In 1941 Balanchine (famous New York choreographer and personal friend of Joseph Pilates) sent one of his dancers, Romana Kryzanowska, to study with Joseph Pilates because she had an ankle injury. Under Pilates’ instruction she recovered from her injury, and stayed on in the studio for many years to study and eventually taught side by side with Pilates so that, when he died in 1967, she was the person who was chosen to run his studio and carry on his work.
Romana continued studying with Clara Pilates (Joe’s wife) until her death a decade later and kept teaching the method that Joe and Clara Pilates passed on to her for over five decades. No one else worked for such a long time with Joe Pilates, and, consequently, no one understood the method with the same depth as Romana.