Brief history about Juliu Horvath,

Founder and Creator
of the GYROTONIC® Method

The GYROTONIC Expansion System®  was created by Romanian-born Hungarian Juliu Horvath.

He began to study dance when he was 19, and by the time he was 21 was a principal dancer for the Romanian National Ballet Company.

While on tour in Italy in 1970, he defected from Romania. After receiving political asylum in the United States, he moved to New York City. During the 1970’s, Juliu danced with the New York City Opera and was a guest artist at Radio City Music Hall where he was a featured performer dancing with international stars such as Margot Fonteyn, Jacques d’ Amboise and Melissa Hayden. While with the Houston Ballet, Juliu ruptured his Achilles tendon, bringing his dancing career to a sudden halt.

 

After this injury he moved to the island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1977. There he built a small, one-room hut in the mountains and spent the next six years studying yoga and meditation. During this time he gained new insights into movement and healing, and from these insights he began to create his own unique exercise method. He called this system Yoga for Dancers.” In the beginning, most of Juliu’s students were professional dancers.

As demand for his classes grew, and the diversity of his clientele increased, Juliu refined Yoga for Dancers, creating a class format that almost any person could perform, regardless of age or state of health. He named this refined version of Yoga for Dancers the Gyrokinesis Method. Juliu continued to develop and refine what is called today the Gyrotonic Method, and his world-renowned Gyrotonic equipment.

 

The Gyrotonic Expansion System has now grown to encompass over 13,000 Trainers in 84 countries. Juliu continues to create new programming for the Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis Methods. He also conducts teacher training courses internationally, and continues to develop new Gyrotonic equipment and refine existing equipment designs.