This Is Not a Pilates Takedown Blog, But We Do Need to Talk
When Wellness Trends Move In
For a more chatty version of this, I finally got around to updating the pod.
As always, your conversation in the comments is greately appreciated. This is how we all learn, grow and more people are invited into the conversation.
The group chat has been blowing up about the Pilates takeover and the love / hate / fear / confusion that change and uncertainty always stir up. Our global yoga community has been feeling a bit invaded and surrounded by what feels, to so many, like a closing in of the walls of cities and small towns by reformers, cropped tops, and matcha lattes.
This moment reminds me of about 15 years ago when SoulCycle popped up, out of nowhere for so many of us indie yoga studios in NYC, with their Polaroid wall perfectly filled up with faces formulated in a perfect square above the new height of the intimidating check-in table, only seeing the eyeballs. Who were these people in the Polaroids, we all wondered? They hadn’t even opened yet.
Meanwhile, us and a handful of mom-and-pop spots signed our lease, brought our couch over and a card table, and called it a waiting room, and we were open for yoga for anyone excited to come. We made it work and loved being for the people.
We started the Polaroid trend of before-and-after “results” measured in how goofy of a face we felt like making after a good practice and how fluffed up our hair got from our own body heat, not a heated room.
People brought cool things from home to add to the ambiance. A latch-hooked E.T. pillow my brother made in 4-H when he was 9, and some quilts my grandma made, turned our waiting room into a cozy living room for everyone.
The waiting room evolved into being an actual “safe space” for all of us. Before language of inclusion was normalized, we knew we needed each other to be well. We lived and loved it. Community became family.
Yes, we were afraid when SoulCycle came in, and soon they had a competitor, Flywheel, and no one saw Peloton coming, but now we’re getting into pandemic territory.
Back then, we thought no one would take a $30 fitness class. They did. Some folks stopped coming, even though we cost less and had better vibes. Some people checked it out and never came back. Some people stayed. Everyone talked about these changes, and we just kept doing our best to do our best.
New people came. We kept being us.
The lesson is, and maybe always is, when you do a good job, you will always find your people. The world is full of so many people. Just because someone is doing something else, doesn’t even mean that person is choosing that over your thing, but there is someone around the corner, hanging out on a park bench, reading a book, who is about to discover how awesome your offering is and become a community member and natural ambassador for life.
I grew up as a dancer. I did a summer program at the Colorado Ballet, and the teachers took us over to a Pilates palace to fix our turnout and alignment. The reformer was for information about our position, and then we were sent off, back to dance, to put it into practice.
Dance and Pilates have a partnership of alignment, therapy, and often recovery from injury, but we never got a matcha latte or a gift bag, but that’s ok too!
When I first started to get a lot of gigs early in my career, one of them was a yoga DVD with Jane Fonda, and as a bonus, the production team sprung on me that I would also be teaching Pilates.
Pilates is not new for therapy. It’s not new for fitness. But it is new that wellness extremism has scooped it up a bit.
Respect People, Not Systems
I’m not a purist, and I’ve had my fair share of criticism for taking the tradition out of yoga. But from my perspective, I do my best to take the abuse out of what we are passing on as the living tradition of yoga, and this takes not just me, but everyone who leads, with all their background, experience, and desire to evolve for a better way.
To evolve for a better way means not only looking at abusive outcomes and kicking out the criminals, but examining the systems of the actual practice they created that foster the ability for people to slide into abusive relationships. Rigidity, pushing people into poses, guru-teacher relationships, misplaced reverence for the teacher, and countless issues with the actual way the practice has been “traditionally” passed down.
Instead of respecting systems, I believe we need to respect people.
My dance background laid the foundation for me to look at yoga as a way to move well, connect with breath and body, notice how you feel, and most importantly, respond with care. Spirituality, if you need to call it that, becomes you, being a really good person, in every moment, the best you can.
So much of yoga wrongly teaches us to practice suffering for some promised better way. The fact is, when you practice suffering, you get good at suffering and are more vulnerable to injury and abuse. This isn’t opinion. It’s fact.
It doesn’t mean that your practice is only beneficial if you are laying on the couch resting, although rest is great. It means that to improve, we need to understand how to be moveable so we can be moved by our breath, our ideas, and each other.
We need to allow our breath-body connection to support, lift, release, and relax us in the middle of something simple and all of life’s challenges. We need to learn how to move our whole selves in harmony, not in an isolated, disconnected way. We need to learn how to unweight and use what we need, rest what we don’t.
A better way isn’t, “Oh yeah, that’s great. Let’s do that. Done and let’s go.” It’s a mental and emotional challenge to undo what we have digested as belief that is harmful to ourselves and others.
So back to Pilates.
Whether you love it, hate it, or don’t care about it, it’s having a big moment, paved by a decade or so of well-funded barre chains. There are a lot of awesome Pilates teachers out there, and a lot of great fusion classes, and a lot of positive benefits and inspiring people who have created positive communities centering around self-care and all sorts of good stuff. I’m sure they too have made similar observations and many have similar fears and concerns about saturation.
We need to look at why there is a chunk of Pilates that is so easy to poke fun of and is plainly superficial, only about getting a certain look, and plainly wrong, all about “no pain, no gain” and enduring suffering.
We need to look at our culture and ask: how did we go from Michael Pollan’s conclusion from his journalistic efforts, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” and a decade or so of common-sense wellbeing, to an industry of wellness extremism, wellness wealthy aspiration lifestyle, and yes, the Pilates and matcha latte bubble?
We might want to look at how we got here, what we are valuing, and most importantly, what we want to put into the world.
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Join us In Person
Effingham Illinois. Join us on Saturdays (when I’m in town) for an easy going Energize Yoga class. I’m so excited to be a part of this midwestern, artsy community. If you’re making a trip out of it, send me a note and I’ll send you all the good spots to visit! RSVP your space
Mattoon Illinois. I’m excited to lead an Energize class at Mattoon Yoga Collective this Sunday, May 24. It’s a blessing to be so welcomed by so many awesome people here in our local community. RSVP here.
Kansas City, MO. July 25-26. I’m so excited to offer our weekend intensive a little closer to home for so many in our community. Join us at Maya Yoga, July 25-26 for the Strala Weekend 20+Hour Intensive. RSVP your space here.
Amsterdam, Netherlands. September 19-20. It’s a homecoming for sure to Amsterdam. We’ve been a couple times a year for many years and this will be my first time back since the pandemic. It will be so good to see everyone. Amsterdam is a great city with great people to visit if you want to make a trip out of it! RSVP your space here.
Weekend of Softness, Metzingen, Germany, Sept 26-27. I’m joining longtime Strala Guide and partner studio owner Anna Rampf, to celebrate our community in a weekend of softness and connection. You’ll love Metzingen, it’s so nice. RSVP here.
