Pilates Intel Online Newsletter for the Pilates Teaching Community

Early in my Pilates career, and full of enthusiasm to share it, I held workshops to bring Pilates to people’s attention. Mary Pilates LeRiche was invited to be our honored guest speaker at one of these workshops and she accepted!

This photo shows Mary on the left and me on the right. She was so gracious, entertaining, and in fantastic physical condition. She dropped to the floor, at 80 years plus, and flawlessly demonstrated several mat exercises— including how Joe modified The Teaser by having the client place their feet on the teacher’s front thighs for assistance.

She arrived with a brown paper grocery bag full of memorabilia from her early years of working in her Uncle Joe’s Manhattan studio including birthday cards and notes to her signed with love from Uncle Joe. Mary pulled a small box, perhaps 12 inches long and 5 inches wide, out of the paper bag. Her father, Fred Pilates, Joe’s brother, was the craftsman who built the Reformers with the claw feet seen in the old studio photos. She opened this incredibly old box to reveal a perfect replica of a Reformer her father had made for her. It was complete with leather straps, a moving carriage on tiny wheels, and tiny springs from watches!!

When Pilates exercise began snowballing during this time, there was a question about the correct pronunciation of the name “Pilates”, its origins, etc. It was my understanding that the name was of Greek origin and originally spelled PILATOS. I asked Mary for the correct pronunciation of her original family name. She paused and then responded, “I don’t remember!” I urged her to reflect back on what her schoolteachers called her. She then offered, “I recall Pil-OTTS!” I often muse if that had been the lasting pronunciation, the exercise system would surely have had difficulty with branding … pil-AAAH-tees sounds far more appealing than Pil-OTTS!