidemic killed tens of thousands of England’s residents. In the aftermath of the influenza a pattern occurred in all of Joe’s patients, they survived! He considered this to be the jumping off point to solidify his life enhancing practices.
He has said that to do his “contrology” correctly you must, “…concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it.” After the miraculous survival of his patients, in the year 1925, he began using his machines with his clients on a regular basis.
Joe was asked by the German army to transfer but he declined. He then decided that it was time to leave Germany indefinitely. He immigrated to the United States in 1926. On that voyage he met Clara, who would become his wife and business partner.
They settled into New York City and opened a studio in the same building that housed the New York City Ballet. This was the first introduction of Joe Pilates to America. The proverbial handshake went over well, and Pilates quickly became a popular practice with the New York City Ballet students. Since Pilates is rooted in rehabilitation, dancers found his practices to be extremely beneficial in keeping their muscles and joints “limber”, as well as being the prefect medicine for their sports and stage related injuries.
Once Joe Pilates passed away in 1967, there was potential for his life’s inspiration to fade away too, since he left no will to speak of. Quite the contrary happened.