An amazing story ​

 

Joseph Hubertus Pilates, of Greek-German descent, was born in Mönchengladbach, Germany in 1880. He was a sickly child, suffering from asthma and rickets, and it was his personal need for empowerment that led him to gradually develop the method.

He started studying anatomy and human physiology, trained in western and eastern fitness practices such as yoga and martial arts, was professionally involved in boxing, loved water sports, and for a while worked as an acrobat in a circus. ​

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Pilates was imprisoned in Lancaster with fellow nationals and other prisoners of war. There, in his effort to maintain his physical condition and that of his fellow prisoners, he began to develop a series of floor exercises (mat). At the same time, he started experimenting with bed springs and thus invented some instruments that we know today as Pilates instruments (Reformer, Tower, etc.). ​

In 1925, after the end of the war, he returned to Germany where he was asked to train German soldiers by his method. Very soon, however, he decided to emigrate to America, and during the transatlantic trip he met his wife Clara, who was a nurse. ​

In 1926, together with his wife, they opened their first studio in Manhattan, New York, where they applied the method, then called "Contrology". The studio's first clients were choreographers and dancers, circus athletes and acrobats as well as New York personalities. Especially dancers, such as George Balanchine, Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and Martha Graham, having frequent injuries, loved the method. ​

In 1966, during a fire in the studio, he was seriously injured while trying to save what he could from the disaster. He died a year later at the age of 87.

 

His dream was that his method would be taught in every neighborhood. And it came true.

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