The Legacy Tree

What is it, what is Pilates? And I remember many years ago, especially in the airport going through customs, people would say, "You teach what?" Finally now it's got name recognition so that I can say I teach Pilates. Some people think they know what it is. Pilates to me is a functional way to move in this world and teaches us how to do whatever we love to do outside of the studio better like traveling and walking and not feeling that I'm being limited by my health. People will tell you that when you're younger, they say you think because you get older you're going to be wiser and things can be very elegant and things like that. And it isn't that, you have to work hard to keep your body moving. And for me the Pilates is the way of how I do that.

There's such a rush to having people do what you tell them to do. It's a great feeling and it also really helps that you're doing something really good for them. It just became part of my life. It became part of my blood, part of my spirit. There's nothing else I want to do. What is Pilates personally? It means taking care of myself, means staying flexible, doing something that I enjoy. It becomes more of a meditational kind of groove that you can get into from beginning to end.

If you do Contrology, your body becomes strong and healthy. Hey Kara, why should I do Pilates? It was first a way that maybe I could get longer, maybe taller. There you go, Pilates makes you look taller so there's always that selling point. Pilates is a guide, it's a way of communicating, it's movement. It's just fun. Pilates is everything to me. I am happy. I am well. I am strong. We're not the same every day.

You're going to be living with this body for your entire life. You ought to get to know it. I don't care how expensive this is, I'm going to continue doing it. Who is Pilates not good for? I always say for people who don't want to do it. It really is good for everybody. The short and simple answers just don't reveal enough about Pilates. Our work in the Pilates theory at the Center

for Sports Medicine has been influenced by the five Pilates masters who studied most closely with Joseph Pilates. We had more movie stars than the back lot of Universal. I can bore you with everybody that came to us. I will never forget that day we talked about Joe and I said, "Well, he's right around the corner! You thought he was dead?" The sentence was different, but the meaning was the same. So one day this lady came in and she wanted me to make a Pilates table. She just called it an apparatus. I said, "Well how do I know?

I think I want to open a Pilates studio." Well, I'll help you. What are we going to do if we can't say the word? When I bought the trademark, it was a valid trademark. And when you have a valid trademark, you have to protect it. Or at least I thought it was valid. We had a a celebration party following the decision.

The birth of the PMA occurred at that meeting. But what is my legacy going to be? We need to protect this profession. And the way we protect it is that you need reverence and respect. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. I'm not about to die, I don't know what that is yet. We're part of the whole landscape. We're not this side thing like Feldenkrais or Alexander, we're part of the whole landscape, the fitness world.

Someday the whole world will do Pilates. Because the question really isn't whether or not you should be doing Pilates. It's why aren't you? There is life after Pilates, you know.