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The Early Years
It's hard for me to imagine…how I could begin my life as a boy in Dogtown, Missouri and end up in New York City with Martha Graham and Joe and Clara Pilates as teachers. I think there is a higher power that leads us along our path and that, little is left to random chance. I feel that many of my students are drawn to my work by the same higher power that led me to my special teachers. I arrived…in New York City in 1944 and was able to secure a job in advertising at Saks Fifth Avenue. Shorty after, I attended a dance concert by the Martha Graham Company and I knew that this was where I needed to be. Ignorant of all protocol, I presented myself and persistently waited until I was granted an interview with Martha. She agreed to allow me to study. Looking back, I can see that I had natural physical gifts that one needs for the rigors of dance. Still my study had commenced late for a dancer. I did not have the luxury of years of basic dance classes that prepare the artist for performance. The Graham technique is very strenuous and I began to have problems with my knee. Exploratory surgery was recommended. However, this was very risky and could have ended my career. One of my fellow classmates suggested that I should take myself to Joe Pilates. This is how I began the study of Contrology.
I believe that I am the most fortunate person to be lengthened out and centered on the PILATES REFORMER by Joseph H. Pilates himself, almost 50 years ago, and I clearly recall how good it felt. I had danced on that knee, Novocain-injected, for so many performances that my whole body was "cockalooky" from protecting and compensating and it was difficult to find or feel my center. Joe, with his wise-blood instinct, his gift of body knowledge and his "magic machine" very soon helped me to rediscover that center, low in the pelvic area, "bolting" the pubic bone back to the tail bone. That Reformer is a brilliant piece of Pilates, enabling one to lie supine over a weak or injured part of the body and properly engage and exercise specific muscle groups against the tension of ingeniously placed springs and straps - unhampered by your own weight. It was a slow time at Pilates, so I fortunately was given a lot of time and attention, learning so many things from this brilliant, impatient, sometimes irascible tough old German who seemed ageless. The work was constantly evolving and (I'm so grateful) he used me often to try some piece he wanted to see on a body that was beginning to show the Pilates training. I continued working with Martha Graham during this period of time. A student on scholarship, I tread carefully between these two brilliant visionaries (with giant egos) who were both proprietary about their young male students. But I'm telling a big TRUTH when I say I learned a lot – not only extraordinarily beautiful movement, but how to perform it correctly, from deeply within the body, with spirit and with brio, finding my way to an understanding of the philosophies of these two incomparable teachers. |
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