What is Pilates?

Pilates is complete coordination of body, mind and spirit

Joseph H Pilates

Joseph H Pilates developed Pilates as a system to build strength and resilience in body and mind.

Joseph was born in Germany in 1883. As a child he suffered from asthma and Rickets and so his father, an amateur gymnast, introduced him to gymnastics, martial arts and bodybuilding to help him build up his physical strength. As Joseph grew up, he continued with this and became convinced that ill health was caused by lack of movement, poor posture and inefficient breathing.

In 1912 he moved to the UK and became a professional boxer, a circus performer and a self-defense trainer at Police schools and Scotland Yard.

During World War 1 he was held in an intern camp in England and during this time he developed his method of training more. After the war he returned to Germany and he was asked to train the German army in preparation for World War 2, but he declined and instead took a boat to America. On board this voyage he met Clara who became his wife. They arrived in New York and worked together to set up their own studio here to teach his method and soon developed a devoted following of clients from the dance and performing arts community in New York. This grew and grew and he continued to teach into the 1960’s. Leaving a rich legacy of training that continues to be used and celebrated today.

Pippa's feelings about Pilates

I see Pilates as a full body system that connects you to yourself through your body and mind. I find this helps me let go of the pressures of the day and find calmness and clarity in the safety of carefully aligned and balanced exercises. I find these exercises build strength, endurance, flexibility and postural awareness all of which give me a wonderful feeling of well-being.

I also believe that working carefully with the principles of Pilates with the integration of Physiotherapy can help you connect to your alignment with awareness, allowing you to become aware of misalignments, muscle imbalances and areas of tension. These misalignments, imbalances and tension patters may affect your posture, cause you pain, or make you more prone to injury or wear in the joints, or just make you feel your movement is not fully at ease. Misalignments, muscle imbalances and tension patterns or tightness can have been caused by postures you have adopted over the years, injuries you have sustained, or sports you have played, or surgery. By noticing and correcting your alignment and then noticing muscle imbalances, or tightness, you can begin to work carefully to stretch tight muscles out, strengthen weak ones, and recruit the right muscles to support you in a more flexible and balanced way.

This can lead to many benefits, please see below….