Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1880. As a child, he suffered from a number of physical ailments including asthma, rickets, and rheumatic fever. To overcome the effects of poor health, he studied body-building, diving, skiing, and gymnastics. He also studied eastern methods of training such as yoga and zen meditation.

Pilates went to England in 1912, where he worked as a boxer, circus performer, and a teacher of self-defense at Scotland Yard. While interned during World War I, he continued to develop his system of exercise, teaching fellow camp members the concepts and exercises developed over twenty years of self-study and apprenticeship.

It was at this time that he began devising the system of original exercises known today as "matwork", or exercises done on the floor, which he called "Contrology." A few years later, he was transferred to another camp, where he became a nurse/caretaker to the many internees struck with wartime disease and physical injury. Here, he began devising equipment to rehabilitate his "patients," taking springs from the beds and rigging them to create spring resistance and "movement" for the bedridden, enabling the patients to exercise and develop strength and flexibility. This invention was the origin of the modern-day "Reformer," with its spring resistance and sliding carriage.

In 1926, he emigrated to New York and established a studio with his wife Clara (a trained nurse), teaching exercises to dancers (including Martha Graham and George Balanchine), as well as actors and athletes.

Pilates continued to teach and to develop equipment and exercises until his death in 1967. He was fond of speculating that he was fifty years ahead of his time, in terms of his theories and ideas. Given the univeral popularity of Pilates training at the start of the Millennium, he seems to have been right!

"Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness. In order to achieve happiness, it is imperative to gain mastery of your body. If at the age of 30 you are stiff and out of shape, you are old. If at 60 you are supple and strong, then you are young." — Joseph Pilates