A  system of movement designed to increase core strength and pelvic floor while supporting the spine, increasing flexibility, blood flow, and breath.

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The History of Pilates

Here is a great video on the history of Pilates:
History of Joe Pilates
 
Joseph Pilates was born on December 9th, 1883, in Monchengladbach, Germany. Suffering from asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever as a young boy, Joseph was unable to participate in strenuous activities, so he quickly became determined to overcome his physical disadvantages. Together, his father, who was a boxer and mother, who was thought to be a naturopath, ran a gym where Joe first developed a holistic approach to the body and physical fitness. Living on a farm, Joseph was able to observe the movements of animals and at the age of 12, a family physician gave him a discarded anatomy book "I learned every page, every part of the body; I would move each part as I memorized it. As a child, I would lie in the woods for hours, hiding and watching the animals move, how the mother taught the young”.  Pilates studied both Eastern and Western forms of exercise including yoga, Zen, and ancient Greek and Roman regimens. By the time he was 14 he had developed his body to the point that he was able to become an accomplished boxer, skier, and diver, and even began to model for anatomy charts.
In 1912, Pilates went to England where he earned a living as a boxer, circus performer and self-defense teacher at police schools at Scotland Yard. He found employment there as a circus performer and began to tour in 1914. A few months later, on August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia, marking the beginning of WWl. On August 4, Pilates and his circus troupe, along with other Germans who were in England at the time, were considered enemy aliens, taken into custody and interned at Lancaster.  On September 12, 1915, Joe Pilates was transferred to the Isle of Man located off the west coast of England. During his camp imprisonment Pilates ran daily exercise routines for more than 16,000 inmates allowing him to develop ideas on fitness and gain experience teaching his system of mat exercises that later became "Contrology", the ‘science of control’. During the three and a half years Pilates spent in the internment camps, he read thousands of books including those on sports and medicine. Furthermore, he was given the opportunity to study the anatomy and movement of humans and animals. Using this new found knowledge, Joe  worked to help the many who were suffering from the problems of body and mind due to their internment. While in camp, his interests in health and exercise led him to help in the sick bay. Given the instructions that all patients were to remain on bed rest, Pilates decided to take springs from the beds and attach them to the bedposts to create the “Trap Table,” now referred to as the Cadillac. Using the Cadillac and his own exercise methods, Pilates was able to help rehabilitate seriously injured veterans.
In early 1919, after the war, Pilates was repatriated to Germany where he began training the Hamburg Military Police in self-defense and physical training. During this period, Germany was delving into the world of Somatics, an approach to physical therapy that attempts to train both the mind and body using various holistic modalities. Pilates’s thinking was shaped by many influences such as science, literature, philosophy, and the arts as well as physical modalities that flourished at that time. European holistic physical therapies included massage modalities such as hydrotherapy and trigger point therapy; body movement practice; breath and expressionism movement practices from the likes of Bess Mensendieck, Rudolf Laban, Elsa Gindler; and the modern dance work of Martha Graham. Within certain cultural circles, teachers in physical well-being began to delve deeper into the Somatic mind/body connections by incorporating the psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung that was flourishing at this time, thereby.
Although there is no direct mention of how all these influences affected him, during the seven years that Pilates spent in Hamburg, his method emphasized breath, concentration, flowing movement, and control of mind over body. Pilates felt that an aim of somatic movement practice was to develop a person’s internal preconception to move the body with sensitive engagement, allowing the mind to clearly and calmly approach any personal problems that arise throughout daily life. 
Tying the principles of breath and internal awareness while building a balance of strength and flexibility, Pilates decided to create a machine that would increase one’s resistance, forcing deep internal muscles to work to address physical dysfunction or injury while conditioning the body, thus creating balance. This apparatus later became known as the Reformer. In 1923 Pilates was invited to train the new German army, but he opposed the prospect of another war, so he decided to sail across the Atlantic to emigrate to America where he met his wife Clara.
Once he arrived in New York, Joe and Clara took over a boxing gym at 939 Eighth Ave (the Van Dyck Building) near several dance studios such as the Martha Graham Co. and the NY City Ballet where he taught Crontrology from 1926 to 1966. Word got out about Pilates, and the couple soon had a devout following of local dancers and other performing artists who came regularly for training and rehabilitation.
            From 1939 to 1951, Clara and Joe came to Jacob's Pillow, a dance center, school, and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts founded by modern dancer and artistic director of Denishawn, Ted Shawn.  Joe and Clara were invited to work with dancers who came together to choreograph and perform, and Crontology became the core element for many dancers.  Incorporating the training they learned into their own work, they eventually began sharing Pilates’s work by opening their own studios; many of those dancers became the 1st generation of Pilates teachers referred to as the Pilates elders. Different teachers among this generation committed themselves to teaching Pilates exactly the way they were taught, this approach is now referred to as classical style Pilates while others took what they learned and continued their study of anatomy and movement to create their own version of Pilates.  
Suffering from advanced emphysema, Joe Pilates died on October 9, 1967, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Upon Joe’s death, Clara continued to run the Pilates studio, along with Joe’s apprentice, Romana Kryzanowska, until she retired in 1970 leaving Romanna to become the managing director of the Pilates studio. 
Before Clara’s retirement, she was able to set up a partnership with the help of a client and attorney John Steel. Steel helped manage the studio business after Clara's retirement by bringing her investors who wished to keep the studio open. As managing director, Romana Kryzanowska continued running the studio and eventually became a 50% shareholder in The first Pilates studio inc. Clara Pilates passed away at the age of 95 on May 13th, 1977, at St. Clare's Hospital. 
In the 1980’s, Pilates grew in popularity as 2nd generation teachers opened studios across the world and developed their own teacher training programs. In 2000, a trademark lawsuit was introduced to set parameters on what could be defined as Pilates, but the decision in the case denied the use of the word “Pilates” as a trademark. The court ruled that “Pilates” is a generic designation for a method of exercise; the word had become commonly associated with this special type of exercise that utilizes unique apparatuses, an exercise system and pedagogy that cannot be owned or called by another name. Pilates has continued to grow in popularity and is taught all over the world. 
 
The timeline of events above has been sourced from the various texts below: