From its origins helping WWI soldiers rehabilitate from their injuries, to later helping injured dancers on Broadway regain their step, the Pilates method has taken off to help people of all athletic persuasions avoid getting injured in the first place.
It does this through a series of yoga-like movements concentrating on the body’s so-called powerhouse area, the central band of muscles around the mid-section, from the upper abdominal region to the lower buttocks. By carefully working this core area, the inner “seat” of the body is toned, stretched, balanced, and strengthened so the rest of the body can “flow” outwards.
In Pilates there are no chorus line kicks to pumping music, no scores of frantic stomach crunches on inclined planes, no dumbbells. Pilates is not a cardiovascular workout and is not a good way to lose weight or bulk up. Rather, Pilates is a slow, deliberate method to sculpt and align a body into its best possible configuration. It is especially good for those with bad posture and back pain.
During a Pilates session the core muscles operate against a progressive resistance, not a dead weight that might force the body into a dangerous bad habit. The mind is actively engaged from start to finish, the spine is kept supple, and breathing is deep, slow, and regular. Inhalations are through the nose, exhalations through the mouth. and this deliberate breathing improves circulation and expels toxins. Like in exercises from the East such as Tai Chi, the emphasis is on control and fluidity at all times, rather than blind repetition.
Practitioners leave class springier and more refreshed, sleeping beauties who’ve woken up from a deep sleep, and for the rest of the day they can bask in the afterglow of joints that have melted into butter while going about the most menial daily tasks with a renewed vitality and body awareness.
Pilates can be done simply at home. Or it can be done in a studio on a mat or machine. A Pilates machine doesn’t look like anything you can see in most gyms or in Charles Atlas ads. It is an adjustable jungle gym which one slides through on a padded carriage manipulated by an array of springs, pulleys, and cords that look rather unwieldy. Each part can be adjusted and fixed to any position to tailor resistance to the specific body part being pampered.
The machines’ design hark back to the POW camp where the German Joseph Pilates was interned during WWI. The German national knew a lot about anatomy and physiology, and he was also an accomplished boxer, skier, and circus acrobat. To help treat the bedridden soldiers, he fashioned crude devices out of cots, springs, and other parts. Once he emigrated to the U.S., he perfected his devices and methodology and began working individually with a new kind of injured in New York: famous dancers and choreographers such as George Balanchine and Martha Graham.
The teacher/student relationship continues to this day. Pilates sessions are intimate, either one-on one or in a small group. Strapped into a machine, as you slowly roll your back against the mat, vertebra by vertebra, breath by breath, the music soft and low in the background, think of the Pilates mantra, “Do it once and feel the difference. Do it 20 times and see the difference. Do it 30 times and have a new body.”