Celebrating Women in Pilates: Romana Kryzanowska
In honor of Women’s History Month, during March we will be celebrating influential and inspiring women in the world of Pilates.
It only felt right to kick this series off with arguably THE MOST influential woman in Pilates history: Romana Kryzanowska
Who was Romana Kryzanowska?
Before Romana found Pilates she was a dancer, and trained with renowned choreographer George Balanchine at the School of American Ballet. She was unfortunately injured, however it was in rehabilitation that she was referred to Joseph Pilates, taking her life in an unexpected and incredible direction.
She trained and worked with Joseph Pilates at his studio in New York for many years, and was passionate about the practice. In 1967, after Joseph Pilates died, Romana was recruited to run the Pilates studio in his stead. Many believe that if she hadn’t stepped in to continue the program after Joseph Pilates died, his methods may have died with him and the Pilates we know today would not exist.
Romana later took an enormous step forward in making Pilates accessible to the masses. In 1993 she and Sean Gallagher formalized a program to certify Pilates Instructors to teach the method all over the world.
Because of her, this powerful exercise method was able to survive, and you can still take Pilates today. She created her own training program that she used to certify new teachers so people could continue to learn this powerful work.
More training programs were born over the years based on her initial method including Power Pilates, the teacher training program we host at Pilates on 10th today!
Romana was someone that embodied hard work and elegance. There are stories about her closing the studio early some days to open a bottle of champagne, saying that everyone had been ‘significantly elegant,’ and deserved celebration.
Romana believed in the elegance of movement.
In her honor, let’s all celebrate the elegance in our movement this week, with or without the champagne!
originally published March 6, 2022