The Word History of Pilates
Hello,
If, like me, you’ve reached an age where some of your muscles and joints creak like an old sailing ship in a gale then this week’s word is for you.
Pilates is one of those eponyms I missed in my book on the topic (“How to Get Your Name in the Dictionary”). Yes, pilates is named for a person and a rather interesting person at that.
The word pilates has been with us since the 1980s to describe a physical fitness routine which became a worldwide craze at that time, but to understand the word you need to look a little earlier in history, in a war internment camp.
Joseph Hubertus Pilates (1883-1967) was born near Düsseldorf, Germany to a Greek father and German mother. His health was poor as a child and his father introduced him to gymnastics to help him become strong. This led him to a strongman job in a circus where he posed as a Greek statue to display his well-developed muscles.
His circus was touring England in 1914 when the World War I was declared. As a German national he was arrested and interned in a camp on the Isle of Man (between Britain and Ireland).
Joseph was inspired, so the story goes, by the movements of the island’s cats (who famously have no tails) and the contrast between their stretches and energy in contrast with the prisoners. He created a series of exercises to stretch human muscles, possibly even creating some gym equipment from the camp’s beds.
The legend goes that the prisoners learned his routine and when sickness hit the island none of them fell sick. They left the camp in better shape at the end of the war than when it began. Given that he then went on to craft a business from his exercises you may need to take a pinch of salt with that claim.
Pilates was released from the camp in 1919 and in 1926 journeyed to Manhattan, meeting his wife Clara on the ship. Their business was founded on Eight Avenue and soon boasted the dancers of Balanchine’s ballet company and various Hollywood stars as clients. However, ordinary folk attended too and Pilates was always keen to display his physique to impress them.
He cut an impressive figure and not just for his muscles. He had a glass eye (possibly a boxing injury), long white hair, drank heavily, and smoked 15 cigars per day. Not the modern image of a fitness guru but he lived to the age of 86, dying in 1967. His system of exercise experienced a huge boom in the 1980s making his name an entry in the dictionary. Today it’s estimated that 12 million people worldwide practise pilates.
Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
p.s. this post contains affiliate links which make a small payment to the blog if you choose to purchase through them. #CommissionsEarned. Alternatively, you can use my digital tip jar to say thanks for my work.
p.p.s. Some of the biographical information in this post is drawn from an excellent article about Joseph Pilates by Danielle Friedman in India Vogue.
