Pilates

The Acrobatic Immigrant Who Invented Pilates in a Prisoner of War Camp

Interned during WWI, circus entertainer Joseph Pilates used found materials and his fellow prisoners as his test lab, and imagined an exercise system that would captivate millions. Jacob Pagano For Joseph Pilates, confinement paradoxically offered a kind of liberation. Illustrations by Julie Benbassat  In the early afternoon of September 12, 1915, a British vessel set off