This book is helpful for one reason - it's the real Pilates and you actually get to see his photo. So many people jumped on his bandwagon, rennovated his moves, and polished the picture, that it was nice to see what the man was actually talking about. Instead of one book, you get two short books. The first is Pilates' Return to Life Through Contrology (published in 1945; 95 pages) where he describes 34 exercises with 4 photos each (old B&W) and complete step by step written instructions. This is the part of the book that I used to compare with the modern day Pilates video I purchased. Only some of his exercises were included in the video as I suspected, and it was nice to see them all which is the reason I bought the book. I still use the video because I got used to the routine, but I plan :) to start incorporating his other exercises. The second short book (60 pages) is "Your Health" and describes his philosophy of health mixed in with a few real old photos of exercises. I did not get as much out of this part (published in the 1934 mindset), except for the fact that breathing means keeping the belly in instead of out like a balloon (yoga style). After all, if you don't work the muscles around the abdomen to "go in," they "go out," and that's the real gist. Thank you Pilates for teaching us about working the "core," because I can really feel the difference. The killer is that Pilates is easier than crunches, and it's the ONLY thing that really works the abs and makes them feel flat.