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What is Pilates?

The Pilates method originated around one hundred years ago near Düsseldorf in Germany when a frail child called Joseph Pilates took up body-building to increase his strength. At the time he was thought to be prone to tuberculosis, as well as being generally weak and sickly but, so successful was the programme he devised, that by the age of 14, he was posing as a model for anatomical drawings.

He went on to become a keen sportsman – gymnast, skier, boxer, diver – and even a circus performer. In 1912, he left his native Germany and moved to England where, at the outbreak of the First World War, he was interned as a enemy alien. Pilates used his enforced leisure to develop his method of attaining peak physical fitness.

Pilates called his new system ‘muscle contrology’ and, in it, he aimed to bring about the complete co-ordination of body, mind and spirit by working with – not on or against – the body’s muscles. After the war, he returned briefly to Germany and then moved to New York, where his method was an immediate success, particularly with dancers such as Martha Graham and George Balanchine, the founder of the New York City Ballet. It remained something of a secret amongst dancers until comparatively recently when sportsmen, actors and the public began to discover it. The popularity of Pilates has soared over the last few years.

THE ORIGINAL PILATES METHOD

Much of Pilates’ early work was based on the rehabilitation of ill or injured people. During his internment, when Pilates worked as a nurse, he had experimented devising an exercise regime using springs attached to hospital beds, so that patients could begin to work on toning their muscles even before they could get up. Springs used as resistance were the cornerstone of the method and Pilates designed a machine that he called the ‘universal reformer’, a sliding horizontal bed that could be used with up to four springs, according to the exercise and the strength of the individual. On this machine, one could perform pliés and other exercises but without putting any weight on the joints (and so beneficial for those with injuries or other joint problems) and against resistance (so that the muscles would be worked harder).

Pilates developed several other machines for his New York studio and these have been adapted and used around the world ever since. More recently, the principles of the Pilates method have been adapted for use without machines and this system has become particularly popular. It is this version of Pilates that has been used in this book.