It is the exercise regime that has taken Britain by storm. One million men and women in the UK pull their tummies to their spine and breathe in a bid to achieve core stability.
Pilates, once a fitness secret known to a select group of dancers and athletes, is today a multi-million pound industry. And the main reasons for its explosion in the UK are Lynne Robinson and Gordon Thompson. Together 12 years ago, they formed Body Control Pilates, a brand of the fitness system used by Liz Hurley, Sarah Ferguson and Olympic gold medal rowers James Cracknell and Matthew Pinsent. Former England cricket captain Michael Atherton says Body Control extended his injury-ridden career by several years. It is now the biggest Pilates business in the UK.
But it is not just muscles that are straining among the British Pilates power brokers. In fact, it seems the Covent Garden-based exercise studio which is the Body Control nerve centre is not big enough for its two founders.
Six weeks ago, Lynne Robinson and her husband demanded Thompson quit the business. Thompson refused. The dispute has escalated and, on Saturday, 850 Pilates teachers will be asked to 'expel' Gordon Thompson in an emergency vote.
Thompson's alleged crime is his wish to devise his own unique style of Body Control 'machine work' under his name and charge money to instruct teachers. He has written to all Body Control teachers begging for clemency. It is expected to be a sweaty event.
But the argument about technique is only a vehicle for a mighty personal clash between the First Lady of Pilates and the man who helped secure her status. Body Control has generated millions of pounds and, while Robinson has always been its face, Thompson has been instrumental from the start. Now he feels he deserves the right to establish his own brand.
Thompson claims the move to oust him as a director is about 'greed'. He claims to have taught Robinson the technique she has now taken to the world. With Thompson, Robinson has sold nearly four million books and DVDs. But it is she, through television appearances, newspaper columns, commercial tie-ups with the likes of British Airways and Pilates retreats in Thailand, who has earned the status as the undisputed 'Queen of Pilates'. Earlier this month saw the release of her latest Pilates book targeted at the obese.
Reacting to the attempt to expel him, Thompson, who is now based in a Kensington studio belonging to dancer Wayne Sleep, said: 'This is a dramatic overreaction. It should never have happened in the first place but this is about standing up for what I do.'
Robinson's husband, Leigh, who is also a director of Body Control, accepts that Thompson has been instrumental in establishing Body Control but said: 'Gordon expressed an interest in setting up his own membership body. When we have a situation in which Gordon Thomson wants to do something on the side, it's something we have to talk about. We have a council that said this wasn't acceptable. It gives the wrong message.'
The row is unlikely to halt the growth trajectory of Pilates in the UK. It has been adopted by fitness instructors and gyms throughout the land. It is a method of exercise and physical movement designed to stretch, strengthen, and balance the body. With systematic practice of specific exercises coupled with focused breathing patterns and emphasis on 'drawing in the pelvic floor', Pilates has been embraced by sports stars, actors and dancers.
Exercises include the 'elephant' and the 'swan'. They can be carried out using just mats and a person's own body strength or with machines that, some argue, take it to another level with additional resistance and support.
Devotees swear that Pilates leaves them bright-eyed, refreshed and buoyant without necessarily sweating. Women love it because it gives them flat tummies and toned muscles without bulking up. Elderly people swear by its ability to ease back complaints. Pilates now has became a mainstay in luxury spas.
It was German-born Joseph Pilates, a sickly asthmatic child, who was living in England as a circus performer and boxer, who devised what he called Contrology when placed in forced internment in England at the outbreak of the First World War.
He drew from yoga and Zen Buddhism and was inspired by the ancient Greek ideal of man perfected in development of body, mind and spirit. On his way to developing the Pilates Method, Joseph Pilates studied anatomy and developed himself as a body builder, wrestler, gymnast, boxer, skier and diver.
It was escaping a request to train the German army that saw Pilates' career bloom. He went to New York City and trained dancers who pledged themselves to the party-loving German. He died in 1967 aged 87.
Pilates took off in the Eighties when one of his devotees opened a studio above a hairdressing salon frequented by Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen and Ali MacGraw. The stars found themselves drawn to the pastime and a fitness craze was born.
The essence of Pilates is core stability. Together Lynne Robinson and Gordon Thompson adapted 'classical' Pilates exercises, which they believed were often unsuitable for the average person and the average body.
Central to the method is 'awareness of your own body' and exercises are built around its eight basic principles: relaxation, concentration, co-ordination, centring, alignment, breathing, stamina and flowing movements.
Lynne is famous for matwork which requires increasingly complex movement sequences. She claims to allow you handle stress effectively and achieve relaxation more easily.
Gordon Thomson reckons there is room for him to develop a machine variant of body control Pilates, which he argues Lynne does not cover. To some, Pilates machines look like 'instruments of torture' but Gordon believes they help improve posture and achieve balanced grace.
The first matwork teacher training course was held in 1996. The groundbreaking book Body Control The Pilates Way was the world's first curriculum based course book for prospective Pilates teachers. Since then nearly 1,000 students have trained using the technique. Countless books followed in the subsequent 12 years.
