Privilege is often blind and rampant across societies. But is the term also overused?Derek looks at two examples of privilege in wellness spaces, the danger of its overuse, and a possible reframing of how to approach the topic.
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I taught a lunchtime yoga class at the Equinox on 74th and 2nd shortly after the club opened.
Probably 2007-2008.
It was one of those classes that slowly form a community.
So after a few months of being there, you had the same 10 or 15 people there religiously, and then of course you'd have people coming in and out somewhat regularly, irregularly, or just once in a while.
The way the room was structured was this weird L shape.
So generally, when you walked into the room, about two-thirds of the way in, and everyone faced one direction, at least the way that I taught it.
But if somebody walked in and everyone was in a position such as, say, downward dog, they would see the person walking in.
Now, I had three laws, or rules, that I was pretty adamant about throughout my teaching career.
One was not to wear your shoes into the room.
And this was common throughout yoga studios, and it was also posted outside of the door at all Equinox locations.
So there was precedent.
Of course, some people didn't like to listen, but I would always let people know if I saw them coming in with their shoes on to put them outside where there was always space.
I receive pushback 10 or 15% of the time, most of the time people understood or had just forgotten.
And there are two reasons for this, and one is a little bit more philosophical, and one is sanitary.
The philosophical one is the one that I learned, just very basically in the sense that when you enter a space that is meant for focus and healing or meditation, whatever that is, to leave the instrument that carries you throughout the world outside.
Your shoes are what you use to walk around throughout society.
But when you enter that space, it's time to even symbolically leave it.
Now, in a location like Equinox, I didn't really talk about that much.
I didn't always get deep into the philosophy because it's a different environment and I was always aware of my environment when I taught there.
The other one that I think anyone can understand, especially now that we've gone through a pandemic, is just sanitary.
People are walking around with their out-there shoes on.
Their hands are walking around.
Sometimes their hands are put on the floor.
Just don't bring whatever's on the bottom of your shoes into that space.
And people generally will understand that a little bit better if they, say, aren't on the same philosophical mindset of that yoga tradition.
The second one was no phones in the room.
I have seen phones being used in a variety of ways throughout my years of teaching, including one woman texting someone while she was in half-moon pose with her grounding hand.
I've been in the middle of intense flows when I'll watch people just drop to their knees because they just wanted to scroll through Instagram.
Like, these are things you had to deal with, and I would call people out again.
Often, to my detriment in some ways, in terms of them complaining to management, but if you're going to create a structure for a class, you have to stick to it.
Over time, I would be a little bit more forgiving in the sense that I would go by them and just tell them not to do that instead of yelling across the room.
But I think accountability is important in these environments.
And the third one is to be on time.
There are people who are there, they have one hour in their day to work out, to de-stress, to have an experience, whatever that is.
And it's very disruptive if people are coming in early or coming in late, leaving early, moving around.
When the class starts, From that moment, no one else should enter the room.
Now, Equinox had a policy that you're allowed to enter up to 10 minutes late with instructor approval.
And sometimes people would look at me from outside the door and ask, even under 10 minutes, and they would ask.
And usually, I mean, under 10 minutes was always fine unless the room was too crowded.
But the after 10 minute mark, It's not just about not letting people in and being disruptive.
It's also the first 10 to 15 minutes of my flow was the warm-up.
I'm not going to let you into a space where you haven't warmed up and immediately start doing more challenging transitions and postures.
That just is not a good look on the instructor's part.
And the reality is, just be on time.
Like, you're wasting everyone's time if you're late to something.
Now, that said, teaching for so long in New York City, subway issues, you know, there's a myriad of problems that can make you late on occasion.
In Los Angeles, where I was teaching up until the pandemic, driving, you never know when an accident's gonna happen.
There are many things that could Make you late once in a while.
And in that sense, if that was the case, it's not a problem.
You got there.
You're probably stressed already.
You only have 45 minutes left, but you want to move and just get that out of you.
Understandable.
One day at that 74th and 2nd Street class, I had someone walk in about a half an hour through a one hour class.
I had never seen her before.
I've never seen her since.
But she walked in, and everyone was in down dog as it was, and she put her mat down near the back of the class.
And I walked back there, and at this point, everyone had just done a sequence, and they were taking a moment in down dog to stretch or relax.
And I said, you can't come in now.
This is not an appropriate time.
We're halfway through.
And her reaction was one of pure shock that I would entertain the idea that she couldn't come in when she wanted, which has happened a number of times before that.
Usually the person will just huff, leave their mat down and storm out of the room.
Instead, she picked up her mat, and the back of the room was where all the equipment was and the stereo and everything, took the mat and whipped it against the wall there with all the equipment.
All of the 20 people or so in the room at the time watch it happening, turns back to me, sticks out her tongue, and then walks out the room, storms out the room, really.
This is a grown woman in a midtown Manhattan lunchtime weekday class.
And when she walked out, there was that moment of silence and then someone started laughing and it kind of broke the tension.
I, that's the only thing I could have done at that moment as well, because how else could you respond to that?
But that is an edge case, right?
I can remember my 17 years of teaching that incident happening once.
I have other incidents in my arsenal, but we'll just work with that one today.
But it brings up the idea of privilege in wellness spaces.
And I wanna take this time and this bonus to talk about three aspects.
Another example, a little more holistic looking example of privilege in wellness slash yoga space.
The second part is what happens when privilege is used inappropriately or too often as if you can't even then interject nuance into conversations because the topic of privilege is always present in the minds of the critics.
And the third part is, what do we do about this?
Which will be a little bit more anecdotal and philosophical, I admit, but that's what we have to work with when we're dealing with these subjects.
