Hello everybody, I am freshly back from my jaunt to Paris and my visit with the Mr Robert Wernick. There have been many new subscribers in the last few weeks, (very welcome, by the way, and thank you for subscribing), and in case you missed the fine article by Bob, then if you take a few minutes to have a look, Joe Pilates – Learning to be an Animal, it will be well worth your time.
Let me remind you that Bob trained at Joe Pilate’s studio for some 4-5 years as a young middle-aged man, and he wrote the above article for Sports Illustrated Magazine in 1962. Bob is now 95 and lives on the 5th floor of a Parisian apartment building with no elevator. I do not think that I have ever spoken to someone who is 95, much less seen a person of that age that was completely functioning as Bob is. He moves slowly, but he sports a very fine balanced and upright posture. During a dinner together he told me how he recently overheard some ladies walking towards him on the road one day “But he can’t be in his 90’s, look, he is standing up straight!”
If you read Bob’s writing on his website www.robertwernick.com
“Of course you have a perfect right to be a vegetable, sitting and withering comfortably away on a shelf in cupboard or refrigerator while your animal contemporaries sweat and stumble and get hernias trying to prove that what they are doing makes the slightest difference in the world they are pretending to live in.”
Such statements ring true with me, I love that kind of thing. So upon first meeting him one of the first subjects I endeavored to pursue with him as humanity. “So Bob, what do you think of humanity?” For you see, my inclination is to look upon the whole thing as a big mediocre mess, and from what I read in Bob’s writings, I expected a like-minded soul. But it was not to be, for as much as I tried to get the fires started under this most poignant of subjects, Bob remained calm and middle of the road, assuring me that though what I perceived in life and society was not perhaps untrue, things have improved over the long term, and such will continue.
So satisfaction for my appetite for such subjects was not to be had on this visit, but Bob, if you are reading this, I promise to try again next time.
And that left us to the subject of Pilates.
Bob’s attitude towards Pilates, and Joe Pilates, is also mild and middle of the road. He certainly values the method and the man, but there is a kind of ordinariness in his views where no pedestals exist. For Bob, Joe Pilates was a man who was running a business, had a great product, and had a rather no-nonsense in his approach.
Bob first started Pilates in the early 1960’s and attended sessions on and off until Joe’s death in 1967. It was easy to show up and begin, says Bob, and the compliments he received on his appearance after a short time with Pilates was one of the main motivating factors that made him a returning customer.
Bob’s morning workout is impressive, it lasts between 5 and 15 minutes, and includes such exercises as the hundred, double leg stretch and roll up. He assures me that the Hundred is done with legs extended and when I asked him at what height off the ground he said it should be in the range of about 30 cm. Bob also told me of an exercise that Joe’s assistant Hannah taught him and it’s as simple as can be. He demonstrates by clasping his hands together on the top of his head, and his elbows are maintained open to the side. He then proceeds to simply extend his arms upward, hands still clasped, and bring them back down to his head….and that is it. If anyone knows what this is I hope that you will write and tell me.
Though the exercises he does are not limited to the ones I mentioned, but without actually performing them, he couldn’t describe any more to me. One note is that his workout no longer includes back extensions.
Bob is aware of the evolution of the Pilates technique that has taken place and the controversy around it. According to him, “it seems to me that if you follow Joe’s logic you try to do things better, and if it works, you continue”. And for those who speak against an evolution of the technique, Bob says “it is ridiculous, that is making him into a church.” He relies on market forces to separate the bad from the good, “the best teachers and way of doing things will have the best results and the happiest customers”.
Lest you suspect that Bob found Joe Pilates to be a ‘regular guy’, you are not completely wrong. For Bob, Joe was interested in helping people and running a business which he wanted to grow and expand. But Bob is keen to point out an added dimension.
“If you want to reform the world”, Bob relates, “you are wasting your time. But you can reform an aspect of the world. What Joe Pilates did was to take an aspect of life, he studied it meticulously through his own observation and formulated principles that could be applied, and they worked. There are very few people who work things out for themselves, most are followers, the church, for example. In this way, Joe Pilates did something that was unique and admirable.”
And such was my time with Mr Robert Wernick on my travels to Paris.
I sent Bob a rough draft of this article for approval before moving on with publication, asking him to have a look at it and change inaccuracies, or to fill in where I might have been skimpy and his reply to me was simple and touching:
“Blessings on, little man – Shoeless boy with cheek of tan.”