Today, Pilates studios are everywhere. Pilates is typically known for its emphasis on core strength, posture, and mindful movement, and it has become a cornerstone of modern wellness. But behind the calm precision of the exercises lies a surprisingly colorful history filled with wartime innovation, eccentric personalities, devoted disciples, and even a courtroom battle over the name itself.
The method began with Joseph Pilates, born in Germany in 1883. As the story goes, Joseph was a sickly child who suffered from asthma and other illnesses, although some skeptics wonder if this was a fictional story Joe created as part of his persona. Others have said he lied about his age and a brief stint in the circus. However, he did immerse himself in the study of anatomy, boxing, gymnastics, yoga, and the European physical culture movement. The name “Pilates” comes from his Greek father who changed it from “Pilatu” and Joseph studied the Greek athletic idealism of the body in his work.
By adulthood he had built a remarkably strong physique and became deeply interested in the idea that the mind should control the muscles, not the other way around. He called his developing system of exercise “Contrology.”
During World War I, Joseph was living in England when he was interned as a German national. While in the internment camp, he began teaching fellow detainees exercises designed to maintain strength and mobility in limited spaces.
Working with injured individuals who were confined to bed, Pilates reportedly attached springs to hospital bed frames, allowing patients to perform resistance exercises while lying down. These improvised contraptions would later inspire the apparatus that define Pilates studios today.
After WWI, Joe immigrated to the US and on the ship he met his future wife Clara who would help form a substantial amount of the method and teach. Clara reportedly suffered from joint pain, and Joseph began working with her on exercises during the voyage. Together they opened a studio in Manhattanan address that would become legendary.
The Pilates studio happened to be located in the same building as several dance companies and rehearsal spaces. This accidental proximity turned out to be pivotal. Dancers began visiting Joseph and Clara to recover from injuries, strengthen their bodies, and extend their careers.
Word spread quickly through the New York dance community. For decades, Pilates remained something of a well-kept secret among professional dancers, performers, and choreographers. However many of Joe’s clients were also businessmen who would come in during lunch breaks and the studio did make an appearance in a few lifestyle magazines.
Joseph himself was known for his intensity. Former students recall him pacing the studio in tiny athletic shorts, loudly correcting posture and insisting on exact precision. Clara, by contrast, became known as the calm teacher who could help injured clients rebuild their strength step by step.
The Pilates Elders Carry the Work Forward
When Joseph Pilates died in 1967, the future of the method rested largely in the hands of the students who had trained closely with him and Clara. These teachers, “the Pilates Elders” would go on to spread the method across the United States. A few of them were:
Romana Kryzanowska
A young dancer when she first studied with Joseph, Romana later became one of the most prominent guardians of the classical method. After Joseph’s death she helped preserve the traditional system of exercises and eventually helped develop formal teacher training programs. Romana also made the system more rigid and rule-based, which still causes a lot of controversy in the community.
Kathy Grant
A dancer and actor who studied directly with Joseph and Clara, Kathy Grant taught for decades at New York University. Kathy was the only African-American elder, and was also the first African-American accepted to the National Endowment of the Arts. For many years, she had to train during off-hours or in a different room than other students and clients.
Ron Fletcher
A Martha Graham dancer who studied with Joseph before moving to Los Angeles, Fletcher introduced Pilates to the West Coast. His distinctive style incorporated rhythmic breathing patterns and standing exercises, creating what is now known as Fletcher Pilates.
Each of these teachers and several more passed on the method in slightly different way, which is partly why there is a lot of room for interpretation on what “real Pilates” is.
For many years, Pilates remained relatively niche, practiced mainly in dance and rehabilitation circles. But by the 1980s and 1990s the method began gaining broader attention as people looked for exercise systems that emphasized strength, posture, and injury prevention. In the ’90s a few popular instructors released VHS tapes for home practice which started to bring it into the mainstream.
The Lawsuit:
As Pilates gradually grew in the ’90s, a physical therapist who had worked adjacent to Romana for years claimed trademark ownership of the word “Pilates” (through a new company of his so that he could be a sole manufacturer of equipment) and attempted to restrict its use by other teachers and studios. Romana fiercely opposed this.
The popularity of Contemporary Pilates which incorporates a physical therapy perspective is another offshoot that’s not from the elders but is still rooted in Pilates. Contemporary will usually have more repetition, more pulsing, use heavier weight, and have less flow/dance movement than Classical.
The dispute culminated in a major federal court case in 2000. The court ruled against Gallagher and determined that the word “Pilates” was generic, referring to a type of exercise method rather than a proprietary brand.
While this ruling helped keep Pilates from being “owned” and allowed it to grow to it’s popularity today, the downside to this is that it’s become impossible to enforce any standards on what Pilates is as it’s gained popularity and thousands of brands want to use the word “Pilates” to upsell their brand, even with little or no connection to Pilates. Unfortunately it’s usually “Contemporary Pilates” that can mean almost anything even though there are some great contemporary Pilates schools.
In the last 5 years what has only made this worse is the growing popularity of large equipment classes. Club Pilates has expanded Pilates out from being a private-training service with specialized equipment into a novelty fitness trend. While it’s positive so many more people can access Pilates in these types of studios, instruction is stretched thin, is often scripted, and a lot of the craft of Pilates is lost. Many of these studios are using entirely different equipment and still calling it “Contemporary Pilates”.
Pilates is the most popular it has ever been, but time will tell if it maintains this momentum or eventually returns to how it was before the franchises. In the meantime if you don’t live in the Franklin area, here is what you want to find in a Pilates studio:
– Smaller group sizes (Ideally around 5)
– The word Classical is a good way to filter out a lot of pseudo-Pilates studios masking themselves as “contemporary”
– A small team of instructors with dance backgrounds where the studio owner states which studio or even who personally certified them
– A studio that still mostly runs on private sessions, instead of a group studio that’ll offer privates
