The down side of yoga
Posted by:
openmindedsceptic
()
Date: January 03, 2014 05:06AM
Tuesday, Dec 31, 2013 07:47 AM EST
Yoga, spinning and a murder: My strange months at Lululemon
I worked at Lululemon the year an employee at another store was murdered by a co-worker. Here's what it was like
Mary MannEnlarge (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
“The best thing is, we’ll pay for your yoga, spinning, kickboxing — whatever! You’ll save so much money!” said the Lululemon manager during my interview. “Plus, you’ll be so healthy you won’t even need to worry about health insurance!”
“Fantastic! I love exercise!” I replied, smiling broadly and flexing slightly, hoping to land the job solely through enthusiasm and muscle tone. I had no retail experience, but I was tired of working at restaurants, and this seemed like a respectable place to bide my time and the easiest way to make money while I searched for something better. Free yoga, discounts on expensive clothes, a prime location in Union Square. At Lululemon, salesgirls are called educators and customers are called guests, a touch of class that helps to justify both the $100 yoga pants and the hours of life spent selling them.
I got the job, becoming a Lululemon educator one week after moving to New York. It was the first real thing I’d accomplished in the city, besides convincing an old co-counselor from camp to let me crash on his couch in Stuytown, where I slept in a living room dominated by games — Xbox, Wii, even an electronic putting green — belying the serious nature of my quest for a job, a life, that mattered.
Lululemon employee training was so tightly scheduled, I couldn’t help feeling like I was part of something important. Ten of us, new hires from Lululemons across Manhattan, gathered every day for about a week before any actual work began. After group yoga, the mornings were for lectures on willpower and videos on the importance of goal setting starring company founder Chip Wilson (“Oh, just call him Chip,” giggled one of the managers). Afternoons were for group folding sessions: long pants in fourths, capris and tanks in thirds, headbands and underwear in half; wrinkles smoothed with the flat of your hand.
Evenings were spent poring over the required reading: Jim Collins’ corporate self-help book “Good to Great,” which Chip was obsessed with. The message: “Good is the enemy of great,” don’t settle for a mediocre life. “Yes! Exactly,” I exclaimed — after all, wasn’t that why I’d left my Indiana hometown? Being hired by Lululemon began to feel almost providential.
On the eve of our first day on the job, all of us trainees got together for a last hurrah in the basement of the SoHo store. We drank kombucha and ate gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free cookies from Whole Foods while we crafted goal sheets: lists of our life goals for the next 10 years, to be framed and hung on the walls of our respective stores.
This put me in a bit of a pickle, since my goal was to leave as soon as I found an office job with benefits. But now Lululemon had invested so much time in what was called my “development.” Perhaps, as my empty goal sheet suggested, I really did need their help. After several crappy jobs, the steadiness of 9-to-5 was appealing — not having to run around, sweating, sucking up to people, dependent on tips — as was the idea of helping to make something that would last. But what would that look like? I liked to read, so I’d mostly been applying for editing positions. But I couldn’t write down such a half-baked goal for all to see.
Under the guise of getting another hemp-seed cookie, I leaned over and read my neighbor’s goals: run a marathon, do yoga teacher training, buy a country house. Easy enough. I copied her. I’d figure out my real goals later.
The first few days of work were heady, accompanied as they were by a flood of endorphins: spin class at 6 a.m., vinyasa flow at 8 p.m.; Saturday morning run clubs in the park and Sunday morning yoga classes in the store. Exercise — what sort, how often, the afterglow — was the main topic of in-store conversation, so if you skipped a day it was obvious and people asked if you were feeling OK. We were encouraged to choose our favorite method of exercise, but it was best if it was something other people liked too, since “The team that sweats together stays together!”
While everyone had something else they wanted to be — their “passion” — it always seemed to fit within the Lululemon rubric. I went on runs with Jo the marathoner who also made handbags; spinning with Catherine the triathlete who was also a dancer; yoga classes with Sam, who was also an actor and a personal trainer. “I spent my life trying not to be careless,” he rasped in his best Vito Corleone impression. “Real men stretch before they run.”
As a group we trooped from SpinCycle to YogaWorks to Jivamukti and back in brightly colored spandex. The instant camaraderie was appealing. In order to fit in, I avoided my favorite vices: baked goods, beer, Russian novels (“Such a downer!” Jo noted with an exaggerated frown upon spying “Anna Karenina” in my cubby).
We were positive. We were healthy. We were enthusiastic. While retail employees at American Apparel or Forever 21 might spend their half-hour breaks eating pizza or smoking in the alley, my co-workers and I did sit-ups and headstands, read the self-help books in the employee library, and talked shit about gluten. “Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life,” Catherine might read aloud from “Good to Great” while two juice-fasting co-workers balanced on their hands in the break room, which was really just a fluorescent-lit corner of the stockroom.
The setting left something to be desired, but the message was enticing. Who wouldn’t want a great life? And some days it seemed like it was really possible. At one mandatory meeting, during which we discussed the merits of the paleo diet over chia seed pudding, Catherine was asked to talk about her experience with Landmark, a sort of group therapy-cum-self-help seminar that any Lululemon employee was invited to attend, gratis, after six months of work. A $600 life change, courtesy of Chip.
“It’s amazing,” she said, shaking her head at the inexpressible wonder of her own memories. “God, how do I begin? I grew so much over that weekend. The most empowering part was, you learn that everything is a story. So, like, if I’m sad, that’s my story. If I want to be happy, all I do is change my story! You can make your life look however you want. It was a huge breakthrough.”
Everyone clapped. I grimaced, feeling a rumble in my stomach that was either chia seed pudding or anxiety. How did everyone know exactly what they wanted their stories to be? I couldn’t even manage an honest goal sheet. And, though I applied rather aimlessly to two or three each day, I still hadn’t found an office job. By Lululemon logic, this probably meant I hadn’t properly written my story. But what should I be wanting instead?
Sam encouraged me to look for answers in yoga teacher training. “You’ll really deepen your practice,” he said. “And, you know, make some money.” Catherine, meanwhile, offered a ready-made story for me to adopt as my own. “Do you think Ocean would wear this?” she asked one day, modeling a purple hoodie and a pair of purple-and-white stretch pants in the break room. “Who’s Ocean?” I asked, and she sighed. “Who trained you? Ocean is our ideal customer. She does yoga every day, makes $100,000 a year, and dates a triathlete named Mountain.” I stared at her, nonplussed. Pityingly, she added: “Mary, we all want to be Ocean. That’s why we work here.”
“Won’t make $100,000 working retail,” I muttered, but fortunately she hadn’t heard. She was searching for an Ocean-appropriate headband. That night I sent out seven résumés: copywriter, editorial assistant, researcher, even a handful of unpaid internships. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I was getting a better idea of what I didn’t: to dream of a $100,000 life while living a $15,000 one.
Tired from days of constant exercise and nights of writing cover letters, I began to sell stretch pants in a daze. “Yeah yeah, your butt looks great in those,” I’d mutter to the skeletal wives of investment bankers. Two months in, my manager questioned my commitment to the store ethos. “Your attitude isn’t as positive and energetic as it was when you started,” she said. “Coming here should feel like a party!” Scared of losing my job, especially now that I’d finally found my own place, a loft share in Bushwick for $500 a month, I assured her that it did; it really did feel like a party.
Increasingly, I found more to dislike in the co-workers who had been my default friends: the platitudes of Sam the yogi, dietary pressures from Jo the paleo, Catherine’s insistence that all my problems with the new schedule — which had me on the floor six days a week, making it harder to schedule interviews for jobs I wasn’t qualified for anyway — were a story that just needed to be told a different way. They in turn found me too set in my ways, not open enough to positive change or becoming a better me. “For a yogini you sure are inflexible,” muttered Catherine as she folded capris in thirds.
The months went on. I worked in a sea of brightly colored stretch pants and body dysmorphia. I sweat at least once a day, every day. I floated from home to work and back in increasingly stinky lycra; more and more dissatisfied, but guilty for feeling so — the onus was on me to change my story, but I didn’t know how. And so I remained, in stasis and spandex.
Then one afternoon I got an email about an emergency meeting. The store was brightly lit when I arrived at 9 p.m., high from a SpinCycle class. I sat in lotus position like everyone else in a circle on the floor. Our manager took a deep yogic breath and told us the news: a Lululemon educator had been killed by burglars in a Maryland store.
She’d been closing up with another educator, and they’d both been attacked, brutalized, tied up. Only one of them had survived.
None of us knew how to respond. We were all so jacked up on exercise that it was actually hard to feel sad, though we did our best, holding a candlelight vigil in Union Square. “She was one of us,” we said to each other in shock. She had died on her way from good to great.
What it was not hard to feel was scared. Running sprints in the park had strengthened our fight or flight responses, and everyone was suddenly ultra-safety conscious. A new rule was instated that every closing shift had to include three people, instead of two, and always at least one male. Everyone left at the same time and we walked each other to our trains. I found comfort in this renewed solidarity with the very same co-workers I’d been increasingly annoyed with. It was us against the nameless, faceless bad guys.
A few days later I was home in my unheated apartment, enacting what had become my nightly ritual of eating sprouted almonds under an electric blanket while scouring online job boards, when I heard one of four new roommates shouting my name. “Yeah?” I shouted back.
“Dude! Did you hear the news?” Natalie, aspiring local newscaster and general busybody, cracked open my bedroom door and peered inside at me.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” Natalie stared back at me with horror, and reflexively I lifted my arm and sniffed. Sweating every day meant I was always a little gamey.
“That Lululemon girl who was murdered?” she prompted, and I nodded encouragingly, like the little boy on “Lassie” whenever she barked the location of a missing child.
“She was killed by that other Lululemon girl!” Natalie cried. “Read the news! It’s everywhere. Doesn’t that just make you feel so creepy? These are your people!” She took a step backward, out the door, as if I might jump out of bed and, unable to control my increasingly rippling muscles, strangle her on the spot.
I googled Lululemon. It was true: The educator did kill her co-worker, cutting herself and tying them both up afterward to make it look like a robbery.
In that moment, it seemed inevitable. As educators, we were pressed to be our best selves, treat life like a party, and never give up on greatness. If you were unhappy, angry, paranoid, just tell a different story. The idea that you could shape reality to look however you wanted suddenly seemed dangerous, easily abused, especially among my Type A co-workers, who exercised and worked and exercised and worked and ate so little that it was not really a surprise that someone, eventually, snapped.
I wondered what had been on the murderer’s goal sheet.
The Lululemon murder was all over the Internet: Washington Post, Huffington Post, Slate, the Daily Mail. But for a group that liked to talk about our feelings, the news went surprisingly undiscussed among Lululemon staff; when anyone did talk about it, they did so in furtive, fearful whispers. There was no emergency meeting. If we’d had one, I thought, it probably would have felt too much like one of those murder mystery dinner parties: Who would be the next killer?
I knew it wasn’t as simple as all that. My co-workers were good people, if relentlessly positive and obsessed with muscle tone. Still, I found myself avoiding them, my heart speeding up whenever the store closed and it was just us. Sometimes I even hid behind the mannequins to gather my courage, but they were too slender to provide much coverage. When I raised a butter knife to slice into a gluten-free almond banana loaf at one of the mandatory meetings, my hand trembled. We were all tainted. Any one of us could be the next to crack. Even me. Perhaps especially me. After all, nobody else seemed so dissatisfied.
It didn’t take long for my co-workers to go back to the way things had been, debating the merits of kickboxing versus Krav Maga, chickpea flour versus almond meal. But my folding technique grew sloppier and sloppier, and I preferred to get my daily sweat on alone, even skipping days now and then. I also threw myself into job applications with renewed vigor. I hadn’t known what to do when I moved to New York, so Lululemon had seemed like a decent option, but it didn’t feel that way anymore. The murder reminded me of everything I’d been avoiding by hewing to the always happy Lululemon way of life: the anxiety of choice, the fear of failure; not trying to be Ocean but rather taking the risk to be me — baked goods, beer, downer books and all.
About a month after the murder, we had a staff meeting at which our manager named the next people who would be eligible for Landmark. My name was on the list. That meant I’d been there nearly six months. I began to cry, right there in front of everyone. My manager took me aside and asked if I needed to talk.
She’d prepared for an upsetting conversation, closing the office door and placing a new box of tissues on the desk. But it was actually a relief to hear corroboration that I wasn’t fitting in. It would have been smart to agree to let myself get fired. I’d heard this process was slow, and I could’ve collected two more weeks of pay and free yoga classes. I certainly needed the money. But what I said was: “I think I just need to quit.”
Two weeks later I’d be offered a copywriter position, one of the many jobs I’d applied for, but for two weeks I lived a life of uncertainty and cheap beer, anxiety and bagels. Jobless and alone in New York City, I’d gone from good to mediocre. If we write our own stories, this was not one to brag about. Certainly not a story Ocean would cop to. It wasn’t perfect, but it was honest, and it was mine.
Mary Mann (@mary_e_mann) is a columnist for Bookslut. Her work has appeared in The Hairpin, The Billfold, The Rumpus and New York Magazine. More Mary Mann.
[www.salon.com]
Yoga, spinning and a murder: My strange months at Lululemon
I worked at Lululemon the year an employee at another store was murdered by a co-worker. Here's what it was like
Mary MannEnlarge (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
“The best thing is, we’ll pay for your yoga, spinning, kickboxing — whatever! You’ll save so much money!” said the Lululemon manager during my interview. “Plus, you’ll be so healthy you won’t even need to worry about health insurance!”
“Fantastic! I love exercise!” I replied, smiling broadly and flexing slightly, hoping to land the job solely through enthusiasm and muscle tone. I had no retail experience, but I was tired of working at restaurants, and this seemed like a respectable place to bide my time and the easiest way to make money while I searched for something better. Free yoga, discounts on expensive clothes, a prime location in Union Square. At Lululemon, salesgirls are called educators and customers are called guests, a touch of class that helps to justify both the $100 yoga pants and the hours of life spent selling them.
I got the job, becoming a Lululemon educator one week after moving to New York. It was the first real thing I’d accomplished in the city, besides convincing an old co-counselor from camp to let me crash on his couch in Stuytown, where I slept in a living room dominated by games — Xbox, Wii, even an electronic putting green — belying the serious nature of my quest for a job, a life, that mattered.
Lululemon employee training was so tightly scheduled, I couldn’t help feeling like I was part of something important. Ten of us, new hires from Lululemons across Manhattan, gathered every day for about a week before any actual work began. After group yoga, the mornings were for lectures on willpower and videos on the importance of goal setting starring company founder Chip Wilson (“Oh, just call him Chip,” giggled one of the managers). Afternoons were for group folding sessions: long pants in fourths, capris and tanks in thirds, headbands and underwear in half; wrinkles smoothed with the flat of your hand.
Evenings were spent poring over the required reading: Jim Collins’ corporate self-help book “Good to Great,” which Chip was obsessed with. The message: “Good is the enemy of great,” don’t settle for a mediocre life. “Yes! Exactly,” I exclaimed — after all, wasn’t that why I’d left my Indiana hometown? Being hired by Lululemon began to feel almost providential.
On the eve of our first day on the job, all of us trainees got together for a last hurrah in the basement of the SoHo store. We drank kombucha and ate gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free cookies from Whole Foods while we crafted goal sheets: lists of our life goals for the next 10 years, to be framed and hung on the walls of our respective stores.
This put me in a bit of a pickle, since my goal was to leave as soon as I found an office job with benefits. But now Lululemon had invested so much time in what was called my “development.” Perhaps, as my empty goal sheet suggested, I really did need their help. After several crappy jobs, the steadiness of 9-to-5 was appealing — not having to run around, sweating, sucking up to people, dependent on tips — as was the idea of helping to make something that would last. But what would that look like? I liked to read, so I’d mostly been applying for editing positions. But I couldn’t write down such a half-baked goal for all to see.
Under the guise of getting another hemp-seed cookie, I leaned over and read my neighbor’s goals: run a marathon, do yoga teacher training, buy a country house. Easy enough. I copied her. I’d figure out my real goals later.
The first few days of work were heady, accompanied as they were by a flood of endorphins: spin class at 6 a.m., vinyasa flow at 8 p.m.; Saturday morning run clubs in the park and Sunday morning yoga classes in the store. Exercise — what sort, how often, the afterglow — was the main topic of in-store conversation, so if you skipped a day it was obvious and people asked if you were feeling OK. We were encouraged to choose our favorite method of exercise, but it was best if it was something other people liked too, since “The team that sweats together stays together!”
While everyone had something else they wanted to be — their “passion” — it always seemed to fit within the Lululemon rubric. I went on runs with Jo the marathoner who also made handbags; spinning with Catherine the triathlete who was also a dancer; yoga classes with Sam, who was also an actor and a personal trainer. “I spent my life trying not to be careless,” he rasped in his best Vito Corleone impression. “Real men stretch before they run.”
As a group we trooped from SpinCycle to YogaWorks to Jivamukti and back in brightly colored spandex. The instant camaraderie was appealing. In order to fit in, I avoided my favorite vices: baked goods, beer, Russian novels (“Such a downer!” Jo noted with an exaggerated frown upon spying “Anna Karenina” in my cubby).
We were positive. We were healthy. We were enthusiastic. While retail employees at American Apparel or Forever 21 might spend their half-hour breaks eating pizza or smoking in the alley, my co-workers and I did sit-ups and headstands, read the self-help books in the employee library, and talked shit about gluten. “Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life,” Catherine might read aloud from “Good to Great” while two juice-fasting co-workers balanced on their hands in the break room, which was really just a fluorescent-lit corner of the stockroom.
The setting left something to be desired, but the message was enticing. Who wouldn’t want a great life? And some days it seemed like it was really possible. At one mandatory meeting, during which we discussed the merits of the paleo diet over chia seed pudding, Catherine was asked to talk about her experience with Landmark, a sort of group therapy-cum-self-help seminar that any Lululemon employee was invited to attend, gratis, after six months of work. A $600 life change, courtesy of Chip.
“It’s amazing,” she said, shaking her head at the inexpressible wonder of her own memories. “God, how do I begin? I grew so much over that weekend. The most empowering part was, you learn that everything is a story. So, like, if I’m sad, that’s my story. If I want to be happy, all I do is change my story! You can make your life look however you want. It was a huge breakthrough.”
Everyone clapped. I grimaced, feeling a rumble in my stomach that was either chia seed pudding or anxiety. How did everyone know exactly what they wanted their stories to be? I couldn’t even manage an honest goal sheet. And, though I applied rather aimlessly to two or three each day, I still hadn’t found an office job. By Lululemon logic, this probably meant I hadn’t properly written my story. But what should I be wanting instead?
Sam encouraged me to look for answers in yoga teacher training. “You’ll really deepen your practice,” he said. “And, you know, make some money.” Catherine, meanwhile, offered a ready-made story for me to adopt as my own. “Do you think Ocean would wear this?” she asked one day, modeling a purple hoodie and a pair of purple-and-white stretch pants in the break room. “Who’s Ocean?” I asked, and she sighed. “Who trained you? Ocean is our ideal customer. She does yoga every day, makes $100,000 a year, and dates a triathlete named Mountain.” I stared at her, nonplussed. Pityingly, she added: “Mary, we all want to be Ocean. That’s why we work here.”
“Won’t make $100,000 working retail,” I muttered, but fortunately she hadn’t heard. She was searching for an Ocean-appropriate headband. That night I sent out seven résumés: copywriter, editorial assistant, researcher, even a handful of unpaid internships. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I was getting a better idea of what I didn’t: to dream of a $100,000 life while living a $15,000 one.
Tired from days of constant exercise and nights of writing cover letters, I began to sell stretch pants in a daze. “Yeah yeah, your butt looks great in those,” I’d mutter to the skeletal wives of investment bankers. Two months in, my manager questioned my commitment to the store ethos. “Your attitude isn’t as positive and energetic as it was when you started,” she said. “Coming here should feel like a party!” Scared of losing my job, especially now that I’d finally found my own place, a loft share in Bushwick for $500 a month, I assured her that it did; it really did feel like a party.
Increasingly, I found more to dislike in the co-workers who had been my default friends: the platitudes of Sam the yogi, dietary pressures from Jo the paleo, Catherine’s insistence that all my problems with the new schedule — which had me on the floor six days a week, making it harder to schedule interviews for jobs I wasn’t qualified for anyway — were a story that just needed to be told a different way. They in turn found me too set in my ways, not open enough to positive change or becoming a better me. “For a yogini you sure are inflexible,” muttered Catherine as she folded capris in thirds.
The months went on. I worked in a sea of brightly colored stretch pants and body dysmorphia. I sweat at least once a day, every day. I floated from home to work and back in increasingly stinky lycra; more and more dissatisfied, but guilty for feeling so — the onus was on me to change my story, but I didn’t know how. And so I remained, in stasis and spandex.
Then one afternoon I got an email about an emergency meeting. The store was brightly lit when I arrived at 9 p.m., high from a SpinCycle class. I sat in lotus position like everyone else in a circle on the floor. Our manager took a deep yogic breath and told us the news: a Lululemon educator had been killed by burglars in a Maryland store.
She’d been closing up with another educator, and they’d both been attacked, brutalized, tied up. Only one of them had survived.
None of us knew how to respond. We were all so jacked up on exercise that it was actually hard to feel sad, though we did our best, holding a candlelight vigil in Union Square. “She was one of us,” we said to each other in shock. She had died on her way from good to great.
What it was not hard to feel was scared. Running sprints in the park had strengthened our fight or flight responses, and everyone was suddenly ultra-safety conscious. A new rule was instated that every closing shift had to include three people, instead of two, and always at least one male. Everyone left at the same time and we walked each other to our trains. I found comfort in this renewed solidarity with the very same co-workers I’d been increasingly annoyed with. It was us against the nameless, faceless bad guys.
A few days later I was home in my unheated apartment, enacting what had become my nightly ritual of eating sprouted almonds under an electric blanket while scouring online job boards, when I heard one of four new roommates shouting my name. “Yeah?” I shouted back.
“Dude! Did you hear the news?” Natalie, aspiring local newscaster and general busybody, cracked open my bedroom door and peered inside at me.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” Natalie stared back at me with horror, and reflexively I lifted my arm and sniffed. Sweating every day meant I was always a little gamey.
“That Lululemon girl who was murdered?” she prompted, and I nodded encouragingly, like the little boy on “Lassie” whenever she barked the location of a missing child.
“She was killed by that other Lululemon girl!” Natalie cried. “Read the news! It’s everywhere. Doesn’t that just make you feel so creepy? These are your people!” She took a step backward, out the door, as if I might jump out of bed and, unable to control my increasingly rippling muscles, strangle her on the spot.
I googled Lululemon. It was true: The educator did kill her co-worker, cutting herself and tying them both up afterward to make it look like a robbery.
In that moment, it seemed inevitable. As educators, we were pressed to be our best selves, treat life like a party, and never give up on greatness. If you were unhappy, angry, paranoid, just tell a different story. The idea that you could shape reality to look however you wanted suddenly seemed dangerous, easily abused, especially among my Type A co-workers, who exercised and worked and exercised and worked and ate so little that it was not really a surprise that someone, eventually, snapped.
I wondered what had been on the murderer’s goal sheet.
The Lululemon murder was all over the Internet: Washington Post, Huffington Post, Slate, the Daily Mail. But for a group that liked to talk about our feelings, the news went surprisingly undiscussed among Lululemon staff; when anyone did talk about it, they did so in furtive, fearful whispers. There was no emergency meeting. If we’d had one, I thought, it probably would have felt too much like one of those murder mystery dinner parties: Who would be the next killer?
I knew it wasn’t as simple as all that. My co-workers were good people, if relentlessly positive and obsessed with muscle tone. Still, I found myself avoiding them, my heart speeding up whenever the store closed and it was just us. Sometimes I even hid behind the mannequins to gather my courage, but they were too slender to provide much coverage. When I raised a butter knife to slice into a gluten-free almond banana loaf at one of the mandatory meetings, my hand trembled. We were all tainted. Any one of us could be the next to crack. Even me. Perhaps especially me. After all, nobody else seemed so dissatisfied.
It didn’t take long for my co-workers to go back to the way things had been, debating the merits of kickboxing versus Krav Maga, chickpea flour versus almond meal. But my folding technique grew sloppier and sloppier, and I preferred to get my daily sweat on alone, even skipping days now and then. I also threw myself into job applications with renewed vigor. I hadn’t known what to do when I moved to New York, so Lululemon had seemed like a decent option, but it didn’t feel that way anymore. The murder reminded me of everything I’d been avoiding by hewing to the always happy Lululemon way of life: the anxiety of choice, the fear of failure; not trying to be Ocean but rather taking the risk to be me — baked goods, beer, downer books and all.
About a month after the murder, we had a staff meeting at which our manager named the next people who would be eligible for Landmark. My name was on the list. That meant I’d been there nearly six months. I began to cry, right there in front of everyone. My manager took me aside and asked if I needed to talk.
She’d prepared for an upsetting conversation, closing the office door and placing a new box of tissues on the desk. But it was actually a relief to hear corroboration that I wasn’t fitting in. It would have been smart to agree to let myself get fired. I’d heard this process was slow, and I could’ve collected two more weeks of pay and free yoga classes. I certainly needed the money. But what I said was: “I think I just need to quit.”
Two weeks later I’d be offered a copywriter position, one of the many jobs I’d applied for, but for two weeks I lived a life of uncertainty and cheap beer, anxiety and bagels. Jobless and alone in New York City, I’d gone from good to mediocre. If we write our own stories, this was not one to brag about. Certainly not a story Ocean would cop to. It wasn’t perfect, but it was honest, and it was mine.
Mary Mann (@mary_e_mann) is a columnist for Bookslut. Her work has appeared in The Hairpin, The Billfold, The Rumpus and New York Magazine. More Mary Mann.
[www.salon.com]
What purpose excellence?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 03, 2014 11:44PM
In my 1930s edition of the Boy Scout manual, there is plenty of information on how to eat well, exercise, detailed information on first aid, and how to function as a team.
However, there is nothing specific about diet, or what belief system to follow. That was left for the individual to decide.
This cultivation of skill and personal excellence was not to make oneself special; the goal was and still is To become a good person, a trustworthy person -- become a good citizen.
And one feature of the Scout manual whether the 1930s or today was -- do service or show kindness to someone else, or clean up a mess.
This was called "Doing a good turn daily" -- with no expectation of publicity or personal gain.
And This still part of the Scout ethos today.
An interesting contrast with the environment described in the Salon article.
--------------------------
The recipes referred to in the article -- here are some citations.
paleo saturdays | seriously almond cookies - blog - LululemonNov 16, 2013 ... Combine almond flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon in a bowl. Use a fork to
mix and press out any clumps. In a separate bowl, combine ...
blog.lululemon.com/paleo-saturdays-seriously-almond-cookies/ - 58k - Cached - Similar pages
post-run pumpkin spice protein smoothie - blog | lululemon athleticaSep 6, 2013 ... ½ cup canned pumpkin; 1 cup almond milk; 2 frozen bananas; 2 dates; 1 scoop
of vanilla protein powder (optional); ½ tsp vanilla extract; sprinkle nutmeg,
cinnamon, cloves and ginger ... I will be trying this after spin class on Saturday
morning :) ... Thank you for this seasonal drink that is fun but still healthy!
blog.lululemon.com/post-run-pumpkin-spice-protein-smoothie/ - 146k - Cached - Similar pages
Meals | TriorbustOct 12, 2013 ... Thursday: Rip and Ride (I think that means spin class… ... Gluten Free Meatballs;
Spicy Turkey Burgers; Mashed Cauliflower (how ... This is the plan: ... It's friendly
to my tummy and makes me focus on eating protein and healthy fats which I find
gives ... See what new stuff Lululemon Athletica comes out with.
www.triorbust.com/tag/meals/ - 38k - Cached - Similar pages
Perfectly fit - Gift Guide - MSN Healthy LivingLululemon Run Rise and Shine pant, $92, lululemon.com; Adidas by Stella ... I
get on the spinning bike to warm up and answer emails, make notes about ...
Fuel: “I always eat some form of protein, preferably egg whites with gluten-free
toast. .... not provide medical or any other health care advice, diagnosis or
treatment.
healthyliving.msn.com/fitness/gift-guide/perfectly-fit - 183k - Cached - Similar pages
However, there is nothing specific about diet, or what belief system to follow. That was left for the individual to decide.
This cultivation of skill and personal excellence was not to make oneself special; the goal was and still is To become a good person, a trustworthy person -- become a good citizen.
And one feature of the Scout manual whether the 1930s or today was -- do service or show kindness to someone else, or clean up a mess.
This was called "Doing a good turn daily" -- with no expectation of publicity or personal gain.
And This still part of the Scout ethos today.
An interesting contrast with the environment described in the Salon article.
--------------------------
The recipes referred to in the article -- here are some citations.
paleo saturdays | seriously almond cookies - blog - LululemonNov 16, 2013 ... Combine almond flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon in a bowl. Use a fork to
mix and press out any clumps. In a separate bowl, combine ...
blog.lululemon.com/paleo-saturdays-seriously-almond-cookies/ - 58k - Cached - Similar pages
post-run pumpkin spice protein smoothie - blog | lululemon athleticaSep 6, 2013 ... ½ cup canned pumpkin; 1 cup almond milk; 2 frozen bananas; 2 dates; 1 scoop
of vanilla protein powder (optional); ½ tsp vanilla extract; sprinkle nutmeg,
cinnamon, cloves and ginger ... I will be trying this after spin class on Saturday
morning :) ... Thank you for this seasonal drink that is fun but still healthy!
blog.lululemon.com/post-run-pumpkin-spice-protein-smoothie/ - 146k - Cached - Similar pages
Meals | TriorbustOct 12, 2013 ... Thursday: Rip and Ride (I think that means spin class… ... Gluten Free Meatballs;
Spicy Turkey Burgers; Mashed Cauliflower (how ... This is the plan: ... It's friendly
to my tummy and makes me focus on eating protein and healthy fats which I find
gives ... See what new stuff Lululemon Athletica comes out with.
www.triorbust.com/tag/meals/ - 38k - Cached - Similar pages
Perfectly fit - Gift Guide - MSN Healthy LivingLululemon Run Rise and Shine pant, $92, lululemon.com; Adidas by Stella ... I
get on the spinning bike to warm up and answer emails, make notes about ...
Fuel: “I always eat some form of protein, preferably egg whites with gluten-free
toast. .... not provide medical or any other health care advice, diagnosis or
treatment.
healthyliving.msn.com/fitness/gift-guide/perfectly-fit - 183k - Cached - Similar pages
Some comments on the Salon site for this article
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 04, 2014 05:01AM
Quote
Ano
This actually doesn't seem that bad... promoting positivity and a healthy lifestyle (though some of the coworkers seem to have taken it too far)...
... try working in a company where you're coworkers want nothing more than to tear down and spit you back out... esp. if you are educated and have potential to move on from there...
Quote
(name omitted for privacy)
I think that part of the reason that the other co-workers were described in a "two-dimensional manner" (criticism from someone else in this comments thread, think HELLNUT) is because they had to behave that way at work. I mean being happy and positive all the time? Who is really like that? A cult is a cult is a cult is a cult. Lululemon experienced what happens in all cults: a Jonestown Massacre moment. And if Scientology is not a testament to a truism, then let this article bear witness: cults can be very lucrative, if done right.
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keenplanner
How many times have I read the same news story over the past 20+ years: Disgruntled, cynical former employee or cult-member exposes odd foibles of a particular business or religious practice, while making all cast members (except herself, of course) into a platoon of 2-dimensional, kool-aid drinking paper dolls? Is this not the same mind set that fosters racism and homophobia
Ms. Mann may prove to be a decent writer-reporter some day. I hope that, on the way, she gains the ability to empathize with her subjects, and equip them with the dimensionality and humanity that all people deserve.?
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Prince Ali
My sister was roommates with the murderer at the time of the murder. I got to know this story from firsthand accounts. The motive behind the murder was a desire not to get caught for stealing from the store, as far as I have been able to gather. But this person was unstable to the point that my sister was just about to have that roommate-come-to-Jesus talk that we all have had with roommates in our lives. Unfortunately(fortunately?) this incident occurred before that happened. Scary! BTW, she met this person on Craigslist! What draws killers to Craigslist?
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Annie12
2 days ago
Great writing. Thank you
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buster
2 days ago
Wonderful writing. Lululemmon, or other Obsessive Compulsive 'lifestyles' certainly are not healthy. Glad you were able to escape this cult before it swallowed you whole, or worse, before your starving OCD co worker murdered you.
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Quickbeam
2 days ago
I found this piece wildly entertaining. Lululemon is commonly known amongst my yoga circle for separating trophy wives from their cash. The stores are noxious with cheer and flair.
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HELLNUT
2 days ago
Salon.com is now publishing creative writing exercises? This is piece is a girled up counterpart to the thing Salonran about that dude who punked Abercrombie. Identically precocious millenials trapped in a zany retail netherworld where they learn something fun but hard about life. How can you people possibly think this is real. More formulaic than a Palanhuik novel.
Flag
.Quote
Serai1
2 days ago
@HELLNUT She writes better than you do
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AlexandraStan
2 days ago
@HELLNUT mmm..I kinda like this story, formulaic though it may be. It emphasized a dangerous trend nowadays: where companies and corporations would want to swallow you in and shove all their lousy principles down your throat, thus killing your true self..But you may be right,it fitted into a pattern too snugly for it to be entirely genuine
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ht
2 days ago
Won't need health insurance? You'd better have health insurance for the day you get run over by a car while hauling groceries home from Whole Foods on your bicycle. Or your co-worker tries to kill you.
Quote
(Name omitted for privacy--Corboy)
3 days ago
Of all the dozens of first person "real stories" that I have read at Salon over the years, this is one of the few I actually enjoyed, probably the best I've read. I remember the murder at the Washington store, but I didn't know what "Lululemon" was apart from a retail chain. The culture reminds me a bit of the six months or so I spent in outside sales at a large telecommunications company while I waited for grad school to begin. We weren't going from "good to great," but rather "creating the future." How I survived six whole months still astonishes me.
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(Name omitted for privacy's sake--replying to above)
2 days ago
(omitted fr privacy) Just out of curiosity, you read these stories every time, even though the odds are probably less than 20/80 that you'll enjoy them? Do you also hit yourself on the head with a hammer once a week or so to see if it still hurts?
Quote
Saint Law
3 days ago
I clicked on this article because I was intrigued by the number of comments it had already garnered.
It deserves a lot of them - those commending it - as it is a fine piece of writing.
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ydnew64
3 days ago
Lululemon hired the murderer while ignoring the disturbing aspects of her past. She was caught stealing at another store, had some problems with the truth and killed the other girl because she caught her stealing. Rather than fire her from the first store they moved her to another and never let any of the other "educators" know anything about her background. The murderer pulled off her act of being a victim for a short period of time. She never showed any remorse or compassion for the woman she killed. Doesn't make Lululemon strange but Chip Wilson is no longer in charge. Probably that remark about how women with fat thighs shouldn't bother to shop at his store.
Quote
3 days ago
"...salesgirls are called educators and customers are called guests, a touch of class..."
This is still my favorite part.
That kind of horsepucky is to true class what Sarah Palin is to true governance.
Who is John Galt?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 04, 2014 05:15AM
Quote
mamalicious
3 days ago
@Amity I despise going to stores where I am a "guest." No, I'm not. I'm a customer and I'm in your store to buy things. If I was a guest, I'd expect you to buy me those yoga pants, take me out to dinner, and maybe do my laundry for me.
Quote
Serai1
2 days ago
@Amity Yeah, I thought that. After all, Disneyland calls its workers "cast members" and its customers "guests", as well. Words don't mean anything - it's how you treat your customers that counts, and the kind of yaya cheerleading hardsell approach at this store would have me out the door in less than a minute.
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another
3 days ago
It's telling that both kombucha and yoga are made-up, western-originated fads.
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peekah
2 days ago
@anotheror that western business visionaries have done such an incredibly thorough job at co-opting yoga, kombucha, etc and making it their own that the uninformed here mistake the manufactured fad for the entirety of the product/concept in question and its rich and lengthy cultural history elsewhere...
Quote
@Serai1
They're things people grow up doing in their backyards. The formal exercises weren't handed down to the Indians on a tablet from a mountain. And its age can be measured in mere centuries not millennia.
.Quote
Muhammad Lee
2 days ago
@anotherNot quite true, although both artifacts have been made unrecognizable by western culture/marketing. Yoga in India is a spiritual, not a physical, practice. To the extent that there is a physical aspect, the goal is to prepare one for long periods of sitting meditation, not to tone one's butt and abs. The word asana--one of the eight limbs of yoga--merely means to sit. To the extent that any of the familiar poses are authentic, they were not part of a systematic physical culture regimen. A religious ascetic would choose a favorite and stay in it for a long, long time. Days, weeks, months. Good for the atman? Maybe, but certainly not much for the glutes. Also, yoga was never meant to be a vehicle for the over the top, female prom queen perfectionism exemplified in the "Ocean" archetype. By the way, that's the funniest thing I've heard all week
Quote
peekah
16 hours ago
@Muhammad Lee@anotherin trendy fitness clubs (like those Lululemon caters to) the line between what counts as "yoga" vs. "Pilates" is excessively blurred. I'd almost venture a guess that our friend "another" here is confusing the two;-) Pilates is a 20th century western invention and oriented predominantly towards physical fitness as opposed to spiritual well-being. Joseph Pilates was a German-American gymnast, boxer and competitive skier, and his wife was a dancer. Martha Graham was among their initial disciples. The training method they devised was completely focused on enhancing athletic ability, with the aesthetic effects that come with being a more skillful boxer or agile ballerina.
Pardon the rant. I guess I just get annoyed with how interchangeable the two practices have become. I can only imagine it's a widespread cultural desire to experience something of "eastern mysticism" while toning one's abs that connects Lululemon to yoga, when there's a western method (largely inspired by yoga, no doubt) whose main goal is a rock-solid set of core muscles fit to withstand a sneaky left hook or a half dozen pirouettes in fast succession...
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Leslie
3 days ago
Does anybody know from where comes the strange name "Lululemon"? It doesn't sound like anything any mature person should take seriously.
Quote
Virginia Dentata
3 days ago
@Leslie
"He named his high-end yoga wear company Lululemon because he thinks the trouble Japanese people face pronouncing L's works as an extra marketing tool for his product in that country, according to a National Post Business Magazine article which awarded him a special citation for product innovation and marketing.
In the same article, Wilson went on to say "It's funny to watch them try and say it."" -- thetyee.ca (this passage was cited in the Business Insider listicle, "12 Utterly Bizarre Facts About the Rise of Lululemon".)
And why would it surprise anyone that Chip worships Ayn Rand to the point of printing "Who Is John Galt" on Lululemon shopping bags.
Quote
Leslie
3 days ago
@Virginia Dentata @Leslie
Thanks Virginia! A very interesting response!
It begs the question why he made the difficulty of pronunciation by Japanese the deciding factor for the naming of his brand. Are neither they nor their money welcome? An exercise in juvenileness? In another era, would he have had a sign in his stores: "No dogs or Japanese allowed"?
The real clincher was your last paragraph! Does this fool really put "Who is John Galt?" on his shopping bags? That tells me everything right there. It gives lie to his holistic "concerns" about his employees; all the crap about yoga and health is just a device to find employees who reflect and amplify the obsessions of the customers.
Those who feel that Ayn Rand's "philosophy" and influence have had a toxic influence on society and politics should avoid patronising these stores.
.Quote
Virginia Dentata
3 days ago
@Leslie@Virginia Dentata
The John Galt thing was another one of the "bizarre facts" mentioned in the Business Insider piece
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Muhammad Lee
2 days ago
@Leslie@Virginia Dentata Chip Wilson is a parasite economically, culturally, spiritually, and psychologically. It's natural that he should feel a connection to serial killer promoter Ayn Rand
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RoddyS
2 days ago
@LeslieExcellent. Sounds like an inedible cucumber from Madagascar or something.
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raleva30
3 days ago
It sounds like things are even worse now than they were 15 years ago when I got my first 9-5 job out of college. My starting pay was $19k/year with benefits to kick in only after 6 months.
The company encouraged total loyalty and enthusiasm with only tiny raises each year while the employees struggled to make ends meet. There was a vague promise of reward for (unacknowledged and unpaid) overtime (you had to get your work done, and it was more than what you could do in 8 hours / day sometimes) and dedication, new ideas, and contributing to the company's bottom line.
Then the company was sold by the grandson of the original owner to an investment banker, followed by mass layoffs, and it got worse. At a big meeting, the new CEO asked us all to "do more with less" and to "give 150%"). Of course with no raises, and in fact wage freezes, no more Christmas bonus (which was only a whopping $200-400 anyway), and a $50 / month new contributions all employees had to make toward their health insurance per person on it.
Morale went through the floor, and the investment banker "flipped" the company one year later, after selling the beautiful building and moving us all into a giant concrete building with wall to wall cubicles.
So many of their best and brightest young enthusiastic college grads who had been hired had been used up, burned out, and left in debt and unrewarded in any way. The company didn't seem interested in retaining any talent though. They could be short-sighted and didn't care if people quit and it would take 3 new cheaper fresh young grads to replace them... or if the work slipped and deadlines were missed... because the company flipped again by then. (That's right, flipped 2 times in my 4 years working there.)
I left after 4 years and found a job where I could work on commission... never again getting paid what someone else thought I was worth, but what I could earn myself.
I hate how corporate America is treating its young people. If I'd had the same amount of college debt as most young people do today (my own university's tuition has more than doubled since I graduated) I would still be in debt today (or only just now getting out of it in my late 30s.)
Good luck to all young people trying to get their careers started. It's a much meaner world than it used to be.
.Quote
@raleva30
I found the way the Lululemon employees are treated striking as well. It is a horrible commentary on the current job market that a company can actually get workers who will adopt a cult lifestyle all for minimum wage. In a healthy economy Lululemon would have a hard time recruiting people
(Next is a specimen of trivialization/belittling)
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Gerald Childs
3 days ago
Geez, I didn't know that such an experience qualified you to write a piece. I worked at a big box retailer as a kid; I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the world, someone who worked at the chain killed someone else who worked there.
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Ehmbe
3 days ago
@Gerald Childs There's a caveat, Gerald. You have to know how to write as well as she does.
ronocca
2 days ago
What's it like being you? Dumb nice people are still a blessing to society but dumb mean people like you deserve scorn and ridicule and are a puss-pocket of infection on society.
Flag
4LikeReply
A few more comments following the salon article
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 04, 2014 05:30AM
Quote
Bellinga
3 days ago
Sorry, this just sounds like a cult that lets you go home at night.
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Dr X
3 days ago
@Bellinga You think? That thought immediately came into my mind too. There are other full-on cults where people live at home, so I would say that it is a vanilla-flavored cult.
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ChillyDogg
3 days ago
@jhudson2
Yeah but you couldn't quit the Soviet Union.
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NP (fullname omitted for privacy)
3 days ago
@ChillyDogg @jhudson2 One still gets hungry quitting in a tough job market.
'Course pablum-swallowing brown-nosers never get fired, and will back-stab folks on the way up the corporate ladder. You'd know.
.Quote
PS (name omitted for privacy)
3 days ago
You could write a great satirical novel about some company like this. The conflict between greatness and so-called mediocrity is a conflict that can seed the growth of madness, as you saw yourself, slowly building madness with complications and consequences that can be thrilling and chilling. Storytelling gold. I wish I'd worked in a store like this. Seriously. You've learned things about conflict and repression that are like gold for a writer
(Corboy note: an aspiring writer may risk losing his or her creative spark unless he or she maintains social ties outside of Lululemon and takes care to eat his or her choice of diet. And takes care to get out before reaching a point where his or her fellow employees are invited to do Landmark.
When people are overtired through a combo of heavy exercise, ascetic diet, plus working hard in the store, they may lack the needed alertness to refuse participation in Landmark. Plus by that point it is human nature to bond with ones coworkers and if the rest of them do LEC, it is very difficult to be the only one to refuse. No matter how intelligent and well educated we become, we remain social creatures and thus, influenceable by our social group.
One has to choose ones social environment with care)
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I don't doubt for a second that a company like this age discriminates like all hell. They want youth and vitality, along with youthful enthusiasm, impressionableness and gullibility. I doubt many of their "educators" are over 30 or 35.
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Det. McKnight
3 days ago
The Murder of the Lululemon Supervisor Jayna Murray here in Bethesda MD had little to do with the 'cult' of Lululemon. Brittney Norwood bludgeoned Murray to death when she confronted her over a pair of stolen pants from the store, after they had closed the store together.
Norwood had a history of petty larceny in other Lululemon stores, and it was a managerial decision to move her to a new store instead of firing her (so much for the high hiring standards). That was a mistake which led to the murder.
Norwood was convicted of first degree murder and life (she was lucky, since MD at the time still had a provision for death penalty).
Murray was a well liked supervisor at the store and in fact had tried to have Norwood return the pants that evening.
I will also fault Lululemon for "reopening" the store (with a yoga meditation ceremony, no less). It creeps me out every time I walk by it. As opposed to Starbucks Coffee, who had a triple murder in Georgetown MD in 1997, but chose to close the store and sell the property.
A much earlier discussion of a troubled yogic relationship
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: January 11, 2014 11:07PM
Dear readers:
Years ago, someone wrote in expressing concern about a girlfriend who got involved with some kind of yoga situation, then abruptly wanted to drop everything.
The ensuing discussion is interesting - especially the rhetorical strategies used by one yoga advocate to frame valid concerns as paranoia.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Years ago, someone wrote in expressing concern about a girlfriend who got involved with some kind of yoga situation, then abruptly wanted to drop everything.
The ensuing discussion is interesting - especially the rhetorical strategies used by one yoga advocate to frame valid concerns as paranoia.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Re: The down side of yoga
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 07, 2014 01:15AM
One possible reason for the appeal of Ayn Rand and the Lululemon model?
There are plenty of ass flattering yoga clothes available. Hardtail. Prana.
What may distinguish Lululemon from the former isnt merely aesthetics and enthusiasm.
Perhaps the tingle is L might provide a tacit promise that one wears L products and especially one who lives the L lifestyle is an ontologically superior being.
This is the United States of America, where elitism has a dirty name.
But...if one hints at it, then this promise of elite status becomes a delicious secret. All the more to be relished because it is an unspoken secret.
"To tell men that they are equal has a certain sentimental appeal.
"But this appeal is small compared with that made by a propaganda that tells them that they are superior and that others are inferior to them."
Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato -
Volume 1, page 96 Princeton University Press, 1966
There are plenty of ass flattering yoga clothes available. Hardtail. Prana.
What may distinguish Lululemon from the former isnt merely aesthetics and enthusiasm.
Perhaps the tingle is L might provide a tacit promise that one wears L products and especially one who lives the L lifestyle is an ontologically superior being.
This is the United States of America, where elitism has a dirty name.
But...if one hints at it, then this promise of elite status becomes a delicious secret. All the more to be relished because it is an unspoken secret.
"To tell men that they are equal has a certain sentimental appeal.
"But this appeal is small compared with that made by a propaganda that tells them that they are superior and that others are inferior to them."
Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies: The Spell of Plato -
Volume 1, page 96 Princeton University Press, 1966
Manipulative Features of Ashrams & Gurus - Indians Report
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 07, 2014 01:17AM
------------
Discussion of 'Godman' set ups and ashram power dynamics and techniques as described by Indians -- surivors of guru abuse, reflections and descriptions by sociologists and psychologists.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Discussion of 'Godman' set ups and ashram power dynamics and techniques as described by Indians -- surivors of guru abuse, reflections and descriptions by sociologists and psychologists.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Dynamics of ashrams and gurus in India
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 09, 2014 05:15AM
This article is noteworthy because the writer and persons interviewed (both mental health professionals and survivors of guru abuse) are Indian.
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
This article describes the larger context of ego driven "yoga"
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: March 17, 2014 10:48PM
Yoga Tourism in India: I came across this unpublished manuscript by Kenneth Liberman, in an illuminating short paper on Ashtanga Yoga1. In a recent post, I used ideas from a separate paper of Liberman, to come up with a short checklist for finding yoga teachers & classes.
Virtual Satsang » Health - WordPress.comYoga Tourism in India: I came across this unpublished manuscript by Kenneth ....
Bullshit. We're Americans. We didn't grow up with this. It's not native to us.
virtualsatsang.wordpress.com/category/health-2/feed/ - 76k - Cached - Similar pages
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
"American yoga aspirants remain very much inside their own cultural universe and have minimal contact with Indian society, except for the commodified yoga they desire and receive. They cannot read any signs in the regional language, leam little about the politics or culture (“We’re only here for a few months”), and keep their focus upon their own practice of asana. The most appalling part of it is that many of them suffer from a smugness that is derived from having completed such a fine, advanced practice of asana early in the morming, entitling them to spend the rest of the day in idleness while bearing a feeling of superiority toward most any other person they meet during the day.
… "Young people seeking fitness, older people wanting to regain youth, most of them self-absorbed with a focused effort to become or remain attractive, focus their energies intently upon what each of them term “my practice.” For one or two hours they direct their energies (and in many cases this energy is abundant and highly directed) upon themselves. Only themselves. Each breath is a celebration of one’s body electric.
"It may be beautiful, but the danger is that it easily reinforces egotism and self-centeredness at the very time that one’s practice of yoga should be eradicating the self, egoistically conceived.
"In all fairness, it may be said that a yoga practitioner will inevitably meet other practitioners who are more adept at asana or run up against the limits of his or her body. But a sense of inadequacy is not actually the opposite of egoism, since it is just another form of self-absorption.
"If Patanjali is to be believed, spiritual lessons are indeed to be gained from a correct practice of asana, but when the practice is distorted by what is already most abundant in the culture – vanity, pleasure-seeking, and self-absorption – is there a fair chance for its cultivation? The metaphor of the camel that is able to pass through the eye of the needle seems appropriate here.
This virtual satsang site has some links worth looking at.
Profiles of seekers dedicated to the service of others.]
[www.google.com]
"Krishnan Narayanan abandoned his promising career as a high-end chef, to devote his life to care for the mentally ill who live on the streets of his native Madurai, India. Besides providing food on a regular basis, Krishnan also takes care of other basis needs such as providing access to clean clothes and baths. He is also in the process of raising money to complete his dream project of providing housing for 400 of his regular “clients”.
"These acts of kindness have serious implications for him personally. As a brahmin, he isn’t suppose to eat with, let alone bathe members of lower castes.
Virtual Satsang » Health - WordPress.comYoga Tourism in India: I came across this unpublished manuscript by Kenneth ....
Bullshit. We're Americans. We didn't grow up with this. It's not native to us.
virtualsatsang.wordpress.com/category/health-2/feed/ - 76k - Cached - Similar pages
[webcache.googleusercontent.com]
"American yoga aspirants remain very much inside their own cultural universe and have minimal contact with Indian society, except for the commodified yoga they desire and receive. They cannot read any signs in the regional language, leam little about the politics or culture (“We’re only here for a few months”), and keep their focus upon their own practice of asana. The most appalling part of it is that many of them suffer from a smugness that is derived from having completed such a fine, advanced practice of asana early in the morming, entitling them to spend the rest of the day in idleness while bearing a feeling of superiority toward most any other person they meet during the day.
… "Young people seeking fitness, older people wanting to regain youth, most of them self-absorbed with a focused effort to become or remain attractive, focus their energies intently upon what each of them term “my practice.” For one or two hours they direct their energies (and in many cases this energy is abundant and highly directed) upon themselves. Only themselves. Each breath is a celebration of one’s body electric.
"It may be beautiful, but the danger is that it easily reinforces egotism and self-centeredness at the very time that one’s practice of yoga should be eradicating the self, egoistically conceived.
"In all fairness, it may be said that a yoga practitioner will inevitably meet other practitioners who are more adept at asana or run up against the limits of his or her body. But a sense of inadequacy is not actually the opposite of egoism, since it is just another form of self-absorption.
"If Patanjali is to be believed, spiritual lessons are indeed to be gained from a correct practice of asana, but when the practice is distorted by what is already most abundant in the culture – vanity, pleasure-seeking, and self-absorption – is there a fair chance for its cultivation? The metaphor of the camel that is able to pass through the eye of the needle seems appropriate here.
This virtual satsang site has some links worth looking at.
Profiles of seekers dedicated to the service of others.]
[www.google.com]
"Krishnan Narayanan abandoned his promising career as a high-end chef, to devote his life to care for the mentally ill who live on the streets of his native Madurai, India. Besides providing food on a regular basis, Krishnan also takes care of other basis needs such as providing access to clean clothes and baths. He is also in the process of raising money to complete his dream project of providing housing for 400 of his regular “clients”.
"These acts of kindness have serious implications for him personally. As a brahmin, he isn’t suppose to eat with, let alone bathe members of lower castes.
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