Second-generation Pilates teachers and the elders they learned from

The Pilates world talks about itself in family terms. There are elders, generations, lineages and family trees, and a teacher who calls herself second generation is telling you something quite precise: she learned from someone who learned from Joseph or Clara Pilates.

That chain matters more in Pilates than in most forms of exercise because the method was passed on almost entirely by hand. Joseph Pilates wrote two short books and filmed a little, but the bulk of the system, especially the apparatus work, lived in the studio and in the bodies of the people who trained there. Knowing who taught whom is the closest thing the method has to a footnote.

Who the elders were

"Elders" is the shorthand for people who studied directly with Joseph and Clara Pilates in New York and went on to teach. For most of the studio's life there was no formal certification. People qualified by spending years in the room, first as clients and then as assistants. The two usually described as the only teachers Joe formally certified, Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel, completed a New York State vocational programme with him in the 1960s.

The list is not long, and its members were very different people.

Others belong on the list too, Bob Seed among them, and lineage historians argue about the edges. What the table shows is range. A classical ballet dancer, a Graham dancer, a remedial specialist and a psychoanalyst all came out of the same small New York studio, and each took something different away.

Romana Kryzanowska has the largest family tree, simply because she taught teachers in the original studio for so long and because the comprehensive classical programmes grew from her teaching. But plenty of today's teachers trace themselves through Kathy Grant's or Ron Fletcher's or Eve Gentry's work instead, and some through several elders at once.

What "second generation" means

A second-generation teacher trained with one or more of the elders. Some count their generation by the person who certified them; others count everyone they studied with seriously, which is how you meet teachers who describe themselves as second generation through one elder and third through another. Darien Gold is among the teachers commonly described as second generation.

The labels are useful shorthand, not a ranking. A third-generation teacher with a long apprenticeship and twenty years of daily practice may teach better than a second-generation teacher who took a few workshops with an elder in the 1990s. Generation tells you where the information came from. It tells you nothing about how well it was absorbed.

It also has a shelf life. Most of the elders are no longer teaching, and the second generation has become the senior generation, the people others travel to for workshops and the people who certify trainers.

How lineage shows up in a class

You can often feel a teacher's lineage before you can name it.

• Pace. Teachers from Romana's line tend to keep the session moving, with transitions built in and very few pauses. Some other lineages slow right down to work one joint at a time.
• Set-up. Kathy Grant was known for unusual set-ups and small adjustments built for a particular body, and teachers in her line often reach for a prop or an odd position that solves one person's problem.
• Breath. A Fletcher-trained teacher may ask for a sharp, percussive exhale through the mouth that you will not hear in most classical studios.
• Vocabulary. "Scoop", "box", "powerhouse" and "Pilates stance" belong to the New York classical vocabulary. Contemporary-trained teachers are more likely to name muscles and talk about neutral spine.
• Order. Classical lineages keep the original sequence. Others treat it as a reference and design each session.

None of this is better or worse in itself. The question, as I argued in a piece on staying close to the original work, is whether the teacher knows why they do what they do.

Why lineage matters, and where it stops mattering

Lineage gives a teacher a reference point. When two of your teachers disagree about the Short Box, you can go back up the chain and ask what the elder taught and why. It also creates accountability. Teachers who trained in a shared line tend to gather in associations and guilds, such as the one described in a separate piece on the Pilates Guild and teacher lineages, which keep standards and run continuing education.

The limits are real. The elders disagreed with one another, sometimes sharply, so "what Joe taught" is not one fixed thing. Memory drifts with each retelling. And Joe kept changing his own work, so an elder who trained in the 1940s and one who trained in the 1960s may each be faithfully passing on a different version. The books and the surviving film are the shared reference that every lineage can check itself against.

Tracing a teacher's lineage: a short checklist

• Ask who trained them, and how many hours the training involved.
• Ask who trained their trainer. Two names back usually reaches an elder or a well-known senior teacher.
• Ask whether they have studied seriously in more than one line.
• Ask whether they still take lessons themselves.
• Watch them teach before you book a block of sessions.

A good teacher answers these questions easily and without defensiveness. A vague answer is not necessarily a bad sign, since many fine teachers come through contemporary schools without a famous name attached, but it is worth a follow-up.

Next time a teacher adjusts your feet in the straps with a particular small turn of the hand, ask where she learned it. The answer is usually a name, then another name, and then, two or three steps back, a gym at 939 Eighth Avenue.