Lynne Robinson - The Pilates Bible The most comprehensive and accessible guide to pilates ever

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Not long before he died, in 1967, Joseph Pilates predicted that, one day, everyone in the world would have heard of his method of exercise. It took the dedication of a handful of committed clients and teachers to keep the Pilates Method alive through to the 1990s, but by the start of the new millennium, Pilates had finally exploded onto the fitness scene. Now firmly established, Pilates continues unabated in its worldwide growth.

What is it about Pilates that draws clients back to classes week after week? Perhaps it is no surprise that Pilates came to the fore around the turn of the century as people began searching for a more thoughtful way to exercise a method that combines mental and physical conditioning and that delivers its promise of a sound mind and a strong body. From your very first session, you will feel the benefits.

In 10 sessions youll feel the difference, in 20 youll see the difference, in 30 youll have a whole new body.

Joseph Pilates, Return to Life through Contrology

We are fortunate that Joseph and his wife Clara left a huge legacy of work, both on the mat and with the studio equipment. In this book, we will try to do justice to that legacy. This is no small task. There exist today many different schools of Pilates. While some still adhere closely to Josephs original work, at Body Control Pilates we have allowed his method to evolve with the times.

Born in Mnchengladbach, Germany, Joseph Pilates suffered from a number of serious childhood illnesses including rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever. As a result, doctors warned his parents that he would probably have a very short life expectancy. How wrong could they be! It appears that Joseph, even at a young age, had great determination. Through experimenting with many different health and fitness approaches he managed to rebuild his body strength to a fine physique.

Elements of the methods he used yoga, martial arts, gymnastics, skiing, self-defence, dance, circus training and weight training can be recognised in Josephs later teaching. By selecting and absorbing the most effective aspects from each, he was able to develop a system which he believed promoted the perfect balance of strength and flexibility, and which he called Contrology.

After teaching fitness and self-defence to the police and army in England, followed by an internment during World War I, Joseph returned to Germany, where he taught self-defence to the Hamburg Police and the German Army. In 1926, he decided to emigrate to the United States of America. This decision would literally change his life for, on the boat across, he met his future wife Clara and, when they realised they shared the same views on fitness, they set up a studio in New York together based on Josephs Contrology method.

For Joe, as his friends called him, and Clara the studio was a way of life rather than a business. They were more concerned with the teaching of clients than with managing the finances and they were both unbelievably generous in sharing ideas and knowledge. While the first studio clients were predominantly male many from the boxing community the proximity of the New York City Ballet encouraged dancers to seek Joe out when they were injured. Many of these dancers went on to become his assistants and greatly influenced the way in which his method evolved. The original exercises that Joe created were mat-based but, over time, in order to help to build the strength and flexibility of his clients and to supplement those matwork exercises, he created the various pieces of studio equipment ( ). It is a testament to his excellent design skills that the equipment used in studios today varies little from his original designs.

It was in this 8th Avenue studio that the Pilates Method as we know it today was defined. Joseph was a passionate, larger-than-life figure who ran the studio with a rod of iron. It is testament to his fitness that, despite a penchant for cigars, he lived to eighty-four years of age. He firmly believed that his method, which became known as Pilates only after his death, should be part of an overall commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

Loved and respected by his clients, Joseph never doubted that one day his method of exercise would become popular worldwide just how right he was in many of his ideas on both health and fitness makes him nothing short of a visionary. His belief in the value of self-discipline and self-help and the importance that he intuitively placed on Pilates fundamentals, such as core strength, would come to be clinically recognised in research studies carried out more than twenty years after his death.