Since Joseph Pilates died, just about everyone has participated in creating, or just simply transfering, myths about who he was and what he did. Often people will "quote" him to either prove or deny something that they may want. His biography -until recently- seemed right out of a novel. Soon the work of Javier Perez Pont will be published and finally a lot of light will be thrown into the subject. He has done an amazing amount of very thorough and professional research.
As an apetizer I offer here my own research from some years ago. All of this -below- will have to be corrected.
Early years
Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born in Mönchengladbach, a town west of Düsseldorf, in 1883 (yes, not in 1880! and NOT from a Greek family)
Early in his life, he would be influenced to alternative health methods, since his mother was rather interested in natural remedies, and with the world of fitness and exercise through his father, who loved sport.
This did not prevent him from being a rather frail child: he suffered from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. Having survived diseases that killed thousands each year he grew determined to overcome his weaknesses. This experience -the lack of health- will shape his method and his understanding of the mind and body of the invalid and the weak.
From his early teens he began studying, practising and researching. A family physician gave him a discarded anatomy book as a child, and as he put it "I learned every page, every part of the body; I would move each part as I memorized it.” He frequented the university libraries, studied yoga, Zen meditation, ancient Greek and Roman exercise routines, anatomy and how it related to movement in an effort to get stronger. He will try every exercise he found and keep records of the improvements. He will observe nature and how animals and behaved and moved in the wild, noticing the purpose, use and grace of their movements. The philosophies of the East and the ancient European will make an impression in him. He will always refer to them later in life. He made the ancient roman saying “mens sana in corpore sano” his own motto: “a healthy mind in a healthy body”.
By the time he was 14 he would practice diving, skying, gymnastics and martial arts -or maybe more like personal defense. He developed a body that was strong and fit. So much so that Joseph claimed that he posed for anatomical charts at that young age.
Through knowledge he had changed his body. That was the key to his success and the success of his method: the mind, fuelled by the desire to change and improve, transforms the body. He had transformed his body and now could start transforming others.
This attitude will continue for the rest of his life. His thirst for knowledge made him an avid reader. His personal library will contain many titles on mental and physical health, exercise and sexuality. His exercises, like his knowledge, will be polished over time, as he encountered different individuals with different problems.
Pilates continued to develop mind and body together, energized by his spirit and zest. He focused on their relationship, on how the spirit builds the body through the mind, and came out with his own combination: a physical art form. 
England
We find Joseph some years later being requested to train the elite troops of the Kaiser: he refuses. Instead, Joe goes to England to train as a boxer. This is the year 1912. There, he worked as self-defence instructor for detectives at Scotland Yard and as a circus performer. By 1914 he had become known and toured England with a troupe. He and his brother Fred will perform a Greek statue act.
Then the First World War broke out. Together with other German nationals he was interned in Lancaster, in an old wagon factory, as an “alien enemy”. Wartime conditions did not diminish his enthusiasm. He taught wrestling and self-defense inside the camp, claiming that his students would end up stronger than when they were interned.
It was during this period that he began to put together his system of exercises. What would become "Contrology" (Pilates never called his system “Pilates”. He called it Contrology: the art of movement. The name never stuck)
With the war still going on, he gets transferred to another camp. This time in the Isle of Man. Again, undeterred by the war events, he continues to work with his fellow inmates, becoming a sort of nurse to the many facing diseases or wartime injuries. Many of them were bedridden. Joseph refines his method then and starts devising machines out of beds by adding springs, straps and pulleys to assist them in their rehabilitation. These machines allowed his “patients” to exercise while lying down, which stabilized them, allowing them to restore muscular functions with their full range of motion, an advance that will lead to his later equipment designs.
In 1918-1919 an influenza pandemic swept the world, killing more people than the war, tens of thousands in the British Isles, but none of Joe's followers died, considering the camps were notoriously the hardest hit by the virus. Furthermore, the warden of camp where Pilates was confined made the Method obligatory for all in the camp, prisoners, guards, and the warden himself.
Back to Germany
After the war Joe went back to Germany and put into practice what he had learned in the war years. He refined the machines and began to train the Hamburg Military Police and, at the same time, started to work one-on-one with clients. Pilates said, "I invented all these machines. Began back in Germany, was there until 1925 used to exercise rheumatic patients. I thought, why use my strength? So I made a machine to do it for me. Look, you see it resists your movements in just the right way so those inner muscles really have to work against it. That way you can concentrate on movement. You must always do it slowly and smoothly. Then your whole body is in it."
His exercise method gained support in the dance community, mainly through Rudolf von Laban, creator of the dance notation system most extensively used today. He integrated some of Joe's theories and exercises into his own work. Also Mary Wigman, a famous German dancer and choreographer was a student of Joe's and used his exercises in her dance class warm-up.
Off to America
His work started to be known and by 1925 he was invited to train the New German Army, which Hitler was rebuilding in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Again, Joseph refused and decided to leave Germany again.
He took the advice of boxing expert, Nat Fleischer (founder of The Ring magazine) and with the help of Max Schmelling he decided to go to the U.S. Schmelling the boxing legend who, apart from being a close friend, won the world heavyweight boxing championship while under Pilates instruction, wanted Joseph to share his revolutionary method of body conditioning and his expertise in boxing.
It was on the way to America that Joe met Clara: an intelligent nurse and caring kindergarten teacher who will become his second wife (not much is known about his first wife). She was suffering from arthritic pain. On the boat, Joseph will work with her to heal her. She will then become his life-long professional partner.
They arrived in New York City in 1926. They opened a gym at 939 Eight Ave. The studio was in the same building that George Balanchine housed his New York City Ballet and every dancer sometime or another entered the studio, as did many other performers, among them Laurence Olivier, Katherine Hepburn and Yehudi Menuhin. Balanchine worked out "at Joe's," as he used to call it, and will usually send his dancers to Joseph. There they will get stronger and “balanced” or receive treatment. He was so taken by the Pilates method's movements that he incorporated them into his "Seven Deadly Sins." He dubbed Joseph “the scientist of the body.”
Hanya Holm, a pioneer in modern dance, was another frequent pupil and adopted many of Joe's exercises in her program, and they are still part of the "Holm Technique."
Another famous choreographer to follow Joseph was Martha Graham. She not only recommended her dancers to work with him but will call “uncle Joe” whenever her own body need it attention. She also incorporated Joe’s exercises into her own method.
From 1939 to 1951 Joe and Clara went every summer to Jacob’s Pillow, a well-knows dance camp in the Berkshire Mountains. He will become a friend and a teacher to legendary dancers and choreographers as Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis and Jerome Robbins, who also required their dancers to go to Joe.
Pilates has since never lost its connection to the dance world, who understood very early the advantages of the method and kept it alive. From the stars like Natalia Makarova to the students at many schools world wide, Pilates became part of many dancers “diet”.
For decades, Pilates continued to dedicate his life to training others in his method, developing and polishing exercises, routines, and making new apparatuses and modifying existing ones. He will take new clients with different and new problems as a new challenge, and new exercises and modifications will appear.
Into his eighties Joseph was the perfect example of the reliability of his method: he continued to have incredible strength and energy and continued to run his studio.
Joseph died in 1967 of advanced emphysema. Many like to think that he either died in the 1966 fire in the storage room on the back of the studio or due to injuries sustained in the fire. Clara died 10 years later in 1977.
After Joseph
When Joe passed away, he left no will and had designated no line of succession for the "Pilates" work to carry on. Nevertheless, his work was to remain. Clara continued to operate what was already known as the "Pilates" Studio on Eighth Avenue in New York. Romana Kryzanowska had studied with Joe and Clara in the early 1940s on recommendation from her teacher, George Balanchine. After some years in Peru she returned to the studio in the mid 50s and then, following Clara’s request, she became director of the New York studio in 1970. She has devoted her life to teaching the method exactly as she learned it from Joseph, something that, to this day, she continues to do together with her daughter Sari Mejia Santo at Drago's Gym in New York.
Clara
Joseph was the outgoing type, while Clara, much quieter, excelled at applying the method to help those more seriously injured or ill. She brought to the method her nursing, patience and careful hand – Joe was know for being a bit rougher. To a great extent most trainers nowadays do train like Clara, making it very approachable. Her special techniques are reflected in how we handle most clients. One could say that instructors today teach his method with her hands.
Joe and Clara never had any offspring. One living relative practising "Pilates" is Mary Pilates, daughter of his brother Fred, who was also a “Contrologist”, helped Joseph build many his machines and had a studio in St Louis. She lives in Florida.
Joseph always said he was 50 years before his time. And in deed, while his method survived, through dance companies, in the studios of his followers and as a form of physical therapy, only in the last ten years it has really seen the light of day. Sure, he may not have been very happy with some of the decaffeinated versions of his work that have sprung in the last few years, but enough good teachers and serious students will remain for a long time. Even if the majority of the world sees it as the new passing fade, many will keep the method alive and will, once again pass the test of time.
