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Joseph Pilates developed his work from a strong personal experience in fitness and a study of anatomy. Beset by illness as a child, and inspired by his gymnast father & naturopath mother, he got back to health using many kinds of self-improvement systems and eventually developed himself as a body builder, wrestler, gymnast, boxer, skier and diver.

 

After WWI, Joseph returned to Germany where he worked briefly for the Hamburg Military Police teaching self-defence 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, meeting his wife Clara, a nurse, en route. He went on to establish his studio in New York and Clara worked with him as he evolved the Pilates method of exercise, invented his specialised exercise equipment, and  trained his students.

 

Joseph Pilates taught in New York from 1926 to 1966 where his studio put him in close proximity to a number of dance studios, which led to his 'discovery' by the dance community. Many New York dancers and celebrities 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 1980s, 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 Pilates died 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 also said to have had a flamboyant personality. He 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 his legacy is carried on by his former students, some of whom stuck to the traditional Pilates Method, and others who went on to integrate what they learned with their own research in anatomy and exercise sciences.