About OBP
ABOUT JULIETTE
I first discovered the Pilates method while training to be a professional ballet dancer. A few years later, I was injured and decided to train in the method as a part of my recovery process.
I trained with Carol Appel and Jennifer Stacey at the Center for Sports Medicine at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, CA. During this time, I began my studies as a Physical/ Physiotherapist. I then moved to the UK to complete my studies and began working as a Pilates Instructor at The Edinburgh Pilates Centre.
In 1994/1995, I founded a Pilates centre in Aarhus, Denmark. Since then, I co founded the Pilates for Staff programme at the Oxford University Hospitals Trust, owned the Pilates of Oxford Studio and worked with colleagues at Balance Studios in Witney, Oxfordshire and TOPS. I work as an independent senior Pilates Instructor and physiotherapist in Oxford, England.
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JULIETTES QUALIFICATIONS
BSc Hons Physiotherapy
SRP, MCSP
Senior Physiotherapist
Senior Barre Instructor
The history of pilates
The Pilates method was developed by Joseph Hubertus Pilates during the second decade of the 20th century, over one hundred years ago. Joe Pilates was a German-born, multi talented athletic trainer. He developed the Pilates Method while working with soldiers on the Isle of Man during the First World War. He worked with a great many amputees and soldiers who were bedridden for long periods of time as a result of complex injuries. Joe found that the biggest challenge to getting the soldiers back up on their feet or prosthesis was not the fact that they had lost a limb. Instead, it was as a result of their weakened core muscles. He therefore developed a selection of what can be called transitional exercises to strengthen and stabilise the trunk region or the ‘centre’s’ / core of the soldier’s bodies in order to prepare them for standing, walking, etc.
After the first World War, Joe and his wife Clara moved to New York City where they established the first Pilates studio which became a virtual mecca for dancers from the New York City Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre as well as dancers from the Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Alvin Ailey Dance troupes to name a few. During this earlier period in the history of the Pilates method, other performers such as circus artists, etc. and a handful of elite athletes also discovered the method and found it extremely useful. In the past several decades, there has been a dramatic development in the use of the Pilates system of exercise amongst the general population as a conditioning and rehabilitation tool that enhances performance and helps in the prevention and recovery from injury.