When Great Britain entered the First World War, he was taken prisoner as an ‘enemy alien’ in an internment camp on the Isle of Man. These difficult circumstances, however, allowed him to lay the foundations of the Pilates method as it is known today. In this internment camp, he observed animals stretching and used his observations in his training. He taught the exercises he designed to his fellow internees. It was also here that he developed the concept of his ‘machines’, realizing how effective they could be with untrained people, compared to working on a mat. So he dismantled a bunk bed, attached the springs from the bed base, and began using the device for rehabilitation purposes.

The effectiveness of his ‘holistic’ approach to health became evident during the influenza pandemic that swept across the world in 1918. A deadly ‘real’ flu, it decimated entire populations, with malnourished people, such as those in internment camps, being particularly affected. Despite this, everyone who followed the Joseph Pilates method survived, and he explained this by a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

After his release, he returned to Germany and continued training police officers in Hamburg, also working with dance experts. In 1926, he left the country and emigrated to the United States. It was during the boat trip that he met his future wife, a nurse named Clara. They married and founded their Pilates studio in New York, teaching their fitness method, which they called ‘Contrology’.

Many ardent followers followed this revolutionary method, which emphasized breathing in exercise and a harmony between the mind and body in the approach to practice. Dancers from New York dance companies embraced Pilates, allowing them to accelerate rehabilitation from various injuries inherent in their work and to strengthen while maintaining their flexibility.

Martha Graham, who arrived in New York in 1923, and George Balanchine, who emigrated to the United States in 1933, were both devoted Pilates fans and regularly sent their students to ‘Uncle Joe’s’ studio.

Unable to transport his equipment, Joseph Pilates also taught his method on mats during the summer to young dancers in Massachusetts. His hour-long classes always began with breathing exercises, a fundamental element of Pilates, an essential tool that is sometimes mistaken for an end in itself. Breathing, correct posture, an emphasis on the harmonious redevelopment of postural muscles, and movements performed without haste but with perfect precision are the hallmarks of his method, which he explained in detail in his two books, ‘Your Health: A Corrective System of Exercising that Revolutionizes the Entire Field of Physical Education,’ published in 1934, and ‘Return to Life Through Contrology,’ published in 1945. Pilates then began to be taught all over the world by the “elders,” as Joseph Pilates’s first students would come to be called. Their teachings varied according to their approach, personal experience, and understanding of the method, resulting in different styles of Pilates. Inevitably, turf wars ensued, often having more to do with marketing policies than with Pilates itself.

In 1938, Eve Gentry began her studies with Joseph and Clara, and taught with them until 1968, when she opened a dance school and Pilates institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Carola Trier, a dancer who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp in France and emigrated to the United States, became a contortionist there. In 1940, an injury prevented her from performing, and as a result, she approached Joseph Pilates. In the late 1950s, she opened her own Contrology studio in New York, with the consent of the creator of the Pilates method himself.

Ron Fletcher, one of the dancers in Martha Graham’s company, began Pilates in the 1940s to overcome a chronic knee injury. In 1971, he opened a studio in Beverly Hills, California, which quickly became popular with movie stars.