I have been aware of Pilates for some time and knew it was a low impact exercise that was particularly suitable for pregnant women and older people which involved some kind of Japanese looking wooden equipment. Recently I have begun to notice more and more of the gyms I work with offering Pilates classes, so I thought it was high time I found out more about it.
Joseph Pilates was born in Germany in 1880. Not much is known about his childhood other than he was a frail kid who suffered from asthma. He left Germany for England in 1912 where he worked as a circus performer and a self defence instructor for Scotland Yard. When the First World War broke out he was rounded up with other Germans and interned as an “enemy alien”. During this time he began to develop the fitness techniques which later became know as Pilates and whiled away his time by teaching it to other internees. Later in the war he became an orderly in a hospital on the Isle of Man working with disabled patients and used his exercises to help them recover. He even rigged up hospital beds with springs and straps to make an early version of his Pilates equipment.
At the end of the war Joseph returned to Germany and established himself within the dance community. A famous dancer and choreographer Hanya Holm used many of Joseph’s exercises which she incorporated into the “Holm Technique” still used by dancers today.
Joseph was on the move again and this time emigrated to New York in 1926 meeting his wife Clara on the voyage across to America. He started working with dancers again, setting up a studio to rehabilitate injured dancers. His Pilates exercises were so successful within the dance community that word began to spread and screen stars and professional athletes started to adopt Pilates. Joesph died in 1967 and his wife Clara continued to operate a studio on Eighth Avenue in New York.
The chances are we would of never heard of Pilates were it not for the dancer Alan Herdman, being invited to New York in the late sixties by Carol Trier to learn the Pilates techniques. Herdman came back to England in the early 1970′s and started the first Pilates Studio in the UK. In the 1990′s the media began to pick stories of stars using Pilates and so it became better known.
So that’s how Pilates came about but what exactly is it? I have read lots of different descriptions but none of it makes much sense. I think the only thing to do is actually go and try it out! Give it a go and let me know what you think.