All Things Pilates with Darien Gold

Send us Fan Mail Our hands. How often do you think about your hands and all they do for you each and everyday? We put them to work the moment we get out of bed until we turn the lights off at night. Our hands grab, wave, lift, hold, caress..and in addition, our wrists and arms allow us to practice for example, the Long Stretch series on the Reformer, or the Pull Up on the Wunda chair. Did you know...

Send us Fan Mail As you may recall, in 2000 the Pilates community experienced a collective sigh as the Pilates trademark was litigated in a court of law. However, this lawsuit resulted in the Pilates name not deemed proprietary. Now, in 2023, there is yet, another Pilates lawsuit pending, and my guest today Mary Kelly is right smack in the middle of it. Boston born, Mary, after discovering Pilates...

Send us Fan Mail Hello Pilates Lovers..Just 2 weeks away until All Things Pilates Season Five launches! And as usual, there are varied topics such as details of a Pilates lawsuit, an author’s new book about the spine, insights into cadavers and a healing modality using crystal bowls for the Pilates student. So mark your calendars for June 6th and be prepared for the provocative, the inspirational...

Send us Fan Mail During Season Four, you learned about some of our Pilates history, how best to heal from a hip replacement, the emergence of new authors and even advice and tips on how to run a successful studio. As 2022 comes to a close, I’d like to acknowledge all of my podcast guests and to say thank you very much for sharing a little about yourself… Today’s podcast appearance: Jonathan Grubb...

Send us Fan Mail As Season Four comes to a close,  I thought it only fitting as we began the season with a First Generation Pilates teacher that we book end it with another.  She is the most senior of our Pilates elders and is none other than Mary Bowen. Mary has taught the Contrology system for the last forty seven years. She is also a trained Jungian  psychoanalyst and cleverly blended the two p...

Send us Fan Mail The Pilates Method Alliance had its beginnings in 2001.  Kevin Bowen and Colleen Glenn, both Pilates teachers, shared a mutual interest in preserving Joe’s Method. So they invited Pilates teachers, including the First Generation - Ron Fletcher, Mary Bowen, Kathy Grant, Lolita San Miguel and even Romana Kryzanowska, though she didn’t attend. Also, equipment company owners, Ken Ende...

Send us Fan Mail My guest today is Roberta Gratz, co-owner of Gratz Industries and wife of the late Donald Gratz, whose father Frank along with a business partner opened a custom metal fabrication business Treitel/Gratz in New York City in the 1920’s. When Mr. Tretial moved on, Frank renamed the business Gratz Industries, Inc. and continued to fabricate sculptures, metal furniture and produce indu...

Send us Fan Mail Second Generation Pilates instructors, like myself are referred to as such because we’ve had the privilege of learning the Method from one of Joseph Pilates’ disciples. But there are a handful of us who have had the opportunity to work with more than one disciple and and one of those instructor’s is my guest today. Her name is Pat Guyton. Though Pat wouldn’t begin her Pilates jour...

Send us Fan Mail This podcast has featured First Generation Pilates teachers, Second Generation teachers, authors, photographers, equipment owners and even a Pilates historian, but I’ve yet to feature just a regular guy who has taken a liking to the Pilates method. I thought it might be interesting for us to hear from a Pilates civilian, if you will, who also happens to be my BIL - brother-in-law,...

Send us Fan Mail Jonathan Grubb, Pilates historian appeared on my show for the first time a couple of years ago. He talked about his history based Facebook page, called, “Joseph’s Legacy - Pilates 100 + which at the time had already attracted five thousand followers. Jonathan has lived almost his entire life on the Isle of Man which is a small island in the Irish Sea off the coast of Great Britain...

Send us Fan Mail Jennifer DeLuca, owner of BodyTonic Pilates Gymnasium in Brooklyn, NY. Jennifer began her Pilates life in 1985 at the esteemed High School for the Performing Arts in New York City. Part of the curriculum was a semester of the Pilates Mat under the tutelage of Nancy Butler. Not exactly wowed by Pilates, Jennifer couldn’t have anticipated how her love of dance and movement would int...

Send us Fan Mail There is no machine that man has invented that can compete with the complexity of our own human spine. The Spine is a masterpiece of science and art. A pillared tapestry of bones, muscles, joints, nerves and connective tissue. But sometimes our spines fail us, they either can no longer keep us upright or disease has decreased normal range of motion or there is simply the pain of w...

Send us Fan Mail Entrepreneurship. What is that exactly? And what does it have to do with the Pilates Method?  Well, if are you a Pilates instructor or studio owner, then you may find this interview especially interesting. Our guest is George Tingo, an entrepreneur who has a 40-year career in business and law and founded and practiced law in a San Francisco based business law firm. He was the Foun...

Send us Fan Mail Our guest today is Nancy Chin, owner of Pilates Avenue Los Gatos in the city of Los Gatos, California. She is a graduate of the Vintage Pilates program called, The Work. Last summer, Nancy had a life changing experience that impacted her own Pilates practice and gave her an entirely new understanding of the body - especially, the pelvic region. After many years of dealing with an...

Send us Fan Mail If someone wants to learn the Pilates method, he or she most likely will sign up for a classical or modern Pilates class. However, before there was classical or modern, there was just Joe’s method that he called Contrology, but for some his work is also referred to as “Archival Pilates.” This term means that Joe’s exercises are taught and practiced exactly as he documented and dem...

Send us Fan Mail As many of you know, there is an aspect of the Pilates industry that involves law suits about intellectual property, copyrights, trademarks, patents and public domain. I thought it important for all of us to learn about these legal terms because so many of us teach online as well as in person and may not be aware of how to protect ourselves.  With us today is attorney, Gordon Fire...

Send us Fan Mail As promised, you will now hear Part two of my interview with Eva Rincke, the author of the  Joseph Pilates biography. If you recall, in Part one Eva shared her research of Joe during his childhood all the way through to his internment on the Isle of Man. Today, Eva will talk about Joe Pilates’ new life in America. The 20% off Coupon code for ALL THINGS PILATES Podcast listeners: a...

Send us Fan Mail Our guest today is Elizabeth Larkam, a Nationally certified Pilates teacher. Elizabeth has a very extensive background in human anatomy and physiology and used this knowledge to design Pilates programs for the center for sports and dance medicine at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco. From 1985 until 2000, Elizabeth helped countless patients return to health. She als...

Send us Fan Mail When Joseph Pilates was interned at Camp Knockaloe on the Isle of Man during WWI, little could he imagine that over a century later, a museum would be built very near where he was interned. The Knockaloe Visitor Center took almost ten years from its concept to its grand opening in 2019. At the helm of this visionary project is our guest today, Alison Jones. Although we know that J...

Send us Fan Mail When we think about people practicing the Pilates method or Contrology, most likely we imagine heathy bodies engaging their musculature and employing their minds to get the most out of each class. But what happens if the brain is impaired by disease or injury, is it possible for the body to still get the benefits of Pilates?  With us today to answer this question is Professor Mair...

Send us Fan Mail The  Pilates book list is growing and in case you don’t have Eva Rincke’s biography on Joseph Pilates, I highly recommend it. Born in 1981, Eva Rincke grew up in Leonberg near Stuttgart, Germany. She studied history and philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin. From 2007-2010 she worked at Buchenwald Memorial, doing research for an exhibition about Forced Labor during World War...

Send us Fan Mail Today we have with us a very accomplished Pilates educator. His name is Rael Isacowitz and his Pilates certification program, BASI - Body Arts and Science International is dedicated to remaining true to art, science, and, most importantly, to the teachings of Joseph Pilates. With a reputation for innovation and academic excellence, BASI™ strives to provide the most comprehensive P...

Send us Fan Mail By now, many of you have watched the various archival footage online showing Joe Pilates and a handful of his students practicing his method. There is one very notable film clip of a young Anna Shaffer demonstrating ballet movements using an invention Joe developed he called the "Headdress." Anna was in NYC studying ballet at the School of American Ballet and was told sh...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the ALL THINGS PILATES Season Three highlight show. This Season was a fun one for me and I hope you thought so also. As with Season one and two, there were many opinions expressed about the Pilates method, but this time around there were also insights shared about the Pilates history in photos and magazine articles. There were complimentary modalities presented and how...

Send us Fan Mail You know, maybe there is something to this idea of six degrees of separation. My guest today, Roberta Kirschenbaum and I and Joe Pilates walked the same streets in New York City and actually, climbed the same stairs in the now famed building, 939 8th Avenue. Without being aware of each other, Roberta and I both took dance classes on the second floor at Clark Center not knowing tha...