Search for the six Pilates principles and every studio hands you the same six words: concentration, control, centering, breath, precision, flow. The list is real, and it is genuinely useful. What almost nobody mentions is that Joseph Pilates never wrote it.
Pilates was originally called Contrology. He published two books, and neither contains a numbered list of six. That list was assembled by two of his students' students in 1980, thirteen years after he died.
This is not a debunking. I teach with these six principles every day, because they describe what good movement actually looks like better than anything else in one page. But you should know what you are holding: a distillation, not scripture. Here is the list, where it came from, and what each one means when there is someone in the room watching your form.
The 6 Pilates principles, in short
- Concentration.Your full attention on the movement you are actually doing.
- Control.Muscle moving the load, not momentum, gravity, or a spring.
- Centering.Every movement begins at the trunk, before the limbs go anywhere.
- Breath.Breathing that supports the movement instead of fighting it.
- Precision.One accurate repetition instead of ten approximate ones.
- Flow.Exercises connected into continuous work, not a series of stops.
Order and wording vary across the Pilates community. Some teach breath first because it comes first in the exercise; some teach concentration first because nothing else happens without it. Some lists say "centre" instead of "centering," or "fluidity" instead of "flow." None of that is a disagreement about substance.
Where the list actually came from
Joseph Hubertus Pilates was born in Mönchengladbach, Germany, on 9 December 1883. He developed his system through his wartime internment and his later work in Germany, then brought it to New York, where it became a fixture of dancers' training and rehabilitation. He published Your Health in 1934 and Return to Life Through Contrology in 1945, and framed what he was selling as overall health rather than exercise.
Read both and you will find plenty about breath, about the mind's command over the muscle, about the body as a whole system. Pilates believed the mind and body worked as one thing, and described his method as the complete coordination of body, mind and spirit. You will not find a numbered list of six, because he never wrote one.
The list comes from the first mainstream book on the method, published by Doubleday in 1980 and written by Philip Friedman and Gail Eisen. Both were students of Romana Kryzanowska, who had trained directly under Pilates himself. They condensed his teaching into a list of six so that a method created by Joseph Pilates could be taught to people who would never set foot in a New York Pilates studio.
That is why you will also see lists of five, seven, eight and nine. Different lineages split precision into alignment and placement, or pull stamina out of flow, or add relaxation. The industry's own nonprofit standards body does not publish a canonical numbered list on its history page. The number was never the point.
Practical upshot: if your instructor's list does not match this one, nobody is wrong. Ask them what they mean by each word instead. The words are shorthand for how they teach.
The key principles, one at a time
1. Concentration
Your full attention on the movement you are actually doing — not the one you did last week, and not the mirror.
People hear this one as mindfulness and assume it is the soft principle. It is not. In a private session I can see the exact moment attention leaves: the ribs drift, the shoulder creeps toward the ear, the tempo speeds up by about ten percent. The body reverts to its default movement patterns the second the mind stops overriding it, and those patterns are what you came in to change.
What it looks like in practice: fewer repetitions, done deliberately, with your eyes somewhere useful. Pilates gets marketed as mindful movement, and this is the part of it that phrase is actually pointing at. If you can hold a conversation through the whole set, you are not concentrating — you are exercising.
2. Control
The muscle moves the load. Not momentum, not gravity, not the spring recoiling on its own.
Control is the principle Pilates was named for. On the apparatus, the test is obvious once you know to look for it: can you stop the carriage silently at any point in the movement, in both directions? If the carriage arrives home with a knock, the spring finished the repetition for you and you did roughly half the work you thought you did.
Control is also the reason Pilates loads slowly. Anyone can be thrown through a range of motion. Owning it end to end, under tension, at a tempo you chose — that level of control takes longer to build and is worth considerably more.
3. Centering
Movement is initiated from the trunk before the limbs go anywhere.
Joseph Pilates called the region between the lower ribs and the pelvis the powerhouse. The modern language is less romantic — the deep core, the pelvic floor, the muscles that give you core stability — but the instruction is the same: organise the middle first, then move the arms and legs from a base that is not shifting underneath them.
This is the principle that changes what the other five are doing. Concentration applied to a movement you are powering from the wrong place is just careful bad habit. When people say a Pilates exercise suddenly "clicked," this is almost always what changed.
It is also the hardest of the six to self-assess. Concentration you can notice slipping. Control you can hear in the carriage. This one happens below the level you have reliable feedback about — most people genuinely cannot tell from the inside which muscles are working, or whether a leg movement started in the trunk or in the hip flexor, and the two feel similar until someone points out the difference. This is the specific reason the principle is so much easier to learn with hands-on correction than from a video.
4. Breath
Breathing that supports the movement rather than fighting it.
Most people have to learn how to breathe correctly for this work, because under load they do one of two things: hold the breath entirely, or breathe high and fast into the upper chest. Pilates asks for something else — you inhale and exhale wide and lateral, into the back and sides of the ribcage, with a full breath out that lets the ribs close down and the deep abdominals engage without you bracing.
The pairing of breath to movement is not decorative. Breathing out through the effort of a movement makes it far easier to keep the ribs down and the trunk connected. Holding your breath at the same moment does the opposite. This one takes the longest to feel natural — expect several weeks, not several sessions. There is a full walkthrough of the pattern on the Pilates breathing page.
5. Precision
One accurate repetition instead of ten approximate ones.
This one is about where things actually go: the exact angle of the leg, the width of the arms, whether the hips stayed level or quietly rotated to let you reach further. A classical Pilates repertoire is not large, and the movements in Pilates are not especially complicated. What makes them work is that you are performing an exercise to a specification rather than approximating it.
It is also why the traditional repertoire uses low repetition counts. Five precise repetitions of the hundred's preparation will do more for you than twenty sloppy ones, and the twenty will actively rehearse the compensation you are trying to get rid of.
6. Flow
Exercises connected into continuous work, rather than a series of stops.
Flow operates at two scales. Within a Pilates movement, the work is even — no jerk at the start, no collapse at the end. Across a session, one exercise flows into the next, with the transitions treated as part of the work rather than dead time between sets. What you are building is movement efficiency.
Flow is deliberately last, and it should be. It is the only one of the six you cannot usefully chase directly. Concentration, control, centering, breath and precision are all things you can decide to do in your next repetition. Flow is what shows up once the other five stop taking all of your attention.
Four common misreadings
The six words are short enough to be memorable and short enough to be misunderstood. These are the four I correct most often.
"Centering means pulling my stomach in"
It does not. Sucking the navel toward the spine and holding it there is a breath-holding strategy that recruits the wrong layer and makes the lateral breathing in principle four impossible. The principle is about where a movement is initiated from, not about how hard you can grip your abdominals. If it stops you breathing, it is not centering — it is bracing.
"Control just means going slowly"
Slow is usually a symptom of control, not the definition of it. You can crawl through a repetition and still be letting the spring do the work at the ends of the range. You can also move at a brisk classical tempo with complete control. The real test is whether you could stop, reverse, or hold the movement at any point without a lurch. If you can, the speed is a choice. If you cannot, slowing down is a reasonable first step, but it is a treatment, not a cure.
"There is one correct breathing pattern"
Breathing out on the effort is a decent default and a poor rule. Different schools breathe differently through the same exercises, and there are exercises where the useful instruction is the reverse of the default. What is consistent across all of them is that you keep breathing, and that the breath moves into the back and sides of the ribcage rather than lifting the chest and shoulders. Anyone who tells you there is one universally correct pattern is describing their lineage, not a physiological fact.
"Flow means keeping my heart rate up"
Flow is about continuity and evenness, not intensity. A Pilates workout can flow beautifully and never leave a moderate effort level. Treating flow as a cardio target is the fastest way to lose accuracy, because the first thing to go when you chase pace is accuracy of shape. If you want a cardiovascular stimulus, that is a legitimate goal — it is just not what this principle is for.
What a Pilates practice will not do for you
The principles describe how to practise. Most people come to Pilates for strength and flexibility, and the benefits of Pilates are real — but they are narrower than most studios imply, and it is worth being straight about where the evidence sits.
A 2023 PRISMA systematic review of eight randomised controlled trials looked at Pilates for core activation in people with chronic low back pain. Its finding, stated plainly: Pilates was not inferior to equivalently dosed exercise, and was superior to non-equivalent exercise or to no exercise, for improving core strength as measured by muscle thickness (PubMed 37239690).
Read that carefully, because it is a more honest sales pitch than most of what you will find. Pilates is not magic and it does not beat comparable training done properly. It works about as well as equivalent, well-dosed exercise — and considerably better than the exercise you are not doing. The six principles are, more or less, a description of what "done properly" means.
It is also worth naming what that review did not establish. Eight trials is a small evidence base, and the outcome measured was muscle thickness on imaging rather than pain or day-to-day function, so it is not evidence that Pilates will manage pain. People report mental benefits too, and that review did not measure those either. It was a population with chronic low back pain rather than the general public. It is a reasonable basis for saying Pilates is a credible way to strengthen the trunk. It is not a basis for saying Pilates fixes backs, and you should be suspicious of any studio that quotes research like this without those qualifiers attached.
What the principles will not do: they will not make Pilates a cardiovascular programme, and they will not tell you how often to train. This is an exercise method, not a treatment plan. The goal of Pilates, as the list describes it, is how you move rather than how hard — training the body to move more efficiently than it does now. If you have a diagnosed condition, an injury, or you are pregnant or postpartum, that is a conversation with your physician and then with your instructor — in that order.
How we teach the Pilates fundamentals at True Form
Six words are easy to list and hard to apply to your own Pilates practice. The third one is a good example: almost nobody can tell from the inside whether they initiated a movement from the trunk or from the hip flexor. You need someone who can see it and say so in the moment, before the repetition rehearses the wrong pattern.
That is the entire reason True Form runs private, duet and trio sessions and no group classes. In a group Pilates class of twelve, an instructor is managing a room. At 1:1, 2:1 or 3:1, they are watching you — which is the only setting in which those two are coachable rather than aspirational. Sessions run across the full classical apparatus: reformer, Cadillac and tower, Wunda chair, ladder barrel and mat. You can see how the formats and the apparatus work on the classes page, and more about my background and training on the about page.
In practice the principles do not arrive in the order they are listed. A first Pilates session is mostly control and centering, because those two are the ones that make everything after them safe: finding the trunk, learning what a spring does when you stop negotiating with it, working out which movements your body currently solves by compensating somewhere else. Accuracy comes next, once there is enough control for a correction to be actionable — there is no point refining the angle of a limb that is being flung. Breath tends to be the slow one. Flow is not taught at all; it turns up on its own, usually somewhere around the point where you stop needing to be told what comes next.
None of that is a fixed curriculum. The order changes from person to person, but the principles remain the foundation of every session. It is what the sequence looks like when someone is watching one person rather than running a class to a script, which is the difference the format is there to buy.
If you are starting from zero, you do not need to memorise any of this first — there is a practical checklist on the how to prepare for Pilates page. Come in, and we will build the principles into how you move your body from the first session. The studio is in Saline, Michigan, and most clients drive in from the surrounding towns:
- Ann Arbor about 15–20 minutes
- Ypsilanti about 20–25 minutes
- Milan about 15 minutes
- Chelsea about 25–30 minutes
- All service areas Drive times & directions
Drive times and directions for every area we serve are on the Pilates near me page.
Frequently asked questions
Are there 6 principles of Pilates or 8?
Both lists are in circulation, and neither is official. The six — concentration, control, centering, breath, precision, flow — come from Friedman and Eisen's 1980 book. Pilates has evolved over the years, and other schools teach five, seven, eight, or nine by splitting or merging the same ideas: alignment and posture are often pulled out of precision, and stamina is sometimes added to flow. No governing body certifies a canonical number. If your teacher's list differs from the one on this page, that is normal and not a sign anyone is wrong.
Did Joseph Pilates write the principles himself?
No. He published two books, in 1934 and 1945, and neither contains a numbered list of six. The list was distilled from his teaching by Philip Friedman and Gail Eisen in 1980, thirteen years after he died. The ideas trace back to him; the list does not.
Which Pilates principle is the most important?
Centering, if you are forced to pick one — it is the one that changes what the other five are doing. Concentration without it is just paying close attention to a movement you are powering from the wrong place. That said, the principles are described as six because they only work together. Nobody practices one at a time.
Do I need to memorize the principles before my first Pilates class?
No. Nobody is going to quiz you. Knowing the list helps you understand why Pilates instructors cue the way they do — why you are told to slow down when you feel like you could go faster, or to take five repetitions instead of fifteen. The principles are a description of good practice, not homework.
Do the principles apply to mat Pilates as well as the apparatus?
Yes — they are principles of the method, not of the Pilates equipment. If anything they are harder to apply on the mat, because the apparatus gives you feedback the mat does not. A spring tells you immediately when you have stopped controlling a movement; the floor stays silent. That is why the apparatus is useful for learning the principles and the mat is useful for proving you have them.
How long does it take to feel like I am actually applying these?
Control and centering usually start to feel like yours within a handful of sessions. Breath is the slow one — several weeks is normal before the lateral pattern stops requiring conscious thought, and there is nothing wrong with you if it takes longer. Flow arrives last and cannot be rushed. Anyone quoting you a fixed timeline is guessing, because it depends heavily on what movement history you are bringing with you.
What is the difference between control and precision?
Control is about the source of the movement: is your muscle doing the work, or are momentum and the spring doing it for you. The other is about the shape of it: is the limb going where it is supposed to go, at the angle it is supposed to go. You can move with control and still be imprecise, and you can hit a shape precisely while swinging into it. Pilates asks for both.
Sources
- Pilates Method Alliance — Pilates History The nonprofit standards body for the industry. Source for Joseph Pilates' dates, the original name of the method, and the two books he published.
- Friedman, P. & Eisen, G. — The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning (Doubleday, 1980) The book the list comes from. Catalogue record, ISBN 0385144903.
- Pilates to Improve Core Muscle Activation in Chronic Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review (2023) PRISMA systematic review of eight randomised controlled trials. PubMed ID 37239690.