About Michael Fritzke

Primary Teacher Training: Michael and Ton Pilates

Michael Fritzke and Ton Voogt are internationally recognized Pilates Teachers, presenters, educators,consultants, and innovators, and travel the world sharing their knowledge and experience.

Michael and Ton were introduced to Pilates at different times, on different continents and with different backgrounds. Michael was first introduced to the Pilates method in the early 1980s as a dancer in NYC and Ton in the late 1980s in Vienna from the perspective of a fitness professional first and a performer second. Michael and Ton’s Pilates experiences merged in the 1990s when they were the last two people to do a true apprenticeship (no manuals or seminars) with Romana Kryzanowska, one of Joseph and Clara Pilates’ protégées. In 2000 Romana asked them to become Teacher of Teachers for her original International Pilates Certification Program: The Pilates Studio™.

As Teacher Trainers and Supervising Instructors at the uptown Pilates Studio in NYC, Michael and Ton worked closely together with Romana and Sari Mijo Santo, training, guiding and testing hundreds of apprentices through the program. In addition to their work at the Pilates Studio they taught some of the first Pilates group mat classes in gyms, wellness centers and dance studios in NYC and collaborated with Physical Therapists at Performing Arts Physical Therapy to integrate the Pilates method into patient-based therapy programs. They also created specialized Mat classes for SHARE a self help organization for women with breast or ovarian cancer, and a Pilates Mat warm up for the cast of the Broadway Musical “The Lion King.”

In 2003 Michael and Ton resigned from Romana’s organization to pursue their own path. Together they developed and created - the revolutionary TRIADBALL™ the first ball of its size created specifically for the Pilates method, The Pilates TRIADBALL™ Manual published by OPTP and numerous DVDs (commercial and educational). Michael and Ton also used their knowledge and experience to create and set up several customized independently owned and operated full Pilates certification programs internationally: The Skandinavisk Pilates Institute in Norway, Pilates System Europe in Austria, Stichting Pilates Instituut in The Netherlands, Pilates Tradicional in Portugal, Classical Pilates in England and EsPilates in Costa Rica.

Michael and Ton are also experts in what is commonly known as the Joseph Pilates’ archival exercises and were two of the first teachers to teach these exercises in Continuing Education workshops. Together they serve on a task force for Inner IDEA, the advisory board of AFPA, and are guest faculty Teacher Trainers for Brooke Siler’s re:AB® Pilates Teacher Training Program in NYC. They were also consultants for the National Pilates Program at Equinox.


In their private practice, they have worked with numerous A-list celebrities and have appeared in TV segments on ABC, NBC, FOX, Oxygen, and Lifetime and their work has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, including: Pilates Style,Self, More, Time Out New York, New York Post, PilatesPro.com, Pilates Stretching Journal - Italy, Pilates Das Magazin - Germany, and others.

Michael is a certified Pilates Instructor, Pilates Teacher Trainer, Personal Trainer, gravitypilates® trainer and gravitygroup: strength trainer and Reiki Practitioner. He is a former performer, with Broadway National and International credits as a performer, dance-captain, stage manager, and resident director.