‘Pilates’ was once exotic word here

LITTLE ROCK — Not so long ago, “Pilates” was an exotic word in Arkansas.

Only dancers and people who subscribed to The New Yorker used the word. The first mention I can find of it in Arkansas Gazette electronic archives is a classified ad that appeared in November 1991. Under “Wanted,” someone with a phone number now used by an administrative department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock requested, “Anyone with information about Pilates dancers exercises.”

The next earliest citation comes eight years later in May 1999, when former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writer Jennifer Hansen noted the existence of Pilates classes in Fayetteville in a feature on the state of dance in Northwest Arkansas.

But beginning in January 2000, newspaper archives document our rapidly rising awareness of the word, with 635 items mentioning it at least once from 2000 to 2004.

In 2000, then Democrat-Gazette columnist Laura Cartwright (now Laura Hardy) wrote about her experiences in the unusual method in her column “Fit Happens.” In early 2001, she mentioned the federal ruling that opened the floodgates to all kinds of Pilates classes, the denial of an attempt by a New York company, Pilates Inc., to trademark the name.

In 2013, Pilates is such a mainstream offering at Arkansas fitness facilities that even people who don’t exercise much use the terms “core” and “mind-body” knowing they relate somehow to Pilates. And Arkansans in search of Pilates classes can study many variations on the core-working method. Some great teachers are certified through the Pilates Method Alliance, Stott Pilates or another certifying organization; some great teachers are not. At some studios, “Pilates” means you pay through the nose to exercise one-on-one with a hands-on instructor and use a Reformer machine; at others “Pilates” means floor work on the mat.

Some teachers combine, or “fuse,” typical Pilates exercises with others using a Swiss ball or exercise bands or yoga. As with yoga, one studio’s Pilates will not necessarily resemble another’s.

In other words, times have changed.