About Pilates
Pilates is a holistic body training method with the goal to bring body, mind and spirit into alignment by learning to consciously control all the movements of the muscles of your body. The exercises strengthen and stretch all muscles, tendons and tissues of the body uniformly, centring the body and the mind.
The system was developed by Joseph Hubertus Pilates in the early 20th century, and he originally called his method “Contrology”. Pilates was a rather sickly child, which motivated him to dedicate his life to finding ways to regain and maintain one’s health.
He took nature as his role model, as he realised very quickly that “civilisation impairs physical fitness”. He observed, how babies, young children, as well as animals, move and behave instinctively. This instinctive knowledge of their bodies embodied his ideal of balance between body and mind and he used this as his starting point for the development of his exercises.
Pilates was born in Mönchengladbach in 1883. In 1912 he moved to England, where he was interned for 3 years during the First World War and where he kept his fellow detainees fit and healthy through his training method. 1925 he emigrated to New York and on the journey he met his future wife Clara.
Together, they opened the very first Pilates studio shortly after arriving in New York. It happened to be situated in the same building as the New York City Ballet under George Balanchine. This is why to this day, for many, Pilates is associated with dancers and ballet, however Pilates himself was a former boxer, he used to train many boxers and his whole body movement training was intended for everybody. In order to make his mat exercises accessible for everyone, he invented various types of apparatus over the years, like the “Universal Reformer” the “Cadillac” and the “Wunda Chair”, which are used in many studios.
After his death in 1967, Clara and later his disciple Romana Krysanowska continued to run his studio and it was above all Romana, who passed on his authentic method to many Pilates teachers around the world. Romana once said “You can say what Pilates is in three words. Stretch with Strength and Control. And the control part is the most important because that makes you use your mind.”
About The Apparatus
In his life, Joe Pilates invented and patented several different types of apparatus to enable his clients to better learn and perform his method. Because his method originally started on the mat.
The mat exercises are the original Pilates exercises and to execute them perfectly requires incredible body awareness and control. The apparatus helps on the way towards that goal.
The most well known and most widely used Pilates apparatus is the ”Universal Reformer”, or simply ”Reformer”; a rectangular metal or wood frame on four legs with an upholstered platform on top and steel springs underneath which offer resistance for the body to work against.
Further apparatus we currently use in the studio are “Cadillac”, “High Chair”, “Ladder Barrel”, “Spine Corrector”, “Small Barrel” and “Toe Exerciser”.
All apparatus use steel springs for excellent resistance training and in combination they offer an incredible variety of exercises for the whole body.
