Origin pilates method
All books about the Pilates method always give a short biography of Jozeph Hubertus Pilates. What strikes one most is that different books give different data and information.
All books about the Pilates method always give a short biography of Jozeph Hubertus Pilates. What strikes one most is that different books give different data and information. Luckily our colleague Stacey Redfield-Dreisbach, a gold-certified PMA professor from the USA, is recognized as an authority on/ an expert in biographical data/information on Jozeph Pilates and his partner Clara Zuener. For more than 10 years she has investigated all possible documents to obtain a definite picture of how Jozeph Pilates became the visionary who founded the Pilates method. From her study/paper, which will soon be published as a book, I have taken the following certain/established information:
Pilates was born on 9 December 1883 in München-Gladbach, about 30 minutes from Düsseldorf, Germany. It is said he suffered from asthma and rheumatism and had suffered from rachitis which resulted in back growth of the bones and bow-legs. We don't know if this is really the truth or a fabrication used to accentuate the efficiency of the Pilates method. It is a fact that his father was a coordinating managing director of all gymnasiums in Rheinland ('Turnvereins' were founded in Berlin in 1811 by the German teacher and patriot Friedrich Ludwig Jahn). Here we find the origin of Pilates's physical development.
He worked his way up to be a gymnast, a circus acrobat, a skier and an instructor of self-defence techniques.
During the first World War he stayed in a concentration camp on the island of Wight in England, where he trained his fellow prisoners with MAT exercises, as we know them now. A year later he was brought to the island of Man, where he was able to further develop his method, while he was working with wounded patients. He helped them to regain agility and strength, by exercising them while they were lying in bed. Their injured limbs were supported by springs and straps that were fastened/fixed on a frame of tubes which at that time was installed over each hospital bed. This way they could move safely and strengthen their muscles and keep them strong. For Pilates experimenting with aids such as these meant the start of developing the prototypes of all equipment you can find in standard Pilates studios.
During his camp period the English guards had taught him to box. After the war he introduced boxing as a sport again in Germany together with other prisoners who had come back home from the war (until then boxing was illegal and was only practised in secret matches). He was working as a trainer with the Berlin police.
In 1926 he migrated from Hamburg to New York by ship. On the boat 'Westphalia' he met Clara Zuener who became his companion and assistant. At that time he was already widowed twice but he never married Clara.
In New York he set up his study 'The Pilates Universal Gymnasium', located at 939 Eight Avenue, in a prestigious building known as the 'Van Dyck Studios building' where especially artists were living. During his career of 38 years as a 'Director of Physical Culture' he built up a clientele of more than 2000 persons among which a lot of celebrities, artists, writers, people of royal blood and the New York elite. Dancer Martha Graham and choreographer George Balanchine were two of them. Until his death in 1967 he had trained other instructors to teach his method. They established their own studios all over the country and in turn trained others to apply the Pilates method and to propagate it. This way he realized that the Pilates method has been developing further more and has gained in popularity in the past decades. Nowadays people all over the world are trained with the Pilates Method.