Method Méthode Romana’s Pilates: The Authentic Lineage of Joseph Pilates

Romana Kryzanowska (1923–2013) was the direct student of Joseph Pilates and the guardian of his original method. A trained dancer, she met Joseph and Clara Pilates in New York in the late 1940s while rehabilitating from an ankle injury. She never left the studio after that.

For almost twenty years, she worked alongside the couple at their historic studio on 8th Avenue, where she observed, learned, and began to teach. Upon Joseph Pilates' death in 1967, Clara entrusted her with the direction of the studio. Romana became the official custodian of the method and spent the following decades training the generation that would pass on Pilates in its authentic form.

Elle codifie la classic sequence the precise order of exercises on each apparatus, devised by Joseph Pilates to prepare the body progressively and without interruption. She trains several hundred instructors worldwide, including her own granddaughter Sari Mejia Santo, who today leads Romana's Pilates and who has personally certified Sophie Margolis.

The Romana's Pilates certification requires a course of more than 600 hours of training, guarantees a verifiable teaching lineage back to Joseph Pilates, and mandates teaching on the traditional appliances. It is this precision that distinguishes authentic Pilates from the many modern approaches that have appeared since the 1990s.