The originator of the Pilates Method, Joseph Pilates, was born in Germany in 1883.  As a child he sufferred with asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever becoming weak and sickly.  He became determined to overcome this believing that poor posture and inefficient breathing contributed to poor health.  Joseph Pilates experimented with many exercise regimes during his journey to overcome his fragility.  Drawing on his experiences of  yoga, martial arts, gymnastics, bodybuilding, skiing, self-defence, dance, circus training, and weight training  he selected the most effective features of these methods and developed his own series of exercises to build strength and flexibility.  During the First World War, as a German in Britain, he was held in several internment camps but used this time to become involved in personal training with other inmates further developing his methods.  

​Initially called Contrology, his method only came to be known as Pilates after his death in 1967.   By then he had moved to America and gained a reputation for his work initially with boxers but latterly with top ballet dancers, athletes and gymnasts in his New York Studio.