To fully understand the therapeutic aspect of this method, it is essential to know its genesis, intimately linked to the story of its creator.

« Fitness is the first necessary condition for happiness. »
Joseph Hubertus Pilates

Joseph Pilates - history

Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born in Germany in 1883.

He is the creator of a training method first called the « contrology", which later inherits the name of his creator. 

Son of a gymnastic father and a naturopathic mother, he was a puny child suffering from rickets. In order to recover health, he decides to study physiology, anatomy and sport to find some alternative to medicine. 

He quickly realized that mental and physical health are linked and began to study methods such as yoga and combat sports.

« Everyone is the architect of his own happiness »


- 1912 -
he left Germany for England where he became a boxer and taught self-defense at Scotland Yard. He was also a circus artist with his brother. !

- 1914 -
at the beginning of the First World War, Joseph Pilates is arrested and locked up by the English in a prisoner’s camp where he begins to apply his method of training on the ground and body weight. 

There, he had the idea to dismantle a bunk bed and to use the springs as a resistance to create his first device, the "Cadillac ».

- 1918 -
a pandemic spread in the camp, but all his students survived. He established a cause and effect relationship and understood that sport helped them to stay healthy.. 


« The change of condition comes from movement and it is movement that heals. »

Joseph Pilates - history
Joseph Pilates - history

After the war, he returned to Germany before fleeing his country in order not to have to train the Nazi army. On the boat heading to the United States, he met his wife Clara, a nurse who then helped him to deepen his knowledge in physiology, anatomy, pathology throughout his professional career. Once in New York, he opened his first studio and taught contrology.

He began to re-educate injured dancers and developed his method and therapeutic aspect, with the support of Martha Graham and George Balanchine. In 1934, he published Your Health eand in 1945 Return to the life through contrology.

Pilates died in 1967 at the age of 87.
His studio on 8th Avenue in New York still exists…

Our qualified team will help you discover and work on this original method.
One-hour courses, always starting with breathing and balancing exercises to improve the posture while harmoniously developing muscle tone and elasticity with precise movements.