The Pilates Source® continuing education workshops are for Pilates studio teachers and serious pilates students. Our workshops, seminars, and conferences are extremely beneficial to all pilates instructors from all schools of Pilates who want to gain a deeper knowledge of Joe’s Contrology® and the history of the system. Workshops take place in various locations. Please see individual workshops for specific locations, dates, times, and rates.
Pilates Historics™ Webinar: Pilates History: True or False?
Friday, March 14, 2025
6:00-7:30 pm EST
$30 per person
Taught by Sean P. Gallagher, PT & Elaine Ewing
- A recording is available for 7 days
Did Joe Pilates really have a glass eye? Was there actually a fire in the studio that ultimately caused his death? Did Joe invent his method by rehabilitating injured soldiers in hospital beds in WWI? Was the Bednasium the prototype for the Cadillac? Did Joe teach “The Series of 5” exercises on the mat? Was the method called “Pilates” only after Joe’s death?
Join us in our upcoming webinar, where we will use primary source evidence to shed light on these burning questions, common misconceptions, and more. Due to our diligent research we will also be able to inform you about what stories that are often told about Joe, Clara, and the pilates method are in fact historically accurate and true.
After attending this webinar, you’ll leave with a clearer understanding of the true history of pilates. You’ll also be able to speak with your fellow teachers, students and just about anyone else about the origins of the method, from an unbiased perspective based on what we have been able to discover so far.
Archival Mat Workshop at 939 8th Avenue
We’re thrilled to announce our return to 939 8th Avenue for another amazing workshop inside Joe’s original NYC studio!
Sunday, April 27, 2025
10:00 am-2:00 pm
$300 per person
Location:
939 8th Avenue
New York, NY
Studio 2A
- This will be live workshop, no recordings will be available.
Join us in complete coordination of mind, body and spirit at 939 8th Avenue- in the space that was once Joe Pilates’ original studio- for our most thorough workshop of archival matwork to date.
In this workshop, you will learn and practice from pilates primary source materials which will include inspiring variations, previously unknown cues, unusual exercise titles, changes in the exercise order, “new” mat exercises that are not widely taught today, and even common mat exercises that were thought to have been created after Joe’s lifetime that we now know were originally taught by him.
Throughout his lifetime, Joseph Pilates documented his mat exercises through movies, written instruction, articles, and photographs. His most famous documentation was his 3rd book, Return to Life Through Contrology, which was first published in 1945 and consisted of 34 of these original exercises.
Through Pilates Source® research, discovery, and acquisitions we are excited to share additional archival documentation of Joe’s original matwork- notes and drawings meticulously taken by his students during his classes in the 1940s. To date, we have notes from 7 different mat classes taught by Joseph Pilates.
These notes, in addition to Joe’s own documentation of his matwork, provide us with a much broader and detailed perspective of the cues and variations from the original 34 exercises, as well as other archival mat exercises that didn’t make it into his book.
As an extra bonus, we will have an original folding mat from Joseph Pilates at the workshop for demonstration and for everyone to try for themselves.