| Who was Joseph Hubertus Pilates? While millions of | | | | Knockaloe, thus proving to Joe that he was right.After |
| people do Pilates exercises everyday, most do not | | | | the war Pilates was deported back to Germany, |
| even know that Pilates was a person, let alone an | | | | where he continued to develop, practice, and teach his |
| extremely interesting and colorful personality who was | | | | exercises until 1925. He trained the Hamburg Military |
| at the leading edge of exercise science. It is interesting | | | | Police, took on some private clients, and worked as an |
| not only to hear about his life story, but also to explore | | | | early Physical Therapist, exercising patients who |
| his story in the context of the important social and | | | | suffered from the same illnesses he had, including |
| political events of his time, as they all impacted his life | | | | rheumatic fever. Joe met and collaborated with |
| and work. Of course, most of what we know came | | | | movement analyst Rudolf van Laban and famous |
| from Joseph Pilates himself, so the veracity of some | | | | German dancer Mary Wigman, and began developing |
| of his claims is questionable.Joe Pilates was born in | | | | spring based exercise equipment. "I thought, why use |
| 1880 in Moenchengladbach, a town near Dusseldorf, | | | | my strength [to exercise rheumatic patients]? So I |
| Germany to a gymnast father and a naturopathic | | | | made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it |
| physician mother. Moenchengladbach, located in | | | | resists your movements in just the right way so those |
| West-Central Germany, was a center of industry and | | | | inner muscles really have to work against it. That way |
| production, specifically cotton textiles. Pilates was a frail | | | | you can concentrate on movement. You must always |
| and sickly child who suffered from rickets, rheumatic | | | | do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in |
| fever, and asthma. Other children constantly made fun | | | | it."Post war Germany was not doing well either |
| of both his name (they called him "Christ killer") and his | | | | politically or economically. The Weimar Republic was |
| frailty, and Joe was too weak and skinny to ever fight | | | | not accepted by many Germans, inflation was up due |
| back. He resolved to get stronger in his breathing and | | | | to wartime debts, and unemployment was at an all |
| his movements so that he could defend himself.One | | | | time high. By 1923 French and Belgium troops had |
| day Joe's doctor gave him an anatomy book, and the | | | | moved in to Germany as she defaulted on war |
| seeds of Contrology were sewn. Of this book Pilates | | | | reparations payments. The government began printing |
| said, "I learned every page, every part of the body I | | | | so much money that the mark became worthless in |
| would move each part as I memorized it. As a child, I | | | | 1914 the US dollar was equivalent to 4 marks, in 1920 |
| would lie in the woods for hours, hiding and watching | | | | 40 marks, in 1922 200 marks, in 1923 18,000 marks, and |
| the animals move, how the mother taught the young." | | | | by 1924 4.2 trillion marks. Things had literally gotten to |
| While attending school and studying history, philosophy, | | | | the point where you needed a wheelbarrow full of |
| and engineering, Pilates also studied Eastern and | | | | paper money just to buy groceries.In 1925 Pilates was |
| Western forms of exercise. The young Joe sent for | | | | invited to train the New German Army. However, |
| more books and haunted the University libraries in | | | | given the situation in Germany, he had already decided |
| Dusseldorf. The more he learned the more questions | | | | to leave. Boxing expert Nat Fleischer and Olympic |
| he had. He tried yoga, Buddhist meditation, and ancient | | | | boxer Max Schmelling convinced Joe to come to the |
| Greek and Roman gymnastic exercises, and kept | | | | US, specifically to New York City. Here he could train |
| meticulous written records of what the exercises did | | | | boxers and continue to work on his equipment, |
| for him and how he progressed. Pilates held fast to | | | | inventing and patenting his new machines. He met his |
| the ancient Roman credo "Mens sana in corpore sano | | | | future wife Clara, a kindergarten teacher, on the boat |
| (A sound mind in a sound body)." By the time he turned | | | | to Ellis Island. The story goes that Clara suffered from |
| 14 he was not only strong enough to be considered an | | | | arthritis and Joe worked with her to increase her |
| accomplished skin diver, gymnast, boxer, and skier, he | | | | mobility and relieve her pain. Once in New York they |
| also modeled for anatomy charts.We know that | | | | opened their gym at 939 Eighth Avenue, in the same |
| Pilates traveled to England when he was in his 30s, but | | | | building that housed rehearsal studios for George |
| there are at least two different equally plausible stories | | | | Ballanchine's New York City Ballet.Joseph Pilates never |
| about how and why he went. The first story tells us | | | | received the level of recognition that his brilliant work |
| that he went there to box, having exhausted most of | | | | clearly deserved, and even today it is difficult to wade |
| the prizefighting venues at home. The second claims | | | | through the myth and find the true story. This is partially |
| that Joe had begun successfully performing in the | | | | true because most of what we know about his life |
| circus with his brother, and they had a Greek statue | | | | has come from students of students of his |
| act that was so popular they took it to England. | | | | students.While many facts about Joe's life are |
| Whichever is true, Pilates was in England in 1914 when | | | | verifiable, sources still disagree on the basics. In fact, I |
| WW I broke out and was interned by the British as an | | | | just reviewed several sites and each gave a different |
| enemy alien. He first went to a small camp near | | | | year of death (1966, 1967, 1968) as well as a different |
| Lancaster, where he began teaching self defense and | | | | cause of death (he died in a fire as a result of a fire |
| wrestling to the other Germans, claiming that they | | | | as a result of smoke inhalation from a fire etc.). |
| would be stronger when they left than when they | | | | According to his New York Times obituary Joseph |
| entered. It was here that Joe began to develop his | | | | Pilates died in 1967 at Lenox Hill Hospital, but the Times |
| system of Contrology. Then he was transferred.During | | | | never mentions cause of death. And there was indeed |
| both World Wars, the British set up their Alien Civilian | | | | a fire on the same floor as his studio in 1965 where |
| Internment Camps on the Isle of Man. Interestingly, they | | | | Joe suffered a bad leg scrape while inspecting the |
| only interned males women were not interned. For | | | | studio. But, according to Pilates Elder Mary Bowen, "To |
| WW1 (1914-1918) a very large camp was established | | | | set the record straight - no, Joe did not die in a fire. He |
| on the west coast of the island at Knockaloe. The | | | | died two years later...of advanced emphysema from |
| Knockaloe camp, intended to house 5000 men, ended | | | | smoking cigars for too many years...." Apparently all the |
| up expanding to hold about 24,000. It was 22 acres | | | | good breathing in the world could not keep his scarred |
| large, divided into 23 compounds split into 4 separate | | | | lungs (recall that he was rheumatic and asthmatic as a |
| camps. Each camp had its own hospital, theater, | | | | child) from feeling the effects of smoking. As Joe left |
| cafeteria, printing presses, etc. and the hospitals were | | | | no will, Clara took over and ran the studio until she |
| used to treat soldiers injured on the front lines of battle. | | | | retired in the mid-70s. This is where the story gets |
| The Knockaloe camps were built from wooden huts, | | | | interesting...The Question of LineageMost Pilates |
| and became extremely depressing after several | | | | teachers out there today can trace his or her lineage |
| years. To make things worse, the camps did not close | | | | back to Joe and Clara, and this includes such |
| right at the end of the war, since there was a long | | | | heavyweights as Winsor and Stott. I, for example, |
| period of postwar hostilities. The camps finally closed in | | | | originally was a client at SUNY Purchase where I |
| late 1919, and most of the internees were deported | | | | learned under Steve Giordano who studied with Joe's |
| back to Germany.It was while interned at Knockaloe | | | | student Romana Kryzanowska. Then I worked with |
| camp that Joe Pilates began to really experiment with | | | | Karen Carlson in Philadelphia who studied with Mary |
| his exercises and theories. It was obviously his priority | | | | Bowen and Kathy Grant who both studied with Joe. |
| to maintain his own strength and conditioning, which | | | | And I received my certification from both Michelle |
| was not easy given the basic lack of hygienic | | | | Larson and her teacher Eve Gentry who studied with |
| conditions and the presence of injured and sick | | | | Joe. Since then I have worked directly with Romana, |
| internees and soldiers, but Pilates also had to deal with | | | | with Eve before she died, and with Kathy. So even |
| the great influenza epidemic of 1918. In a time when | | | | though my studio training affiliation is with the |
| there was no physical or exercise therapy and | | | | PhysicalMind Institute I trace my lineage as a student |
| medicine was relatively archaic, Joe began to work | | | | and teacher back to Pilates himself and when people |
| with the sick and injured men. He taught them to | | | | ask me what style of Pilates I teach I can honestly say |
| breathe and attached bedsprings with straps to the | | | | that it is my own, but informed by all of my |
| walls by their hospital beds so they could begin to | | | | teachers.Of the 10 students of Joe's who taught |
| stretch and exercise by pushing or pulling on the | | | | Pilates either at his studio or opened their own (yes, |
| springs before they could even get out of bed. His | | | | there were other New York Pilates studios open in the |
| patients got out of bed much faster, and Joe's | | | | 50s!), only 6 are still alive and 5 are still actively |
| experiments were encouraged. Outside of the hospital | | | | teaching in their 70s and 80s! Each individual took what |
| he took large groups of internees through his exercise | | | | he or she learned from Joe and Clara and expanded |
| regimen every day believing wholeheartedly that the | | | | the work with their own knowledge and expertise. |
| more everyone breathed and moved the better off | | | | Additionally, many of the Elders worked with one |
| they would be. "Out with the bad germs and in with the | | | | another. Hence, the different styles of Pilates, all of |
| fresh new oxygen," he would counsel. England lost | | | | which can ultimately be traced back to Joseph Pilates |
| tens of thousands and while the camps were hit | | | | himself. |
| extremely hard by the flu, only 200 men died at | | | | |