Born in Germany in 1880, Joseph Hubertus Pilates was a sickly child who suffered from rickets and asthma.  Probably inspired by his parents (his father was a gymnast and his mother a naturalist), Pilates dedicated himself to overcoming his ailments at a very early age.  A family physician gave him a discarded anatomy book and as Joseph put it, "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."  By the time he was 14, Joseph had worked so hard to develop his body that he was modeling for anatomical charts!

Pilates went even further with his physical feats.  As he grew older, Joseph became an accomplished gymnast, boxer and circus performer, and was also an ardent student of Eastern philosophies such as yoga and martial arts.  So when he decided to create the most complete fitness regimen the world had ever seen, he called upon all of his research study and expertise to create a complete regiment that combined East and West, gymnastic and yogic principles, and mental and physical exercises that would strengthen the body and free the mind.

In 1912, Pilates left for England intending to further his boxing career.  But instead, he found success using his gymnastic skills as part of a touring circus troupe where he and his brother performed a live Greek statue act!

At the outbreak of World War I, Pilates was interned as an enemy alien because of his German nationality.  It was during his internment in Lancaster and, later, the Isle of Man that Joseph began devising his exercises to help rehabilitate patients in the camp's hospital.  Ever the inventor,  Pilates decided to use springs from the hospital beds to provide resistance to assist his patients in performing his exercises.

Once the War was over, Joseph returned to Germany where he instructed to Hamburg Military Police in self-defense and physical training.  He continued developing his Contrology (The Art of Control) exercises and began inventing equipment to assist his clients with the work.  "I invented all these machines.  Began back in Germany, was there until 1925, used to exercise rheumatic patients.  I thought, why use MY strength?  So I made a machine to do it for me.  Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it.  That way you can concentrate on movement.  You must always do it slowly and smoothly.  Then your whole body is in it."

The popularity of Pilates' exercises spread as did his reputation.  Subsequently, he was invited to train the New German Army, but, unhappy with the current political climate, he left instead for the USA.  On the boat, Joseph met his to-be wife, Clara, and in 1926 they opened their first studio in New York on 8th Avenue.

The building housed mainly dance studios and rehearsal spaces for dancers and actors.  It wasn't long before the reputation of Pilates' Contrology exercises spread and injured dancers were coming to him for rehabilitation.  George Balanchine and Martha Graham themselves would send their dancers to "Uncle Joe" to be "fixed".   Hence, the affiliation of dancers and Pilates exercises.

Although Joseph Pilates was a health guru, he strongly believed in fitness supporting life's pleasures and riches.  He was renowned for liking cigars, whisky, and women, and was to be seen running on Manhattan streets in the dead of winter in a Speedo!  As he said to one reporter, "I eat what I feel like eating.  If people could see the way I live - smoking, drinking, and loving - they wouldn't believe it.  Loving!  Without it you are dead!"

Pilates continued to develop the Art of Contrology as well as his equipment until his death in 1967 at the age of 87.  Clara carried on the work until her death in 1977.

There is no doubt that Joseph Pilates was years ahead of his time.  He said himself that in 50 years his work would catch on.  How right he was!