Before Pilates became associated with overpriced classes, aesthetic TikTok vlogs and rich White women—except of course for the Pilates queen, Lori Harvey—the workout was invented in the 1920s by Joseph Pilates, a German acrobat. He developed it as a low-impact exercise while he was in prison during WWI, according to Vogue India. However, after Pilates passed away in 1967, his legacy was kept afloat with the help of Kathy Stanford Grant, an African American woman who was certified by Pilates himself to teach his methods. Since few outside of the Pilates classroom know her story, we want to fill you in.
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Born in Boston in August 1921, Kathleen Stanford Grant had big dreams of becoming a professional dancer and worked hard to make those dreams a reality. At 9 years old, Grant was the first Black dancer to take ballet classes at the Boston Conservatory of Music. During her teenage years, she spent her summers dancing in Carnegie Hall in New York, according to the Pilates center Balanced Body.
Her years of training led Grant to move to New York in the 1940s and have a wonderful career onstage. She danced beside iconic Black performers such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway, according to the nonprofit media organization YR Media.
She also performed in the first integrated Broadway hit show, “Finian’s Rainbow,” served as the first administrative director for the Dance Theatre of Harlem and was the first African American invited to join the National Endowment for the Arts, according to the Pilates Method Alliance. To put it simply, Kathy Stanford Grant was a trailblazer in many areas.
In 1954, Grant suffered a knee injury that forced her to take a break from the stage and visit Joseph Pilates’ rehab center. She soon fell in love with his methods, according to Balanced Body. Within the next decade, the trained dancer began teaching Pilates at the dance studio of Carola Trier—another former dancer—while she completed her training. After more than 2,000 hours of training in Contrology (Pilates) with Joseph Pilates, Grant earned her certification to teach the low-impact exercise, per Balanced Body.
With her new title as a certified Pilates instructor, Grant became the first Black woman to manage a Pilates studio by taking over the New York University Tisch School of the Arts Pilates program. She revolutionized the exercise by tailoring it to her students’ needs rather than using one program for everyone, according to the fitness site Fitfixnow. Her methods remain common practice for instructors today.
The revolutionary Pilates instructor impacted many lives, and her students speak about her fondly. On the site Kathy Grant Pilates, created by one of her students in her memory, many warm messages were left to thank Grant for inspiring their Pilates careers.
“Thank you for teaching me how to dig deep—really deep—to stretch my imagination and for inspiring my lifelong career,” Halle Clarke, a Pilates instructor who trained under Grant, wrote in a final message on the site.
Until her passing in 2010, Kathy Stanford Grant, along with Lolita San Miguel, was one of only two people certified by Joseph Pilates himself to teach his methods, according to the Pilates Method Alliance. Thanks to Grant, we have the exercise form we recognize today. Now that you know her story, spread the word the next time you’re getting ready to sign up for a Pilates class.
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