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The History of PilatesPilates, pronounced "Pih-lah-tees", is named after Joseph Pilates, born near Dusseldorf in 1880. As a
sickly child, he was determined to make himself strong and improve his
health. He researched and practised every kind of exercise, ranging
from classical Roman and Greek exercise regimes to body-building,
diving and gymnastics, alongside Eastern disciplines of yoga, tai chi,
martial arts and Zen meditation. He was one of the first influential
figures to combine Western and Eastern ideas about health and physical
fitness. He also studied anatomy and animal movement, carefully
documenting his findings.
In 1912, aged 32, he left Germany for this country, where he became a
professional boxer, an expert skier and diver. He even taught
self-defence to Scotland Yard detectives and found work as a circus
acrobat.
 At
the outbreak of World War I, the British interned Joseph Pilates due to his
German nationality. He used this time to develop a new approach to
exercise and body-conditioning. He had a captive audience on which to
try out his ideas and his exercises became renowned for maintaining the
health and fitness of many. Whilst interned, he also had the chance to
work as a nurse and began to experiment with attaching springs to
hospital beds for patients to tone their muscles whilst bed-bound. Such
were the origins of the first Pilates machines (reformers), which still
operate today as a sliding bed and use springs for resistance.
After returning to Germany a few years after World War I, Pilates moved
to America, meeting Clara on the Atlantic crossing who was to become
his wife. He and Clara opened his first studio in New York, and his
method of exercise became sought after by dancers such as Martha Graham
and George Balanchine, who found his exercises the best way to recover
from injuries and to prevent their recurrence. Gradually, a wider
audience began to hear of Pilates.
The Pilates method did not return to Britain until 1970, when it was brought back to this country by Alan Herdman, after the latter had been asked by the London School of Contemporary Dance to visit New York and investigate the methods of Joseph Pilates. Herdman established Britain's first Pilates studio at The Place in London that year. Pilates however, remained relatively unknown to the general public, until 1995 following the establishment of the Body Control Pilates Association under the direction of Lynne Robinson.
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