German born Joseph Pilates was living in England, working as a circus performer and boxer, when he was placed in forced internment in England at the outbreak of WW1. While in the internment camp he began to develop the floor exercises that evloved into what we now know as Pilates Mat Work.

Joseph Pilates began to work with rehabilitating detainees who were suffering from diseases and injuries. It was the invention born of necessity that inspired him to utilize items that were available to him, like bed springs and beer keg rings to create resistance exercise equipment for his patients.

These were the unlikely beginnings of the equipment we use today, like the reformer and the magic circle.

 

An unhealthy child, Joseph Pilates studied many kinds of self-improvemnet systems, He drew from the Eastern practices and Zen Buddhism, and was inspired by the ancient Greek ideal of man perfected in development of body, mind and spirit. On his way to developing the Pilates Method, Joseph studied anatomy and developed himself as a body builder, wrestler, gymnast, boxer and diver.

 

After WW1, Joseph briefly worked for the Hamburg Military Police in self-defense and physical training. In 1925 he was asked to train the German Army. Instead he packed his bags and took a boat to New York City. On the boat he met a nurse named Clara, who would become his wife.

Together they went on to establish a studio in New York where Joseph went on to evolve the Pilates Method of exercise and invent the Pilates exercise equipment, and of course, trained students.

 

Joseph Pilate taught in New York from 1926 - 1966. During that time he trained a number of students who not only applied his work to their own lives but became teachers of the Pilates Method themselves.

 

Joseph Pilates' New York Studio put him in close proximity to a number of dance studios, which led to his "discovery" by the dance community. Many dancers and well-known persons of New York depended on Pilates method training for the strength and grace it developed in the practitioner, as well as for its rehabilitative effects. Until exercise science caught up with the Pilates exercise principles in the 1980's, and the surge of interest in Pilates that we have today got underway, it was chiefly dancers and elite athletes who kept Joseph Pilates work alive.

 

Joseph passed away in 1967. He had maintained a fit physique throughout his life and many photos show that he was in remarkable physical condition in his older years. He is said to have had a flamboyant personalitity, smoked cigars, liked to party and wore his exercise briefs wherever he wanted (even on the streets of New York). It is said that he was an intimidating, though deeply committed instructor. Clara Pilates continued to teach and run the studio for another 10 years after Joseph's death. Today, Joseph Pilates teachings are carried on by the Pilates Elders and by a large group of contemporary teachers.

Joseph Pilates called his work, contrology, defined as "the comprehensive integration of body, mind and spirit.