In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a user and lover of Peloton. After nearly two decades of being an indoor cycle instructor, my husband grandly gifted me with a bike over three years ago and I’ve been fan-girling my favorite instructors and striving for PRs ever since. I know it’s become one more cliché added to my list, along with my woefully unfashionable side part and tendency to wear yoga pants even when I’m not down dogging, but I have no intention of stopping.
As someone who has been an educator in a classroom for pushing 30 years as well as a fitness instructor for over 20, I’m always interested in the methods and effectiveness of other teachers. I have had only love for Peloton’s approach to fitness as well as for its instructors. Like all good teachers, the instructors are clearly committed to practicing and honing their craft as well as to understanding the psychology of motivation. It’s no secret that their community boasts loyal participants world-wide, and there’s a reason for that (and it’s not the considerable costs of purchasing the bike and maintaining the monthly subscription!): when people clip in and sign on, they feel seen and they feel as though they are not alone, even as they work up a sweat in their basements, spare bedrooms, or the corners of their living rooms. Such devotion and followership from millions globally should be met with gratitude, respect, and humility. And this is what I’ve seen time and again from each of the instructors whose classes I’ve taken.
I say all of that to provide a context for what follows. Several days ago as I was blinking away the sweat 30 minutes in to a 45-minute ride, I saw the instructor glance over at a woman (I was taking a pre-pandemic class in which participants were riding in the studio with the instructor) and say, “Oh Baby, no, no. Don’t hang on the handlebars like that. We don’t do that here.” It was such a throwaway comment with, I would bet, not one shred of ill-intent behind it, spoken by an instructor I’ve admired for her strength, inclusivity, and accomplishments. Before the camera panned away from the rider, I saw a mixture of surprise, shame, and embarrassment flash across her face as she bolted upright. I don’t know if the instructor gave her words another thought, and I imagine few of the at-home or studio riders even took note. But what I know from being on the receiving end of comments like that, as well as being a teacher of thousands of students, too many of whom were surely the recipients of my own unintentionally ignorant, thoughtless comments over the years, is that one careless comment, one sharp tone, one inadvertently demoralizing observation, remains with its target long after the speaker has forgotten.
No matter if we are teachers, parents, politicians, or simply an individual having an exchange with a cashier, wait staff, or bank teller, our words and their delivery have ripple effects of which we’re so often unaware.
I might be indulging in some heavy-duty projecting here, but I imagine that if I were the woman on the bike taking that studio Peloton class, appearing to be giving it everything she had, appearing to be someone at the beginning of her health and fitness journey, that I would have wished for an invisibility cloak in that moment. I imagine I would have been tempted to walk out of that studio and not return, or at least not until I’d built myself back up a bit. I wonder how differently the instructor’s words might have been received had she said, “Oh, Baby, can I see you roll those shoulders back and tilt your pelvis under? Looking great!” It would have served the purpose of reminding the rider to be aware of her form as well as provided the validation and encouragement that Peloton is so good at.
Not inaccurately, I’ve been accused of being a mite sensitive, and I have a hard time watching shows that feature practical jokes because I’m cringing from my couch with vicarious horror at being “punked.” Still, that split-second moment I observed someone’s words hit a soft spot was all I needed to be reminded that all of us have struggles, challenges, triggers, vulnerable underbellies about something, and we would do well to heed these by choosing words more intentionally and acknowledging when we’ve struck a nerve. I know there are those who would cry out that it’s precisely this kind of coddling that discourages resilience, but the older I get, though, the more I look back at the death-by-a-thousand-cuts moments I’ve both dealt and received, and I think that life is darned tough enough without any of us making it more so for one another.
PartWolf 