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 It
is important to start any exercise in a position that is tension-free.
If there is already tension before starting, too much stress will
be created once movement begins.
This doesn't mean complete relaxation, though. For example, when
lying on your back with pelvis and spine neutral, a slight activation
of the muscles will be necessary to maintain pelvic, rib cage and
spinal placement.
After learning STOTT PILATES™ Basic Principles, you will be
on the way to achieving a neutral, tension-free position. You will
be more aware of your body, and will start to carry yourself differently.
You may even stand a little taller!
Five Basic Principles of STOTT PILATES
- Breathing
- Pelvic Placement
- Rib Cage Placement
- Shoulder Stability
- Head and Neck Placement
How Pilates Began
 Joe
went to England in 1912, where he worked as a self-defense instructor
for detectives at Scotland Yard. At the outbreak of World War I,
Joe was interned as an "enemy alien" with other German
nationals. During his internment, Joe refined his ideas and trained
other internees in his system of exercise. He rigged springs to
hospital beds, enabling bedridden patients to exercise against resistance,
an innovation that led to his later equipment designs. An influenza
epidemic struck England in 1918, killing thousands of people, but
not a single one of Joe's trainees died. This, he claimed, testified
to the effectiveness of his system.
After his release, Joe returned to Germany. His exercise method
gained favor in the dance community, primarily through Rudolf von
Laban, who created the form of dance notation most widely used today.
Hanya Holm adopted many of Joe's exercises for her modern dance
curriculum, and they are still part of the "Holm Technique."
When German officials asked Joe to teach his fitness system to the
army, he decided to leave Germany for good.
The Pilates movement gains in popularity – from Europe
to the U.S.
In 1926, Joe immigrated to the United States. During the voyage
he met Clara, whom he later married. Joe and Clara opened a fitness
studio in New York, sharing an address with the New York City Ballet.
By the early 1960s, Joe and Clara could count among their clients
many New York dancers. George Balanchine studied "at Joe's,"
as he called it, and also invited Pilates to instruct his young
ballerinas at the New York City Ballet. "Pilates" was
becoming popular outside of New York as well. As the New York Herald
Tribune noted in 1964, "in dance classes around the United
States, hundreds of young students limber up daily with an exercise
they know as a pilates, without knowing that the word has a capital
P, and a living, right-breathing namesake."
 His students begin to teach
While Joe was still alive, only two of his students, Carola
Trier and Bob Seed, are known to have opened their own studios.
Trier, who had an extensive dance background, found her way to the
United States by becoming a performing contortionist, after fleeing
a Nazi holding camp in France. She found Joe Pilates in 1940, when
a non-stage injury pre-empted her performing career. Joe Pilates
assisted Trier in opening her own studio in the late 1950s. Joe
and Clara remained close friends with Trier until their deaths.
Bob Seed was another story. A former hockey player turned "Pilates"
enthusiast, Seed opened a studio across town from Joe and tried
to take away some of Joe's clients by opening very early in the
morning. According to John Steel, one day Joe visited Seed with
a gun and warned Seed to get out of town. Seed went.
The second generation of Pilates teachers
When Joe passed away in 1967, he left no will and had designated
no line of succession for the "Pilates" work to carry
on. Nevertheless, his work would remain. Clara continued to operate
what was known as the "Pilates" Studio on Eighth Avenue
in New York, where Romana Kryzanowska became the director around
1970. Kryzanowska had studied with Joe and Clara in the early 1940s
and then, after a 15-year hiatus spent in Peru, returned to renew
her studies.
 Several
students of Joe and Clara went on to open their own studios. Ron
Fletcher was a Martha Graham dancer who studied and consulted with
Joe from the 1940s on, in connection with a chronic knee ailment.
Fletcher opened his studio in Los Angeles in 1970 and attracted
many Hollywood stars. Clara was particularly enamored with Ron and
she gave her blessing to him to carry on the "Pilates"
work and name. Like Carola Trier, Fletcher brought some innovations
and advancements to the "Pilates" work. His evolving variations
on "Pilates" were inspired both by his years as a Martha
Graham dancer and by another mentor, Yeichi Imura. Kathy Grant and
Lolita San Miguel were also students of Joe and Clara who became
teachers. Grant took over the direction at the Bendel's studio in
1972, while San Miguel went on to teach Pilates at Ballet Concierto
de Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1967, just before Joe's
death, both Grant and San Miguel were awarded degrees by the State
University of New York to teach "Pilates." These two are
believed to be the only "Pilates" practitioners ever certified
officially by Joe. Other students of Joe and Clara who opened their
own studios include Eve Gentry, Bruce King, Mary Bowen and Robert
Fitzgerald. Eve Gentry, a dancer who taught at the Pilates Studio
in New York from 1938 through 1968, also taught "Pilates"
in the early 1960s at New York University's Theater Department.
After leaving New York, she opened her own studio in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. A charter faculty member of the High School for the Performing
Arts, Gentry was also a cofounder of the Dance Notation Bureau.
In 1979, she was given the "Pioneer of Modern Dance Award"
by Bennington College.
Bruce King trained for many years with Joseph and Clara Pilates
and was a member of the Merce Cunningham Company, Alwyn Nikolais
Company, and his own Bruce King Dance Company. In the mid-1970s
King opened his own studio at 160 W. 73rd Street in New York City.
Mary Bowen, a Jungian analyst who studied with Joe in the mid-1960s,
began teaching Pilates in 1975 and founded "Your Own Gym"
in Northampton, Massachusetts. Robert Fitzgerald opened his studio
on West 56th Street in the 1960s, where he had a large clientele
from the dance community.
Joe continued to train clients at his studio until his death in
1967, at the age of 87. In the 1970s, Hollywood celebrities discovered
Pilates via Ron Fletcher's studio in Beverly Hills. Where the stars
go, the media follows. In the late 1980s, the media began to cover
Pilates extensively. The public took note, and the Pilates business
boomed. "I'm fifty years ahead of my time," Joe once claimed.
He was right. No longer the workout of the elite, Pilates has entered
the fitness mainstream. Today, over 10 million Americans practice
Pilates, and the numbers continue to grow.
*Images courtesy of IC Rapport & STOTT™ Pilates
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