Fletcher Pilates earns formal trademark approval

Fletcher Pilates® earns formal trademark approval

The life work and teaching curriculum of Pilates Master Ron Fletcher — protégé and 20-year studentof Joseph and Clara Pilates — earns formal trademark recognition under the name Fletcher Pilates®

TUCSON, AZ ~ October 2008

The Ron Fletcher Company® is pleased to announce that the US Patent and Trademark Office has approved the term “Fetcher Pilates” for exclusive use and trademark protection.

Fletcher Pilates® derives from the work of Pilates Master Ron Fletcher. It is one of the two primary direct lineages of the Pilates Method, as Fletcher worked and studied directly with Joseph and Clara Pilates as a student and protégé for over 20 years.

In a now-famous letter penned by Clara Pilates just after her husband’s death, she encouraged Ron Fletcher to further develop the work by building on the foundation she and her husband had created. “There is far to go with this work,” said Clara, “ and you are the man for the job.”

A former Martha Graham dancer, Broadway performer and lead choreographer of The International Ice Capades, Fletcher left New York for California in 1972 where he opened the Ron Fletcher Studio for Body Contrology on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The studio was an instant hit among A-list movie stars, studio executives, celebrities, dancers and the reigning doyennes of Hollywood such as Betsy Bloomingdale and Nancy Reagan.

In short order, Fletcher’s private Pilates sessions and group classes were in great demand. It was in Los Angeles that he began refining and developing the body of work that would ultimately become known as Fletcher Pilates®.

Thanks largely to Ron’s early promotional efforts in Los Angeles, the Pilates method of physical conditioning — developed over a 50-year period in the relative obscurity of Joseph and Clara Pilates’ cold-water New York City studio — is currently practiced by an estimated 15 million people worldwide.

And for nearly 40 years, the world-wide Pilates community has recognized Ron Fletcher’s immense contribution to the evolution, promotion and preservation of the method.

“Ron Fletcher is the real deal,” said Kyria Sabin, Director of the Ron Fletcher Company® and owner of Body Works Studio, Inc. in Tucson, AZ. “His unique evolution and interpretation of the conditioning method developed by Joseph and Clara Pilates is true to the Pilates Principles and has inspired a legion of dedicated teachers and followers… myself included.”

Sabin’s Tucson facility is the international headquarters of the Ron Fletcher Company® and home base to The Ron Fletcher Program of Study®, the definitive professional Fletcher Pilates® teacher-training curriculum.

During the last few years, many Fletcher Pilates® Studios and Campuses have been established across the country and around the world, with more coming on board each year. “I’m sure Clara Pilates would have been very pleased. Ron has essentially infused the original method with an even more articulated and effective movement program and a life-affirming breath technique… Fletcher Pilates® has really caught on.”

A recent London Guardian research article agrees, asserting that were it not for Ron Fletcher’s transition from New York City to Los Angeles, it is quite likely that the Pilates method would have all but disappeared.

Today, the popularity Pilates enjoys among Hollywood movie stars, professional dancers and elite celebrities — along with millions of ordinary practitioners around the world — can be traced directly to Ron Fletcher’s creative genius for developing the work and to his introduction of the now-trademarked Fletcher Pilates® method to the American west coast.

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