Your Pilates Reading List

Today's episode explores some of my favorite Pilates books for learning about Joe, the history of Pilates, anatomy, exercise variations, and sharing Pilates with kids! These are books that guided my Pilates practice, and I hope you'll enjoy them too. Tune in!

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Show Notes:
Your Health by Joseph Pilates
Return to Life Through Contrology by Joseph Pilates

• Not everything Joe says is accurate as we've learned a lot about the body since his passing, but it's great to read his words. 

Caged Lion by John Howard Steele
A Pilates Journey by Dan Baker
Pilates for Everyone by Micki Havard
Pilates Anatomy 2nd edition by Rael Isacowitz and Karen Clippinger
Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book by Kelly Solloway
The Adventures of Frankie Fitness: Frankie Does Pilates by Jason Williams
Carola Trier, The First Woman To Open A Pilates Studio: Portrait Of Her Extraordinary Journey by Reiner Grootenhuis
Love All Around by Cathy Strack
Every Body is Beautiful by Ron Fletcher
My Enchanted Life by Lolita San Miguel


Episode Music:

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Pilates Students' Manual, a podcast helping you get the most out of your Pilates classes. I'm Olivia, and I'll be your host. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on Instagram at @pilatesstudentsmanual. You can support the podcast by visiting buymeacoffee.com/Olivia Podcasts.

[00:00:29] Let's learn something new. 

[00:00:46] Hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we'll be diving into some resources for deepening your Pilates practice beyond taking classes and the [00:01:00] exercises and the work that you do in the studio. Looking at other resources about Pilates history or about the exercises or about the Elders or, you know, other historical Pilates kind of information, or maybe deepening your understanding of anatomy. I've got lots of books for you that have guided me along my Pilates journey. And I think you will also enjoy them, perhaps. So I will be sharing those with you today. 

[00:01:31] If you want to learn about Joseph Pilates, the first thing I'll say is you should read the books that he wrote, because Joseph Pilates wrote two books during his life. Um, both of which are available on Amazon, which is awesome. I'm also linking all of those books in the show notes. But his books are Your Health, which he published in 1934, and Return to Life Through Contrology, which was published in [00:02:00] 1945. In both of those books, you get kind of a feel for Joseph Pilates tone and his way of approaching his own work, which I think is really cool to hear straight from the horse's mouth what he thinks about his exercises and why he thinks they're so important.

[00:02:22] Return to Life Through Contrology also has Joseph Pilates' directions for his 34 mat exercises. So if you do any mat Pilates, those will be really familiar to you in the first place. Even if you do equipment Pilates, if you're on the Reformer, there's a lot of parallels between the shapes and the exercises. But he does give his directions on what he thinks you should be doing on your inhales and on your exhales, and that's kind of a fun ride as well. 

[00:02:50] I'd recommend Caged Lion by John Steele. John Steele was a person who took Pilates class from [00:03:00] Joseph Pilates in the 1960s in New York City before Joseph Pilates died in 1967. So he knew Joe as his teacher, but also they had a personal relationship that they were something like friends as well, despite their age gap. Um, I think John Steele was like in his twenties when he was doing Pilates and Joseph was in his eighties, but that book is a really interesting window into Joseph Pilates from someone who knew Joseph Pilates and how the studio was like, and also what Pilates became after Joseph Pilates died. Like how did it continue? That's a super interesting history as well. So I would definitely recommend Caged Lion to learn a little bit more about Joe. 

[00:03:50] Another book that has some interesting history information is A Pilates Journey by Dan Baker. I worked with Dan a [00:04:00] little bit, virtually, obviously, Dan's based in Australia, and he is an incredible teacher himself, and he's really put together some excellent work and some information about the history of Joseph Pilates, like Caged Line blew my mind, Dan's book blew my mind a second time.

[00:04:20] In addition to having, you know, some information about exercise science and the exercises as well. So sometimes I feel like the exercise sections maybe appeal to you more if you're also a teacher, but even as a student, looking at the exercises, I think can be interesting, but I'm also a teacher. So maybe it isn't interesting as a student, but if it's interesting to you, that is a great resource for you as well.

[00:04:45] If you're interested in learning more about the exercises or ways to execute the exercises, as I mentioned, Dan Baker's book, A Pilates Journey, has the exercises broken down in interesting ways. Joe's book, Return [00:05:00] to Life Through Contrology, also gives you the directions for the mat Pilates exercises. That's super helpful. 

[00:05:07] And another book I would recommend is Pilates for Everyone by Micki Havard. It is an excellent resource for looking at different variations of exercises and ways to do exercises that you may never have thought of before. Whether it's using props or doing them standing or doing them seated in a chair, sometimes the Pilates exercises can be more challenging than you're able to do, and she has a really great way of breaking down those exercises and kind of exploring other options.

[00:05:48] The chair Pilates section that she has in her book, I think, is a really great addition to the Pilates canon because there are several standing Pilates resources, which I think is fantastic. I love [00:06:00] standing. We spend most of our time standing. And I mean, there's manuals that have the exercises as well, but this addition of being able to sit in a chair and also explore Pilates work can be really great.

[00:06:12] Um, If you're interested in diving into anatomy and learning more about the muscles that your Pilates teacher might be telling you about, learning more about the actions of the body and what it does, you might be interested in Pilates Anatomy by Rael Isacowitz and Karen Clippinger. I will be honest, it is a very dense book. It's not a light read kind of book, but it does a really excellent job of showing you not just what muscles do in the body, which is also helpful, but it gives you that in a Pilates context, so it's easier to make those connections. 

[00:06:59] I think [00:07:00] anatomy is something that is kind of famously complicated, oftentimes unnecessarily, but when you're learning it, it looks like a mountain that you're trying to climb. It's nice to be able to have that connection to the Pilates exercises and also be able to see and visualize it as you do an exercise that you're familiar with and really seeing it how it happens in your body. 

[00:07:23] I also recommend- it's not Pilates, but movement like our bodies only move a finite number of ways-

[00:07:30] this book is Yoga Anatomy Coloring Book by Kelly Solloway. And one, it's a coloring book. Amazing. Coloring is fantastic. Remember when adult coloring books had like that huge resurgence? Well, if that was your jam, you are going to love this because you get to use your colored pencils or use your markers to color all the different parts of the body while the body is in, you know, shapes that parallel each other. Like in yoga, you might be doing [00:08:00] cobra, which is a big backbend, a spinal extension movement. In Pilates, we're doing swan, but your spine is doing the same thing. So when you color those muscles, you can guess that those are the same muscles that are working anytime you're doing a backbend. So I love an interactive book and an engaging book. And this one is just so fun. If you are a tactile person like myself and a visual person like myself that you can really, it makes anatomy feel more real than just like reading a long list of muscle insertions and origins and whatever. I think that one's a lot of fun. 

[00:08:38] Coming up after the break, I've got a fun recommendation for Pilates for kids

[00:08:45] and other biographies and historical type books that I think you may also get a kick out of. That's coming up next.

[00:08:58] Hi there. [00:09:00] Enjoying the podcast? Me too. Make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening so you get notified about new episodes and visit buymeacoffee.com/OliviaPodcasts to support the show. There you can make a one time donation or become a member with a donation of as little as $5 a month.

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[00:09:38] A really fun [00:10:00] children's book if you are interested in sharing Pilates with a kid is The Adventures of Frankie Fitness: Frankie Does Pilates that's written by Jason Williams and he has made a coloring book and I love a coloring book as we've established, but it's a coloring book that tells the story of a kid who his mom's doing Pilates or his sister's doing Pilates. And he's like, well, what's Pilates? And they say, well, come do it with us. And so he gets to try Pilates as a kid. 

[00:10:32] If you are a huge fan of Pilates, you know how awesome it would have been to start doing Pilates when you are a kid. Um, so if you want to share that in a way that is both fun, but also very approachable to the youth, I think that that's a great one. Jason Williams actually has a whole book series where he has books about nutrition. He has books about meditation and again, coloring book. We love. 

[00:10:57] If you really love history [00:11:00] or biographies, historical texts, even autobiographies, memoirs, that genre of text, there are lots of great Pilates books that fit that bill. One is of course, Caged Lion, as I mentioned before by John Steele, which not only recounts about Joseph Pilates and his studio, but also how. Pilates continued to continue after Joe died in 1967. So that is, I think, a really great place to start. It's also a really quick read and just like a really fun read that you kind of laugh when you read it. Like that's, that one's a treat. I would definitely start there. 

[00:11:40] There's a biography of Carola Trier and she was One of Joseph Pilates students, so the first generation of Pilates teachers or people who learned Pilates from Joseph Pilates. I do have an episode about the Elders. Um, they are called the [00:12:00] Elders. So that first generation of teachers are known as the Elders in Pilates history. And Carola Trier was one of those Elders. So the book Carola Trier, The First Woman To Open A Pilates Studio: Portrait Of Her Extraordinary Journey by Reiner Grootenhuis is a really fascinating read, not only because it's Pilates and we love Pilates, but also because Carola had a wild life and a lot of stuff happened during it. Like, she was just a really exceptional person. I really enjoyed reading that book. 

[00:12:42] Love All Around by Cathy Strack is a biography of Romana, another Elder who has a school of Pilates in the classical lineage. Romana played a huge role in keeping Pilates alive [00:13:00] after Joe's passing. Um, she kind of became the teacher at his studio in New York City and is also responsible for putting together some of the first training programs for teachers, which is incredible. Like Pilates would not be here now without her. She had a really interesting life, both her life, and it also talks about how her family came to the United States as well. Um, so that is another really good one. 

[00:13:28] These next couple books are ones that I haven't read, but they are on my reading list, and they're both by elders. One is called Everybody is Beautiful by Ron Fletcher. And Ron Fletcher is a Pilates teacher who has unfortunately passed away, but he studied with Joe in New York and then moved to Hollywood, and he taught Pilates to the stars in Hollywood, which is kind of a fun, wild life. [00:14:00] He contributed lots of really interesting things to the Pilates canon, like the towel work. He had this whole series with a towel that was very neat, like doing Pilates, but with this additional prop. And the book also has lots of pictures of celebrities doing Pilates, which I feel like is not so far off from what we see on Instagram right now. 

[00:14:23] Another book is a memoir by Lolita San Miguel called My Enchanted Life and Lolita San Miguel is still alive. She teaches Pilates. I believe she's based in Florida and she does do a teacher training program, but she learned Pilates from Joseph Pilates and was one of only two people who ever received a certification to teach Pilates from Joseph Pilates. So that is pretty cool. Um, that one is definitely on my reading list.

[00:14:55] And lastly, this is by no means an [00:15:00] exhaustive list. More awesome Pilates resources are being published all the time. This isn't even taking into consideration documentary films that could also be a super great resource, or I know there's a really great history section in Pilates Anytime where they do deep dives into specific teachers or Pilates history. So if you're more of a visual person, like I could go on and on forever and ever, but these were definitely some of the highlights for me. 

[00:15:29] Long podcast episode short: there are so many ways to keep learning about Pilates in addition to taking more Pilates classes and studying with more Pilates teachers, that is a very valuable knowledge. And if that's what you love Pilates for, that's fantastic. It exists for you. Um, if you're interested in learning a little bit more or hearing about where Pilates came from, or looking at exploring some of the exercises or learning more about muscles, these [00:16:00] are all books that have been really helpful to me on my journey, and I hope that they also can be a bit of a guide to you on your way.

[00:16:09] Huge thank you to all my supporters on, buy me a coffee, including our newest members, Beth and Claudine. Thank you so much for supporting the project. And I can't wait to connect with you in a coffee chat. Have a great couple of weeks and I'll talk to you again soon.

[00:16:26] Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Pilates Students' Manual, a podcast helping you get the most out of your Pilates classes. Be sure to check out the podcast Instagram at @pilatesstudentsmanual and subscribe wherever you're listening. Interested in teaching Pilates too? Check out Pilates Teachers' Manual, available everywhere you listen to podcasts.[00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] I hope to see you next episode. Until next time.