Ape the Animals

Daily News · Sunday, May 26, 1963

Catherine di Mantezemolo, a fashion editor, shows Joe Pilates how well she has mastered this stretch routine.

A new student is ready to relax after completion of routine.

Jos has as gym aids his wife Clara (r.) and Hannah.

Keep Fit? Ape the Animals, Says the Gym Master, 83

For 36 years, "Papa" Pilates has been lecturing, training the two-legged variety

A MAN is as old as his spine is flexible. The aphorism undoubtedly was uttered ages ago, but no one today expounds it with more conviction than Joe Pilates.

At 83, Joseph Hubertus Pilates-his formal handle is a bronzed, 5-foot-8, white-maned gentleman weighing about 168. He conducts Pilates Gymnasium at 939 Eighth Ave., near W. 56th St., where for 36 years actors, dancers, musicians, socialites, businessmen - even profes- sional athletes obediently have pursued Joe's regimen.

Just who is Joe Pilates and how did he get in the pink so many decades ago and manage to stay that way? How come, at 83, he's still as sound "as a bell of brass," as he puts it?

Too, consider his wife, Clara, who at 80 remains his spritely and valued assistant. Another assistant is Hannah. Aglow with health and certainly no chick, Hannah waltzed into Pilates Gym for a lesson 26 years ago and just stayed on. Ask Joo to explain all this and he'll reply,

"Contrology's responsible; what else?" That's his label for the Pilates-formulated series of exercises.

Joo expanded: "Here, the accent is on stretching, bending, tensing the body muscles and flexing them. You'll notice

we have no ropes, no Indian clubs, punch- ing-bags or any motor-driven gadgets. There are no weights to lift, either. Ever see an animal lift weights for fun or exercise?"

Learned From Animals

The Pilates blueprint for health is based on principles he has been perfecting and advocating, man and boy, for 75 years. He explained: "I picked up my knowledge as a child. I watched men at work and play; then I watched animals, both the domestic and the wild ones, in and out of the zoo.

"And I soon discovered," he added, "that animals had the best system of all for keeping fit. You never see a big cat out of shape or in poor physical trim. With just a little daily stretching and balancing on the rocks and benches in a cage, a lion, tiger or a panther will keep in condition."

Born in Germany, Joe began his working career as a circus tumbler. Early 1914 found him in England as a member of an acrobatic troupe. He also engaged successfully in several middle- weight boxing bouts.

Asked why he didn't embark on a ring career, he replied: "Conditions. They couldn't have been worse. No German, in 1914, would poke his nose into the English fight game. We weren't too popular then. So I stuck to the circus."

Soon the Kaiser's armies were on the march. And Joe, along with 8,000 other aliens, found himself interned on the Isle of Man. Nobody there seemed interested in watching a circus troupe, but it quick- My dawned on camp authorities that, in Joe, they had a first-rate physical in- structor.

With typical Teutonic thoroughness, Pilates sailed into the assignment. And The relates with pride: "Not one prisoner in that camp, who followed my exercise system faithfully, ever came down with the flu even when that epidemic was sweeping England and the world."

In 1919, Joe returned to Hamburg and got a job as physical instructor for the military police with rank of major.

Later, he took to travel and came to the U. S. in 1925. He was eager to see as much of the country as possible but, a year later, yielded to a suggestion of Nat Fleischer, publisher of Ring Magazine, and settled in Manhattan, where he opened his gym on Eighth Ave., near Columbus Circle.

In the years that followed, various assistants were trained and Joe found time to perfect and patent gym equipment. Several units were brought to the attention of the White House during World War II and a number later were installed at the Warm Springs polio clinie in Georgia. Joe can tick off a list of celebrities who have recovered form or kept in trim

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