IN 1914, JOSEPH HUBERTUS PILATES found himself with other young men and German citizens interned for the duration of World War I on the Isle of Man, located off the west coast of England. There, the former gymnast, body builder, and boxer developed a program of body conditioning exercises and equipment that eventually had worldwide impact on the physical health industry.
More than 100 years later, the name Pilates has come to mean a plethora of training programs, exercises, and the equipment that today includes the Universal Reformer, Cadillac, Wunda Chair, Guillotine, Mat and more. Consequently and unfortunately, the “diasporic” offshoots of Pilates training today are so vast and varied, the name Pilates has nearly lost definition. Dangers such as risk of injury and the proliferation of substandard, copycat equipment, both associated with a downgrade in professional standards and an unregulated market, are pervasive, according to experts and long-time instructors and practitioners like Sonoma-based Madeline Black.
“The cat’s out of the bag. There are so many associations with the name Pilates. People don’t even know what it means anymore,” says Black. “Even during and since COVID, it’s changed again, and not always in a good way.”
Black, 67, is a former professional dancer whose career led her to explore Pilates, yoga, Gyrotonic, fitness training, and other movement modalities. Her science-focused investigations led to advanced study of human biomechanics and osteopathic and manual therapies and included participation at a human cadaver dissection lab. Integrating and organizing the multiple movement training methodologies, she developed the Madeline Black Method and represents a third or fourth specialist whose lineage can be traced back to Pilates.
Most recently, Black’s 2015 book, “Centered: Organizing the Body through Kinesiology, Movement Theory and Pilates Techniques,” was updated and a second edition released in 2022. Added features include 28 new movements, color images, and a video in collaboration with Pilates Anytime.
A second book projected to be released in November 2024, focuses on gait, human movement adaptations in response to injury or aging, and includes sections addressing health conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, cognitive decline, dementia, and loss of tissue and fascia resilience. That book, written by Black with other experts, offers heightened relevancy for trainers and practitioners.
Prior to the pandemic, Black worked as a highly sought international instructor and traveled roughly 100,000 miles per year. Leading workshops and 5-day intensives every month, usually in Europe and Asia, but also in the Bay Area or the studio she ran in Sonoma before her busy schedule caused her to close it in 2018, she offered her Madeline Black Method. The integrated program founded in the Pilates technique incorporated contemporary ideas, knowledge, science, and state-of-the-art approaches to human health. It held broad appeal to the current generation of movement trainers, therapist, students, and practitioners.
Conditioning converts
“Ten years ago, people weren’t as knowledgeable around mechanics and anatomy. And how people move. Teachers knew their muscles, but couldn’t connect it to movement. I used to teach anatomy to instructors in the way they understood it. Now, I’m more interested in analyzing movement, the nervous system, gait patterning, looking at their client’s whole body instead of looking just at a shoulder to see if the scapula is moving. That’s why it takes five days to teach them my method. I want not just to teach a whole-body approach but convert them to it.”
In similar ways, Pilates during WWI and for several years following devised and refined his detailed, science-based body conditioning exercise program and methodologies. Eventually, the equipment he designed and formalized led to signature mat and equipment-aided exercises specific to the overall technique that improves strength, flexibility, and breath and postural awareness. Upon codifying the first piece of apparatus, the Universal Reformer, he called his program “Corrective Exercise,” and later branded it “Contrology.” After immigrating to the United States in 1926 and with his wife, Anna Clara Zeuner, the couple opened the Pilates Universal Gymnasium studio in Manhattan in 1929. Professional dancers such as George Balanchine and Martha Graham were some of the first aficionados, with celebrities, artists of all genres, athletes, and others soon to follow.
Over time, Pilates has waxed and waned, gaining acceptance and better standing in educational institutions such as universities and research think tanks and in the medical community, where it is applied in hospitals therapy and rehabilitation centers. Simultaneously, contemporary culture and expanded scientific study in the 21st century have created a wider profile of physical health, inviting greater application and acceptance of what Pilates believed was the important role of the mind — including simple but significant elements such as breath — on overall health and wellbeing.
Trained by teachers in what is often referred to as members of the Pilates “family tree,” Black’s early mentors include Nadja Cory and Eve Gentry. She recalls being attracted to their ability to watch her move and provide her with movements to change her body. “That first generation of teachers, they all had their own, very specific approach to teaching his method. No one is actually teaching the original. I was led by Jean Claude West, another big influence, to these two women and other instructors who knew how to watch, address and present specific movements, then work hands-on so the body automatically downloads the information. Most movement teachers who look at shapes don’t see tissue changing, or the actual way the body is engaging, the tissue tension, the way the spine adapts.”
In their practices and Black’s, instructors observe movement in the body closely, articulate what is happening, and use their hands to guide a person’s motor control and watch it shift and change. The process is highly interactive.
Which explains why during the pandemic, Black initially wondered if COVID-19 represented forced retirement. It was difficult to imagine translating her hands-on approach to Zoom lessons. “While I’m OK with using tech, I thought my career was over. I watched people teaching mat classes on Zoom and thought, that’s not me.”
Soon, she heard from teachers she knows and thought they needed refueling. She started doing “Madeline Mondays” for teachers; free on Zoom.
“A yoga teacher got on one, and all of a sudden, I had 400 people doing them. I didn’t have professional lighting or cameras. It was insane. I hooked up with a tech guy who helped shape a training series, did the marketing, and helped with the tech equipment I needed. We had two cameras, special software.”
Black learned a lot from clients and from teaching other teachers how to see movement online. She had clients place their own hands on their pelvises and asked them if one side was more forward, where the tension was, and more. She could see their hands on their ribs or pelvises with her own eyes and acquired increased language skills for directing them verbally.
Safety concerns in a crowded field
Unfortunately, Black says most people don’t know how to verify whether a trainer or training program is legitimate or if the knock-off equipment that has proliferated is safe.
A notable example comes from the UK, where award-winning professional violinist Maya Meron was hospitalized with a fractured left elbow and abdominal injuries after a “Coreformer” machine at Heartcore studio in Hampstead collapsed. The career-ending injury led to a four-year legal battle that had Meron working undercover to prove Heartcore’s negligence.
“Various people have taken the Reformer and turned it into a weight training machine, and dozens of companies are making equipment that’s not safe,” Black says. “The woman in the UK who was in one of those hybrid classes and injured her arm and can’t play violin anymore? She has two young kids, and her career is over. The whole intention of Pilates is not for a high-paced class with people calling out extreme, non-functional movements on headsets. Those things are not JH Pilates. That (dangerous) intention and energy has been magnified since everyone went online.”
“It’s not pump up, squeeze your glutes, trim your thighs. Without vision and intention, your client’s not going to see improvement.” Madeline Black
Black says she adapts, modifies and does what she wants on the Reformer and invites change. At the same time, she insists that without a whole body perspective and proper intention, instructors are not best serving a client. Attention to global movement and each body’s neural strategy offer actual, visible results. “It’s not pump up, squeeze your glutes, trim your thighs. Without vision and intention, your client’s not going to see improvement.”
Black and other instructors increasingly turn their focus to matters such as gait patterning, new language and new applications of established practices. “I teach good hip glide and pelvic leveling because lateral flexion is what people lose. They pump their arms, and it translates into your ribs, which all combine and lead to lower back, foot, ankle, shoulder and neck pain.”
She encourages people to notice if they walk like a top-loading washing machine—a sign of dysfunctional pelvic movement—and be mindful of their posture. As clients age, people lose glute strength and become hunched over, can’t get upright on their feet, and balance. For everyone, optimal gait patterning activates the musculature and loads the skeleton to maintain bone strength. Working first on gait and posture allows people of any age to recognize their individual patterning and work in concert with instructors to establish and maintain change.
Asked the areas of physical health she sees advancing and hopes will continue to improve, Black is unequivocal. “It’s not more of the corporate franchise model. People have asked me to do that, but that’s not me. What gives me hope is seeing research based on women’s physical health instead of research all based on men, and new information about aging and fascia. More work in those (sectors) give me hope.”