What Is Pilates?
A Pilates practice truly is life changing. It builds strength and flexibility that creates long, lean muscle tone. It centers and sharpens the mind with emphasis on awareness and concentration during each exercise. Pilates liberates your spirit, bringing bliss to your entire being.
Who Was
Joseph Pilates?
Joe originally named The Authentic Pilates System the “Art of Contrology” – and for a specific reason. His research was scientifically devoted to how controlled ways of movement could make people superbly healthy. He learned a great deal about human physiology while interned in a WWII prison camp. It was there he devised ingenious contraptions to help the bedridden and wounded overcome injuries (this would years later lead to his engineering of the radically effective Pilates apparatuses still creating amazing bodies today.)
He also studied how healthy animals behaved in nature, documenting their movements, postures and habits. Finally, in putting together his Pilates System, he was inspired by the classical Greek ideal for total health: how to become a perfect balance of body, mind, and spirit through movement.
His founding stroke of genius was realizing that random repetitive heaving of weights and imprecise movement was not healthy but instead created imbalances. He knew that all exercise must first begin with a strong “core” – the primary girder upon which total body health and balance is built. His other critical insight was that each exercise must be mastered with precision and unwavering control before proceeding to the next progression.
It is his engineering of movement discipline, technical focus, and orderly execution that create the holy grail of human health: a centered mind-body connection and movement patterns that truly correct imbalances. This organic way of experiencing yourself trains the body’s feedback mechanisms to innately thrive: you become strong, feel strong, move strong, live strong.