Joseph Pilates Began Teaching in the Early 20th Century - By: Eddie Lamb

The Pilates Method is a system for keeping physically fit and was developed in the early 20th Century by a person named Joseph Pilates who had written two books, Return to Life through Contrology and Your Health: A Corrective System of Exercising that Revolutionizes the Entire Field of Physical Education.

The method used by Pilates was known as Contrology that is a term used to signify a method which encourages the use of controlling the muscles, with the mind. This program is basically focusing on the core postural muscles which keep a body balanced and, are vital for providing the spine with much needed support. This method, for the most part, makes the user aware of breathing and aligning of the spine and helps to strengthen the deep torso muscles to make it possible to alleviate and prevent back pains.

The Man behind Pilates

Joseph Pilates was born in the year 1880 in the German city of Dusseldorf. Though of Greek descent, he was really a German national who became extremely taken up with exercising, being a skier, gymnast, diver and martial arts student. He developed his body into excellent physical condition and was sometimes, used as a model for fitness charts and, had worked as a boxer and circus performer.

While in Germany, after WWI, he began investigating ways that could be used to revitalize bed-ridden victims of the 1918 influenza deadly disease. While doing so, he created some movements that could be practiced even in limited space environments and his Pilates Reformer, which is a Pilates apparatus, was modeled after the old hospital beds. He had also trained notable heavyweight champion Max Schmelling before moving to the United States and opening his own training studio in the city of New York in the year 1926 along with his wife, Clara.

There are Pilates instructor certifications that Joseph himself obtained first and, later moved on to the first teachers that included Mary Bowen, Kathleen Standford Grant, Romana Kryzanowska, Ron Fletcher, Lolia San Miguel, Bruce King, Eve Gentry and a number of others.

Even though there are no governmental licenses or standards, there do exist various Pilates training centers all around the world. There are non governmental organizations such as National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) who provide accreditation to a number of professions that are not licensed by government agencies and the Pilates organization that has begun this accreditation process is called the Pilates Method Alliance (PMA).

About the Author

Eddie Lamb publishes an abundance of information on a range of topical subjects. This article Joseph Pilates Began Teaching in the Early 20th Century, is just one of a host of useful articles about Pilates listed on our site map at Pilates Understood.

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