Beyond the Pale · 8 May 2008
Los Angeles is segregated by ethnicity and by wealth. Very generally, the two residential indices of affluence are (1) elevation and (2) proximity to the ocean. The elevation peaks in the north and runs from west to east—along the raised spine from the Pacific Palisades through the Hollywood Hills, with some southerly heights in Mar Vista, Inglewood, Boyle, et cetera. Beachfront property is prime from north to south, though in general the money hugs closer and closer to the shoreline as one moves south away from the hills.
I will cop right now to the fact that my present studio sits on the most affluent, whitest commercial corner in town. Ashtanga ends before the Porsche SUVs quite fill up the valet parking, before the skinny ladies with their perfect children arrive to shop the kiddie shoe store housed in a quaint Tudor cottage, or the specialty chocolate nook opens in the back of the oh so provincial Country Market. We enter our own building before first light by a side door and, being ashtangis, tend to represent for the bohemians, the working professionals, the world-traveled, the somewhat ethnically and economically diverse, the hot chiseled bodyworker-yoga teacher service sector. So I’m sheltered from the full force of white Brentwood affluence, even as—when I leave each morning—I enjoy the deeply middlebrow string quartet that Le Pain Quotidien pumps into the building's passageways. The double provincialism of a restaurant calling itself “The Daily Bread” in French, for white people reaching for the sense of “the cosmopolitan” they find in packaged French country aesthetic is pitch perfect for this corner. Mass produced rustic benches, artisan nut butters packaged in China, lattes in ginormous (supersized) bowls. Which is not to say I don’t like le P.Q., which enfranchises within a block of any respectable ashtanga shala with a global clientele and has thus made itself—in London, New York, Santa Monica—an official home of the traveling ashtangi meetup. Tasty, with chagrin on the side.
Anyway, why am I talking about geography of affluence and whiteness?
It’s Yogaworks, itseself franchising down in the South Bay in a way that crosses way, way, way over the line of getting off on your affluence. Fellas, I’m writing this so you will know what the seasoned people in the community are saying about you. People who know yoga, or simply know LA, who know your expansion is inevitable and are ok with this but nonetheless find the current wrinkle extraordinarily disturbing.
The new location is just off the industrial zone near LAX. Miles south of the east-west axis of rich that is the northern hills, down in the South Bay you find more economic and racial diversity, more quickly, as you move east from the oft-gated exclusivity that is Manhattan Beach. Indeed, the new studio in rent-cheap El Segundo sits midway between the health club set on the west and Inglewood on the east. Inglewood is an awesome, historically rich, cohesive zone—home to a lot of middle class people and, due to the heights on which it is built, some excellent real estate. There’s no major yoga studio there. Also, Inglewood is black.
Down the hill from Inglewood in El Segundo, Yogaworks—which in its other locations takes in its steepest revenue from drop-in students—is experimenting with a new visitor model (see another blog discussion here). Traditionally, Yogaworks franchises in exclusive zones: Manhattan, Santa Monica, Westwood. But again, El Segundo—with its unique geography and social diversity—is home to an innovative new model.
No drop-in students whatsoever are permitted. If you want to attend YogaWorks in El Segundo, you can buy a “membership.” So what is for sale is not exactly yoga instruction. It’s association.
Given the way I’ve laid this out, you now know exactly what people are saying.
Except, of course, for the corporate conservatives, who say it’s your “right” to pursue whatever markets you want or envision to be most “productive.” After all, the South Bay is an “untapped yoga market” and you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
But those of us who understand that markets are not asocial, amoral autonomous forces will tell you that every “market experiment” is a social experiment. There is no passive, inert “yoga market” waiting for you to exploit it. Rather, there is whatever market you choose to create for your business. You, mighty corporation, have the power. You have the freedom to choose how you provide your service and whether your “serve” anyone at all. For now, you have chosen… exclusively, affluently, whitely. And the tastemakers--who have every "right" to judge your matters of taste--think it’s creepy.
The “bottom line” in the sands of El Segundo, like in any market, will always shift: there is more than one way to make money in that zone.
When the experiment ends and you change the policy, let me know. I’ll be more than happy to post a follow up praising you for taking yoga back off the gated community model.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: astanga yoga
, markets-networks-society
, morality
, self-deception
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That artisan nut butter was GOOD!!!! :)
I thought Inglewood was Latino? I’m often wrong, since I try not to go south of Venice Blvd. or East of La Cienega when I’m there. Not because I’m a snob but because I sometimes experience ‘LA Overload’, trying to see and do as much as I can while I’m there.
I usually restrain myself from expressing opinions like this, but YW sucks. All day long and twice on Sunday. Not the teachers or the students but the corporation itself. Dubious business practices at best. Sharks at worst. I wonder if Chuck and Maty are routinely horrified at the corporate antics?
Are they successful so far in El Segundo? I’d be curious to find out.
Posted by: LI Ashtangini · May 8, 12:21 PM · #
Boo! You included everything here but the actual critique! It’s all innuendo!
Posted by: R · May 8, 12:56 PM · #
Fuss!
I thought it would be more interesting to give the lay of the land and let readers reach the terribly obvious critique for themselves. Too Socratic?
Ok. Faced with a potentially diverse group of yoga practitioners—unlike what it encounters in Manhattan and West Los Angeles—YogaWorks is floating an entirely new “service” model. They have built an oasis from the diversity, restructured to keep the riff-raff out, turned their business from a yoga school into a health club. Redefined inner peace as exclusivity and luxury.
Backlash economics.
Ok?
Posted by: (0v0) · May 8, 01:09 PM · #
Sonya: the hazelnut? Most excellent! They make a great breakfast.
Inglewood: historically it’s black middle class. But you are right that Latino immigration is changing the whole landscape, sometimes in unpredictable ways. El Segundo, too, is full of little nodes of new immigrant communities. I was oversimplifying in a big way.
Yogaworks… I try to keep a somewhat objective viewpoint on the corporation just because I’m so interested in the modern western culture of yoga and YW is a major player in its unfolding. Its competition with mom and pop studios is harsh. And certain aspects of the organizational culture, particularly the way some teachers mis-portray ashtanga out one side of their mouths while claiming SKPJ as “my teacher” out the other side, raise questions for me.
At the same time, what can I say? I have this deep gratitude and love for my teachers (as you know, I have this weird emotional condition that makes me sincerely love everyone whose room I practice in for any length of time), and every single one of them either currently represents or has in the past represented this company. And I’m a YW-trained teacher, even if in my mind my real training was apprenticing to a senior ashtangi. So it’s part of me and I have learned I cannot write it off without disowning parts of my history and my working knowledge that I value.
That said, yeah. I do wonder how closely the founders are watching.
Posted by: (0v0) · May 8, 01:32 PM · #
It’s perfectly fine to bite the hand that feeds you; a clunky but decent example is Michael Moore. Actually, because of how complicated an example he is, he’s really a great one.
That said, it seems that YW is moving its membership to a new location but “not accepting applications at this time.” It’s got an economic flavor similar to that of outsourcing.
Thanks, btw, for the rant, I’d been waiting for your two cents on YW (which with one exception, has no presence at all in the midwest).
Posted by: patrick · May 8, 09:37 PM · #
Hi (0v0)
Hmm, selling an association, interesting concept. Some studios force that by causing the drop in rate to be sky high. Drop in 4 times that month and you could have bought a membership.
I’m against the megasizing in restaurants. It’s good that you point out the fakiness of the faux French place.
Cheers
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · May 9, 03:19 AM · #
I’m not sure I understand what YogaWorks is doing. Are you saying that shutting the door to drop-ins prevents people of various groups not typically thought to be yoga-ish from coming in and diluting the elite YogaWorks experience? The non-yoga-ish people being, in this case, the residents of a mostly non-white area?
The sensible people of those middle-class neighborhoods probably wouldn’t like the YogaWorks jive anyway, and I imagine they probably would look for other yoga studio options.
When will you start your yoga school?
Posted by: Carl · May 9, 09:32 AM · #
Well, wouldn’t any kind of ‘exculsionary tactic’ by a yoga studio be at least somewhat ‘non-yogic’? And it seems to me that they are trying to exclude. Also, one of the points being that there really aren’t many other yoga options in that part of LA. It seems to me that if I were going to open a studio in that part of the city, I’d try really hard to be inclusionary. I think that might include the use of community classes, discounts for using public transportation and that sort of thing.
Arturo, while the restaurant is kind of ‘fakey’, the food really was pretty good. Even the Chinese nut butter! BUT the food in LA certainly doesn’t compare to other places I’ve been, like NYC or New Orleans. I’m sure San Fran is much better too! :)
Posted by: LI Ashtangini · May 9, 10:35 AM · #
Sounds like a health club to me, of the Sports Club LA/Reebok genre. I’ve never heard of a yoga shala that doesn’t accept drop ins… which is what makes this not a shala, and not of a shala mentality, but of a private club mentality.
Surprising, and disappointing.
Posted by: Anna · May 9, 02:52 PM · #
The attempt is to get more of that “disposable” income apparently out there. From the gym point of view or the Costco point of view or HMO point of view the best member is the one that never shows up whilst the monthly fee keeps ticking electronically. And that “waste” income can be disposed of easily into the particular corporate coffers.
I can say, that from my own YW teaching experience the “monthly” students are on the whole more dedicated than there “class series” counterparts. And overall, the teacher and student experience is richer when the stakes, interest or commitment (abhasya – Patanjali says everyday for a freaking long time) is higher. And there are some pure Astanga shalas out there that, whilst will take “drop-ins”, much prefer the commitment that comes with the monthly pass.
I see advantages to both approaches.
There are at least 2 “pay what you can” places for group classes with fine teachers in the glitzy, fashionable westside with class as early as 6 am on Sundays and as late as 1045 pm on weekdays. I think the greater issue is time, transportation and cultural restraints that prevents the full participation of the population in yogasana (and those other limbs).
Posted by: e&sj · May 9, 04:23 PM · #
Sorry for my mispelling of Abhyasa – spiritual practice which is regular and constant practice over a long period of time. It has been prescribed by the great sage Patanjali Maharishi in his Yoga Sutras, and by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita as an essential means to control the mind together with Vairagya.
Posted by: e&sj · May 9, 04:27 PM · #
I have to admit that Pan Quotidien is delicious. Hilariously, the themed-ness of theme restaurants is often invisible to their target audience. My in-laws see McDonalds not as a treacle, constructed environment, but as “natural.” Same way the Brentwood provincials see le P-Q. Except… P-Q has these amazing nut butters and great lattes. Have I mentioned the hazelnut spread?
Anyway, it’s been clear that YW has been itching to move toward a health club model since the first days of the buy-out. Their capital is backed by 24-Hour Fitness, after all. And somebody just emailed me to let me know that from now on, all new studios will actually be on this model—not just El Segundo.
At what cost?
In trying to create a whitewashed, luxurious, riff-raff free “peaceful” environment, one can lock out the world. But what is peace? Isn’t inner peace every bit about breaking down our own social boundaries, undoing prejudice, making peace in the world? What if the CEOs spent some time with Thic Nhat Hahnh? Maybe the inclusionary thing would start to make sense at a basic level.
Now that would be crazy.
That said, I do agree with E&SJ that the class series approach is pretty superficial and also doesn’t always allow teachers to develop the rapport it takes for meaningful relationships. I almost always buy not a monthly but an annual membership because, ironically, the health club model is about all I can afford. But what bothers me here is not so much the pay structure as the creation of exclusive, socially-screened spaces. That’s not really about encouraging every day practice, to my view, even if in some cases—contrasting with those memberships that are rarely used at all—this will be an outcome.
I never would have gotten in to yoga practice if I had to go to a club for it. A diverse lot of people initially get in to yoga through the excellent, lucrative pay-what-you-can SMPY studios in Santa Monica. “Power” to them. :)
Posted by: (0v0) · May 9, 04:48 PM · #
About biting the hand that feeds you, oh… I respectfully disagree. From an organizational standpoint, speaking out against your own institution signals a decision that internal voice is no longer desired. When you broadcast external critique, internal critique loses its reformatory possibilities. It’s a trust and transparency issue. Both in institutions and in relationships.
Anway, my reluctance to criticize YW is not in that realm. They don’t feed me but I them, in terms of years practiced there and customers sent their way.
Rather, I recognize that much of the basic instruction that has kept my practice grounded over the years and enabled me to do some teaching myself happened at this institution. Even though I lament the dilution of quiet, breath-bandha-drste practice in that environment (and also, of course, think the commercialization of yoga is in wonderfully bad taste), I also prize the more physical, body-focused knowledge I learned there.
I don’t want to pretend that’s not a part of me. It’s a good part of me, and not something that has to create contradictions in the framework of my very, very traditional astanga practice. There is so much good that has come out of my years in this institution, and this is the reason that I feel sad to see the institution changing in such a potentially big, tacky way.
Posted by: (0v0) · May 9, 04:51 PM · #
hmm, we think differently about hand-biting; this is kinda cool. trust, transparency, relationships, hmm. chewy. there may be email about this if i can spare the time to compose one.
Posted by: patrick · May 9, 06:04 PM · #
Exciting. I’ll be away from the internets for most of the next few days beginning now, but briefly, I’m informed by the many discussions beginning from Hirschman’s 1970 Exit, Voice and Loyalty.
He’s a serious critical thinker and a change agent, in his way. (His ’77 The Passions and the Interests is one of my favorite books about Captitalism.)
Posted by: (0v0) · May 9, 06:14 PM · #
Ahh, I see our differences emerging already; as suspected, it’s more about point of view than about (political) effectiveness of ACTUAL action.
Posted by: patrick · May 9, 06:46 PM · #
Anna, there is an ashtanga studio in town that does not accept local drop-ins, only people traveling from out of town, and that by contacting the studio ahead. It seems their intent is making people commit to the mysore experience, hence monthly membership.
cheers,
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · May 10, 06:54 PM · #