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About Pilates

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'Contrology develops the body uniformly, corrects wrong postures, restores physical vitality, invigorates the mind, and elevates the spirit'

                                                                                              Joseph Pilates

Joseph pilates

Joseph Pilates was born in Germany in 1883. As a child he suffered with rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever. He was determined to overcome these physical ailments and dedicated his life to exercise and sport.

 

In 1912 he moved to England as a boxer, circus performer and trained detectives in self defence. When WW1 broke out he was interred to the Isle of Man where he worked as an orderly in a hospital. There, he was appalled to see so many ill people lying in bed with no exercise and so developed a gentle exercise regime for these patients, including the use of hospital bed springs and pulleys. The doctors saw that patients who participated in the exercises recovered more quickly than those who did no exercise.

 

After the war, Joseph returned to Germany, before moving to New York where he worked with dancers from the Martha Graham Company and New York City Ballet. He called his exercise method ‘Contrology’. Some of his students opened their own ‘Pilates’ Studios, and so the method spread.

 

Pilates method was brought to Britain in 1970 by Alan Herdman, a dancer, who was asked by London School of  Contemporary Dance to visit New York and investigate Jo’s methods. He established the first Pilates Studio at The Place in London that year.

What is the Pilates Method and what are the Benefits?

The Pilates method is a mind-body centring technique that emphasises the importance of beginning movement from a central core of stability, and then progressing the intensity of movement with a mix of strengthening, mobility and stretching movements.

 

Joseph Pilates believed that by concentrating on precision of movement, awareness of breath, control and a continual flow of movement, abnormal patterns of movement can be rectified and carried over into daily function.

 

Joseph also believed that injuries were caused by imbalances in the body and habitual patterns of movement. He observed that when a person had a weakness or malaligned area of the body, that person would compensate by overdeveloping another area. Thus, Jo found that it was necessary to correct the malalignment and re-educate the body to move correctly to prevent recurrence of injury. This fits with modern day muscle imbalance theories of physiotherapy.

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