Today is Joseph Pilates' birthday.

He was born in Germany on 9th December 1883 and led an amazing life, emigrating to the United States where he developed his exercise programme, Contrology, which has evolved into what we know as Pilates today.

Despite being born in a different century, Joseph and I have a lot in common!! We both go by the name of Jo, we share the same birthday and we both moved to New York to live and work.

If you want to find out more about Joseph’s story, I can highly recommend an inspirational book, Caged Lion, written by John Steel, a former client of his, which would be an awesome Christmas read.