Read ‘em: Elsewhere in beauty standards

Posted on August 13, 2008 by Sweet Machine

Check out the Women of Color and Beauty Carnival on the yennenga LJ community. This looks like an awesome carnival, and I’m really excited to read all the linked posts. You’ll recognize Julia’s excellent post at Fatshionista, which we’ve been discussing around here; some of her posts on LJ are linked as well. Via Racialicious (which, seriously, is such an outstanding blog. If you’re not reading it regularly, bookmark it right now!).

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I’m not following the Olympics this year for a lot of reasons, but if you are you should check out these two excellent posts on SP fave Hoyden About Town. Lauredhel writes about the unbelievable difference between the uniforms of male and female athletes in the same sports (example below). Meanwhile, Tigtog posts about the heartbreaking news that two little girls were exploited in the opening ceremonies for the sake of a beauty ideal: one sang behind the scenes, while in front of the audience a “cuter” girl either lip-synched or sang without knowing her mike wasn’t on. The girls are 10 and 9 years old, respectively. (In the US, of course, they’d be part of the “starter market.”)

The Duh Truck Rides Again

Posted on August 12, 2008 by Kate Harding

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Okay, every Shapeling and their grandma has sent me a version of this news, so I’d better get on it. (Thanks, everybody, and sorry I’m slow!)

A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.

The first national estimate of its kind bolsters the argument that you can be hefty but still healthy, or at least healthier than has been believed.

The results also show that stereotypes about body size can be misleading, and that even “less voluptuous” people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity, said study author MaryFran Sowers, a University of Michigan obesity researcher.

GEE, YOU DON’T SAY.

Of course, as others have noted, it’s only fucking “surprising” if you’ve ignored all the previous research saying the same thing, and continued to buy into those misleading stereotypes. Also, I left out the first line of the AP article there, which is: “You can look great in a swimsuit and still be a heart attack waiting to happen. And you can also be overweight and otherwise healthy.” Hey, thanks for leading with a reminder that even if fat people can be healthy, we still can’t look great in swimsuits*, Lindsay Tanner!

The L.A. Times is even better. Not only does Shari Roan focus on the “visceral fat is what will kill you” angle instead of the “Fat does not equal unhealthy” one, she phrases it thusly: “You can be normal weight** and be just as bad off as old tubby next door.”

Charming. Do they seriously not teach journalists today that phrases like “old tubby” (see also “ballooning,” “packing on the pounds,” “X pounds of blubber/lard,” etc.) and commentary on folks’ bikini-readiness have no fucking place in science reporting? Or that “colorful” language like that might just suggest you have a deeply ingrained bias against fat people, and therefore are probably not the person to report objectively on studies about our health?

Anyway. Roan’s phrasing also leaves out the pertinent point that “old tubby next door” has a greater than 50% chance of not being badly off at all, according to this research. What it actually shows is that you can be normal weight and far less healthy than old tubby. You can be normal weight and just as badly off as your normal weight neighbor. You can be old tubby herself and be better — or worse — off than another old tubby across the street. You can be any weight and healthy, or any weight and sick. You can’t tell how healthy someone is just by looking. That’s the fucking point.

Here are the actual studies being discussed, and here’s a rundown of the findings that contains somewhat less editorialization.

From the latter link, in one study,

Dr. Wildman and colleagues looked at a cross-sectional sample of 5,440 participants in NHANES, and stratified them according to BMI and cardiometabolic abnormalities, including elevated blood pressure; triglycerides, fasting plasma glucose, C-reactive protein, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance value, as well as low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

“Metabolically normal” = one or none of the things on that list, and “metabolically abnormal” equals anything above that. Here’s who was metabolically abnormal: 23.5% of normal weight adults, just under 50% of overweight adults, and just under 70% of obese adults.

The other study looked at “the pathophysiological mechanisms of type 2 diabetes” and found that 24% of obese patients were not insulin resistant and — contrary to researchers’ expectations — “the insulin sensitivity and the intima-media thickness [of the common carotid artery] of the insulin-sensitive obese group were similar [to] those of the normal BMI participants”. Or, as study leader Dr. Nobert Stefan says, “a metabolically benign obesity that is not accompanied by insulin resistance and early atherosclerosis exists in humans.“

GEE, YOU DON’T SAY.

So yes, there is still a correlation between higher weights and metabolic abnormality. But as we’ve been saying all along, this does not apply to all fat people or let thin people off the hook — which is why there’s so much pants-shitting going on in the media over this.

Also — brace yourself — you’re more likely to be “metabolically abnormal” if you’re older and sedentary. NO WAY!

They also did find a correlation, yet again, between waist circumference and metabolic iffiness — presumably because a higher waist circumference can be an indication of higher levels of visceral fat, which appears to be the baddie. (Thin people can have high levels of visceral fat, too.)

Now, every time I talk about waist circumference/visceral fat, I hear from apple-shaped folks who are quite understandably pissed off that the OBESITY CRISIS BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA heat is just shifting over to them. So let me make two points I’ve made many times before, because they’re well worth repeating.

1) My favorite fun fact ever: Sumo wrestlers tend to have low levels of visceral fat. And it’s usually sedentary thin people who have high levels of it. The evidence suggests that exercise is protective against visceral fat, even if it doesn’t make you thin — so if you’re able to exercise, there is something you “can do about it,” which doesn’t involve starving yourself or getting a tummy tuck.

2) Risk factors are just that — risk factors, not death sentences — and we’re all stuck with risk factors for diseases that we can’t do anything about. Family history is the most obvious example — you have no control over whether your parents and grandparents had diabetes, cancer, heart disease, whatever, which is why nobody suggests you have an obligation to “do something” about those risk factors. If you’re lucky enough to get old, you’ll be at increased risk for practically everything — but nobody suggests killing yourself on your fiftieth birthday to avoid that risk factor. Likewise, if you are predisposed to be fat and/or carry weight around your middle, that’s just another risk factor you’re stuck with. For many of us, making a substantial, permanent change to our weights is just as impossible as going back in time and choosing different parents.

And for many of us, as this research shows, being fat will not lead to poor health anyway. And as always, you can’t tell who’s most at risk by looking. Hell, I’m more hourglass-shaped than apple-shaped (though I am officially obese and my waist circumference exceeds the recommendation for women), but given my pesky family history of diabetes, I’m still probably more likely to end up in the insulin-resistant category than the “metabolically benign” one someday. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Fat does not equal unhealthy. Thin does not equal healthy. Exercise is beneficial if you can do it and are so inclined, regardless of whether you lose weight. Getting old makes you more likely to get sick, but it’s better than the alternative. Risk factors are not death sentences. Being sick is not a personal failure.

That’s the big fucking news here. But we already knew all that, didn’t we?

*For those who missed it, that’s Fillyjonk rockin’ the swimsuit.

**I have not put “normal weight” in irony quotes throughout, because it would seriously clutter up this post, but please imagine they’re there.

Quick hit: Olympic-level bodies

Posted on August 5, 2008 by Sweet Machine

Via Broadsheet, check out this NYT slideshow of several Olympian athletes. As Catherine Price of Broadsheet says, “it’s nice to see proof that being strong takes all kinds.” This version is almost like an Olympic addendum to the BMI slideshow, though we’ll have to do the calculating ourselves. I love the picture of Cheryl Haworth, a weight lifter who happens to weigh 300 pounds. I also dig this quote from track star Shawn Crawford:

When I lift, my chest and arms develop quickly and are easy to get stronger and bigger. I have really small lower legs — and no matter what I do, they get stronger, but not bigger.

Next time you feel inclined to beating yourself up because some exercise you do that makes you feel happy and energized didn’t also skinnify your thighs or what have you, remember that quote. Even one of the fastest dudes in the world can’t change the shape of his legs through Olympic training. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, even the strongest ones.

Those lazy kids and their hours of exercise

Posted on July 16, 2008 by fillyjonk

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This morning’s paper had a wire story about a study showing that kids get less exercise as they get older. Obviously it’s full of the nonsense you’ve come to expect; the headline I read talked about “lazy” kids, the article says that teenagers are “sluggish.” There’s no mention made of the piles of work and responsibilities that are heaped on American teens, which tend to curtail activity (at least until some genius riding the lucrative wave of the OMG Child Obesity Epidemic invents a way to study for the SATs while pounding a treadmill). The study looked at whether kids were achieving government-recommended levels of activity, which means an hour a day every day — an incredibly demanding schedule for someone with an adult-sized workload.

And naturally, the problems with the article don’t stop there. While the decline in gym class quantity is blamed, nobody talks about gym class quality — specifically, that particular quality gym class has of making you hate exercise forever (or at least until you discover HAES and realize that exercise isn’t punishment). Computers and video games are villainized even though the study compares younger children with older children, not children today and children a few decades ago. And it’s not too bad in the AP treatment, but other reports I read committed the standard fallacy that crops up in every article like this: focusing on childhood obesity as the consequence of the findings (and pushing anti-obesity programs as the solution), as though there’s no benefit in having active kids if those kids aren’t also thin.

That’s all standard fare. It’s amazing we manage to keep the blog running when this is what people come out with; I rarely read an OMG Obesity article anymore that doesn’t read just like some other article we already ranted about. But here’s the part that boggled me:

CHICAGO (AP) — One of the largest studies of its kind shows just how sluggish American children become once they hit the teen years: While 90 percent of 9-year-olds get a couple of hours of exercise most days, fewer than 3 percent of 15-year-olds do.

HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE. 90 percent of 9-year-olds get a couple of hours of exercise a day? What about all the fat children, the ones who everyone knows are so clearly a crisis? The ones who are emblematic of our decaying societal morals? The ones who are going to die younger than their parents? What about those criminally sedentary face-stuffing disease-courting youngsters we keep hearing about? What about the young victims of the Killer Sofa?

Apparently they’ve been out running around and playing with the other kids all this time.

On Problems to Be Solved

Posted on July 8, 2008 by Kate Harding

So, the headline of this AP article is okay: “Europe plans free fruit, veggies for school kids.” Nothing wrong with that — in fact, I think it’s a swell idea. But you do know what’s coming next, right?

An estimated 22 million children in the 27-nation bloc of nearly 500 million people are overweight because of bad eating habits.

Right. So I guess the writer personally observed 22 million children to determine that their fatness is the result of “bad eating habits” — and indeed, that they’re actually fat, as opposed to just growing children whose BMI ranking could change substantially in two weeks’ time? ‘Cause otherwise, that sentence is ludicrous. Even a stone fatphobe with a modicum of journalistic integrity would write “… in part because of bad eating habits” — if nothing else, what about the ZOMG SEDENTARY VIDEO GAMES NEVER OUTSIDE factor? — or just end the sentence at “overweight” and allow people to draw their own conclusions. (Which, unfortunately, they totally would.) But no, 22 million children just have bad eating habits, period. True facts!

And it gets better. (The article’s like 200 words long, and still, it gets better.)

“You only have to walk down any high street in Europe to see the extent of the problems we face with overweight kids,” EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said.

Problems you can see just walking down the street? Like what? Roving bands of tubby little thugs demanding protection money from local businesses? Pillaging and plundering? Bursting out into elaborate musical numbers on busy streets? What are these great societal problems that are obvious to any pedestrian?

Oh, right. The very existence of fat kids is a problem.

Fuck you, Mariann Fischer Boel. Children’s bodies are not a problem for the government to solve.

And that’s inevitably my problem with programs like this, and the way they’re sold to us. I am 100% in favor of free fruits and veggies (though I’m not naive enough to think those won’t be traded for sweets by fat and thin kids alike, I should add). Free fruits and veggies for everyone! Local, organic produce for all my friends! While you’re at it, bring back gym class and train future phys ed instructors to focus on encouraging the joy of movement instead of forcing everyone to move their bodies in exactly the same way, regardless of any pain (physical and/or emotional) it causes! Subsidize exercise facilities until they’re affordable for everyone! Create more bike paths! Clean up local bodies of water so everyone can swim for free! Build cities on the scale of human bodies instead of cars, and keep the streets safe enough for everyone to walk around! Ban high fructose corn syrup! Keep fast food and soda and junk food corporations out of the schools! Raise the minimum wage and shorten working hours so people have more time to cook and be active! KNOCK YOURSELVES RIGHT THE FUCK OUT creating an environment that makes it easier for everyone to eat a variety of fresh foods and get plenty of exercise!

But don’t tell me that’s going to make everyone thin — and really, really don’t tell me that making people thinner should be the main point of such a plan. It fucking infuriates me that with all of the many, many excellent reasons to do all the things I’ve just suggested, the only potential outcome that can muster the political will to enact any of it is weight loss. Fuck having a cleaner, safer, more fun environment that might lend itself to people generally feeling more energetic and vibrant (which might also lead to more productivity, for all the hardcore capitalists out there) — unless we can get rid of the fatties, it’s wasted money.

Lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables is a problem to be solved. A polluted environment is a problem to be solved. Corporations weaseling their way into schools are a problem to be solved. Unsafe cities are a problem to be solved. Car-dependency is a problem to be solved. The need for many people to work every waking hour just to get by is a problem to be solved. The widespread belief that exercise is primarily a punishment for fatness or a talisman against it, not something enjoyable that generally makes people feel better, is a problem to be solved.

Human bodies are not a fucking problem to be solved.

Guest Blogger Ellie: Trying Tai Chi

Posted on May 29, 2008 by Kate Harding

Remember how back in January, I said I was going to try a bunch of exercise classes and report back here? And how, after five months, I’ve only written up belly dancing and Pilates? (Still haven’t gotten around to writing up water aerobics, but who better than an otter to tell you about that?)

But then, do you remember how I also encouraged people to send in guest posts about their exercise experiments? Shapeling Ellie remembered that part, and she sent us this awesome post about starting tai chi, which I totally want to do now. Thank you, Ellie!

As an aside, dammit, I really need to move next door to this place, because it has absolutely everything I want to try, but I frequently get hung up on the “getting there is kind of a pain in the ass” factor. (And sadly, it’s really only kind of a pain in the ass, not even a huge one.) I’m still doing Pilates around the corner, some yoga at home, walking all over the place now that it’s spring, and one of these days I’m going to get around to joining Ottermatic for Squeaky Voiced Teen’s water aerobics class on a regular basis. But if a gym like that were around the corner? I’d be taking a class every day. Why the hell does getting to the gym always seem so much more daunting than actually working out?

Ahem, anyway, please enjoy Ellie’s take on tai chi. –Kate

After several people in the great Shapely Prose exercise discussion mentioned tai chi, I was inspired to check out an open house at the local Taoist Tai Chi society. I just finished up my first beginner’s level class, and I could not be more pleased to have tried it!

What it is: Taoist Tai Chi, a version of the “gentle martial art” that focuses on health and body awareness rather than fighting or meditation. The Taoist Tai Chi society is a really cool all-volunteer organization that promotes good works and cultural exchange, and I highly recommend them if you have a branch in your town. Other forms and organizations will be different.

What I needed: Just a comfortable outfit (jeans are fine) and a sturdy pair of shoes (or not – I did most of it barefoot).

How it works: The set is a series of 108 moves (not all unique) that you learn in a beginner’s class, which takes about three months. Then you can move to a continuing-level class, which works on different aspects of the set; you can also repeat the beginner’s class, or just continue doing tai chi at home.

Because of the cumulative nature of learning the set, you learn a few moves to get a sense of how Taoist Tai Chi works. Unless you absolutely can’t stand your first class, I’d recommend you stick it out for three or four more before you decide one way or the other.

My class met for an hour, two evenings a week. We started by doing the set as far as we knew it, and the instructor took questions. After a quick tea and water break, we learned the new moves of the day (usually one or two) and finished by going through the set once more.

Cost: Low. One of the goals of the Taoist Tai Chi Society is to make it available to everyone, so it’s cheap ($30 a month for 1-4 classes/week, less for students) and they will go all the way down to $0 if you can’t afford it.

Workout level: Low to Medium. The main benefits are to flexibility and balance, and mostly will give you a good relaxing stretch. The cardio component is comparable to a long walk – more fit people won’t be strained, but more out of shape people (like me) will get a moderate workout. There isn’t much of a day-after effect – no soreness or stiffness.

Fat friendliness: Very high. There are only a couple moves where a Rack of Doom, or large thighs like mine, get in the way, and a minor adjustment clears that up. We had people of all sizes in our class. Weight loss and calorie burn were never, ever mentioned. Health and body awareness were the main focus. I felt very welcome.

Contraindications (physical): There are a few moves that involve bending over, slow kicking, or twisting the foot around, so if those things are hard, you would want to proceed with caution. However, our instructor constantly tells us to “do what you can, don’t do it until it hurts” so the troublesome moves would be easily adjusted or even skipped.

Contraindications (mental): If you have a lot of trouble learning an action by watching it done, it might be hard for you to catch on. Our instructor will answer questions, but most of it is learn-by-seeing. You don’t need a great memory (just great peripheral vision, as my instructor would say) but it might be too frustrating if you find it hard to follow along with somebody else’s movements.

Final note: I found the whole thing really beneficial, mentally as well as physically. I enjoyed always having at least two hours a week to count on being totally calm, and I met some fantastic people in the class. I highly recommend checking it out.

Bring in the noise, bring in the fat

Posted on May 15, 2008 by fillyjonk

I had my first belly dance performance last weekend. Let me tell you, nothing tests your body-positivity more than having your belly out on stage alongside 14 identically-dressed women, all of whom are smaller than you. I wanted to come through that with flying colors and then post right afterwards about how size acceptance had allowed me to sail through the performance with nary a negative thought.

Observe that it’s now Thursday and I’m just now writing the post. It took me that long to process what really did happen — because I had a great time, and I did happily shake my gut all around on stage, but I felt very aware all weekend of the role that fat plays in dance and performance. I couldn’t banish it; I was always noticing whether I was the first fat person to go on stage, whether I was the fattest person performing, whether the fat women were sent to the back in the choreography. I noticed that one of the student companies, the tribal one, had plenty of fat women, but the cabaret group — which is supposed to be more feminine and pretty — had none. There were thicker women, but they were still fairly slender, with smooth tummies and no real rolls. And (here’s the embarrassing part) I was painfully aware of the way that some moves only looked good on these women — women whose tummies were smooth, whose every muscle twitch was evident, and whose body movements were more classically graceful. (In my particular association, and probably that of a lot of people, “more classically graceful” means “closer to a ballerina.”)

So I came out of the performance fired up about doing some tribal for next year’s show — I love their costumes, too. But I also came out feeling like my fat, or more to the point my body shape and the fact that I rock the double bubble (i.e. I have a distinct upper belly roll when standing), would hinder my progression in dance. I came out thinking “maybe if I were just a little fat all over, these moves would look right on me, and I could get into any student company I wanted… but with the way I’m shaped, how far can I really go?”

Thus, you can imagine that I had no idea how to write about the experience for the blog. I figured I would just not mention it at all, and in fact I felt like enough of a hypocrite that I avoided the movement entirely for most of this week. But eventually I realized that even this self-consciousness represented an enormous improvement over where I would have been even a couple of years ago. Not only was I willing to have my belly out on stage without once apologizing in the first place, but even the way I got down on myself was a total coup. I came out of the performance worried about maybe 15 cubic inches of belly and whether they would have a genuine effect on my dance abilities — not about the “fact” that I was a generally fat lazy clumsy slob who couldn’t possibly be any good until she was thin. (I mean, I am very aware of being lazy and a bit of a slob, but that’s got nothing to do with fat.) A few years ago, a challenge like this might have sent me completely off the rails, if I undertook it in the first place. Being secure enough about my body to wonder, more or less objectively, whether a single part of it would pose a hindrance — while simultaneously wiggling it unconcernedly in public? That’s a really, really big deal.

It’s important that we give ourselves credit for small improvements, the little strides we make in liking ourselves. You can’t expect to be Kate right off the bat, because not even Kate is Kate; she’s got moments of being down on her body just like anyone. When you notice yourself backsliding into negative body talk and thought, ask yourself: Am I better at liking and forgiving and not being judgmental about myself than I used to be? Isn’t it already better that I notice the negativity in the first place, instead of accepting it as my due as fat woman? Am I giving myself enough credit for how far I’ve come, or am I making positivity into a new club to beat myself with?

Nobody likes every part of herself every day, but isn’t it enough not to hate every part of yourself every day? I know I did that for a long time, and you probably did too, and we’re all getting constant messages saying that’s how we’re supposed to live, and I think we deserve credit for every day we resist.

(Oh, and as a fat-positive dancer friend pointed out, the tummy roll probably won’t hinder me unless I’m only trying to dance well in the same way that a thin dancer dances well. Some moves don’t look as good with fat, and others look better with it. Trying on dance is like trying on pants; you just have to find the one that looks right on your body. So don’t let my brief negativity discourage those of you who are interested in belly dance!)

“Weird Moods”

Posted on April 5, 2008 by Kate Harding

Since I know some of you out there are current or aspiring yoga or pilates teachers, I’m gonna give you a tip for free. (I would imagine this tip would also apply to tai chi instructors, and anyone else teaching a mind/body discipline.)

Here’s the tip: SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UUUUUUUUUUP. Especially when working with private students.

I don’t mean you should be so taciturn you can’t communicate what your student or students should be doing. I just mean that’s the communication you should be concerning yourself with–and if you find yourself telling stories about your Ren Faire days or your upcoming wedding or your child’s orthodontist appointment or that time you road-tripped to the Grand Canyon, you need to SHUT THE FUCK UP. That whole mind/body thing means your students are trying to focus on their breathing and stay centered, which is impossible when YOU WON’T STOP YAMMERING.

And if you ever, ever hear yourself say, “Ha ha, I’m sorry, I’m just in a weird mood”? That is a clear signal that you need to reel it the hell in. If you know you’re acting like an idiot and can tell it’s bothering your student(s)? You don’t need to giggle and apologize for being “weird.” You need to SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I’m not sure how this doesn’t come up in teacher training, but it must not, ’cause I’ve now had it happen with two different teachers in private lessons–one yoga, one pilates. Both pulled the “weird mood” thing after jabbering in such a way as to make me seriously wonder if they were manic, not just clueless about how much it was irritating me. And the problem with the “weird mood” thing is that it means the only polite response is for me to giggle as well and say it’s okay, when IT IS NOT OKAY.

Connecting breath to movement, isolating specific muscles and remembering where all the other muscles should be in the meantime, and trying to stay relaxed while doing all of the above are not things that come easily in the face of huge distractions. And talking to a student like you’re having fucking coffee together is a HUGE DISTRACTION. I do not pay my girlfriends a dollar a minute or more to hang out with me. I pay teachers that much because I want them to TEACH ME THINGS and then SHUT UP while I try them out. If I’m in a mood for chatting, I have friends who will show up for free and TELL BETTER STORIES.

Okay, breathing… Ahem. I don’t know, maybe there are students who actually work better with someone talking at them, the way I can actually listen better if I’m simultaneously doodling. But I am the kind of person who can’t stand to be talked at–I feel compelled to respond, which means I need to find an exhale and get the entire response out in like 4 seconds. That doesn’t work so well. And here’s what I do know: one of the teachers I’m bitching about right now actually told me once that she’d had this great revelation about how I was one of those people who work better while being talked at. She’d noticed that I seemed to hold poses longer when she kept chatting. YES, THAT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T REALIZE HOW LONG YOU’VE BEEN TALKING AND TELL ME TO COME OUT OF THE FUCKING POSE WHEN YOU ORDINARILY WOULD. She actually sat there and told me she’d made this important observation about the way I worked, even though she’d utterly failed to observe that every time she launched into one of her monologues, steam started coming out my friggin’ ears. Which put me in the position of choosing between saying, “You know, actually, I don’t like it when you do that, it’s YOU who likes it”–which would have made both of us tremendously uncomfortable–and going, “Ha ha, yeah,” while fantasizing about duct-taping her mouth shut.

And that’s kind of the whole problem. Even though I know enough to come out of a pose or stop doing something when I’m actually in pain, I’m enough of a keener that I’m really reticent to question the teacher’s authority. The teacher/student relationship is not an equal one, even if you’re around the same age and have pleasant chats before and after class. It is a relationship in which one person tells the other what to do with her body, and the second person humbly obeys in most cases. That can be one fucked-up power dynamic if you’re not totally professional about it. And that’s exactly why I sit at home getting ALL CAPPY about this on my blog, instead of asking the teachers to yammer less in the moment. I don’t want to embarrass my teacher and throw her off her game, much less get angry in the middle of a session I’m paying a bundle for–which is a real risk, given how much the yammering DRIVES ME UP A WALL. So instead, I swallow it, and eventually just find a new teacher. I’m sure there’s a more mature and effective way to handle it, but that’s all I’m comfortable doing.

And the sucky thing is, both of these people are technically excellent teachers. But I cannot get the full benefit of their expertise when I’m spending the whole session thinking, “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY SHUT UP.”

Most teachers worth their salt will agree to a strict prohibition on sleeping with students, because of the aforementioned power dynamic. But I’m really starting to think there need to be similar prohibitions on getting too friendly with students, just as there are for therapists and their clients. If a teacher and student really hit it off and want to be friends, that’s great–but the student should get a new teacher, and they should pursue the friendship on their own time. Especially if you’re teaching or taking private lessons, there’s not only a major power imbalance but an intense intimacy in the work itself–which means focusing on anything but the work itself is asking for trouble. Not affair-gone-wrong trouble, granted, but it can set the student up to feel really uncomfortable and yet too vulnerable to say anything about it.

What do you think, Shapelings? Have you had good experiences with excessively “friendly” instructors? Does teacher-chattiness make you more comfortable? For those of you who are teachers, do some students seem to respond better when you talk about things other than what you’re teaching? (And is this kind of thing addressed during teacher training?) I mean, I’m totally willing to entertain the possibility that it’s just me here. But then, even if it is, all that tells you is something that should be the bedrock of any mind/body exercise teaching philosophy: it’s really important to read students correctly and meet them where they are. If there are students who can somehow concentrate better while you chatter away about your mother-in-law, then by all means, keep doing it with those students. But don’t convince yourself that a student who’s giving nothing but fake smiles in response is actually enjoying or benefiting from that shit. When in doubt, ask if the student thinks she’d work better if you stayed quiet between instructions–if either of those teachers had done that, I’d have felt comfortable saying yes, and I might still be working with them.

And for the love of Maude, do not giggle and announce that you’re “just in a weird mood!” You’re in your fucking workplace with a client. It’s your responsibility to remain in a professional mood. I mean, I know these are disciplines that attract freaks and weirdos–I’m one of ‘em–but if you’re making up silly songs while I’m trying to stay focused? YOU’RE NOT BEING “WEIRD,” YOU’RE BEING UNPROFESSIONAL AND OBNOXIOUS.

Whew. That felt good.

Exercise Experiment #2: Pilates

Posted on March 23, 2008 by Kate Harding

Hey, remember my new year’s pledge to try a bunch of different exercise classes for the first time and report back? Well, I haven’t forgotten, even if I haven’t written one up since January. One of these days, I’m going to write up water aerobics (short answer: LOVE IT), but right now, my first experience with Pilates is fresh in my mind.

So, there’s a studio right in my neighborhood that offers 3 private introductory lessons for $99 — a pretty damn good deal, since privates ordinarily cost nearly twice as much there, and from what I can tell, even that is cheap for Pilates. I went for my first one on Friday.

Fun Quotient: 4

I loved the machines like I can’t even tell you. (Which kind of sucks, actually, because mat classes are comparable in price to yoga classes, but working on the machines requires the pricey private or semi-private lessons. Sigh.) I didn’t get to do this yet, unfortunately, but I did get to do a bit of work on the Cadillac–mostly sitting on it and using trapeze-like bars for resistance. That didn’t quite satisfy the 5-year-old in me, whose gut response to the machine was “Whee! Monkey bars!” but it came close, and that was a big part of the fun. (I spent pretty much every recess in kindergarten and most in first grade hanging by my knees off the monkey bars–and simply could not understand why anyone, given the opportunity to be hanging upside down, would not take it. I also once got seriously busted for doing penny drops off the doorway of a friend’s backyard dog run, because once again… there was a BAR right there, BEGGING to be swung from! Never mind that it was totally unstable! So that background might help you understand why my heart goes pitter patter when I look at the Cadillac.)

The Reformer–which is like a souped-up rowing machine–was also cool. I started by lying on my back on the carriage and using my legs to push backwards, the trick being that I was only supposed to use my legs, without moving my pelvis a millimeter. Holy crap, harder than it sounds. And that kind of super-detailed muscle isolation shit is one of the things I’ve always loved best about yoga (at least the schools that focus on that), so it’s right up my alley.

Then I got to swing my legs above my head and put them into stirrups on springs, pulling myself back and forth in the other direction — I’m not describing that well, but it’s hard to put into words. Loved that, because if I can’t be fully upside-down, having my legs over my head is the next best thing. (Keep your gutter-minded jokes to yourself.) I will say I was really glad my own body was in between my eyes and the mirror for that round of exercises, ’cause if I could have seen myself, I’m pretty sure I would have been horrified. But it was a blast.

The only bit of Reformer work I didn’t enjoy was Eve’s Lunge, which the instructor tried to sell me as “just like Warrior Pose!” And hey, I can do Warrior Pose! Yeah, problem is, you add the machine in, and it becomes Warrior Pose with Flaming Rods Stuck into Various Parts of Your Body. I honestly think part of the problem there was my shortness — on a more compact Reformer, if such a thing existed, I might not have stretched myself so hard, ’cause with the length of my legs, moving the carriage backward at all in that position was really tough. But it also just puts my weight in different places from what I’m used to (you can’t put much weight on the back leg without fucking up your knee), and — not so shockingly, this being Pilates and all — is much tougher on the core muscles for me than Warrior is. Owie.

Oh yeah, then there was mat work. We only did a tiny bit of it, and it was very yoga-like, except for learning how to breathe differently, which was cool. (Of course, my old yoga teacher frequently brought some Pilates stuff into what we did, so it might not have been as technically yoga-like as I think.) I’ll probably try a mat class and could see myself getting into that, but I’m still in the Fun Quotient section here, and the fun was ALL about the machines.

Sweat Quotient: 0.

I left my hoodie on the whole time and didn’t even glisten. Now, I’m sure this is something that varies a hell of a lot, depending on whom you work with and what you do, but since it was my first time, we did everything pretty slowly, and it was quite literally no sweat. (Figuratively, some of the shit was intense, but just not in the way that makes me sweat. And practically everything makes me sweat.) Since Pilates was designed with rehabilitation in mind, there’s no problem with taking things slowly and adapting the moves to what your body’s ready for. So if you don’t want to sweat, I’d say you probably don’t have to — and you’ll still be working your muscles like whoa (see below).

Fat Friendliness: 4 for what we did, probably 3-4 if you go further on and/or are fatter than I am.

On the little “about me” sheet they had me to fill out, it asked if there was anything they should know about, and I wrote “Might need some modifications for big belly/breasts.” The instructor (middle-aged, skinny) read that and laughed — but in a good way. A “nobody’s ever said that to me before, but yeah, boobs can totally get in the way” way. And she did, at one point, start to have me do something on the chair, then move me over to the Cadillac because it occurred to her that my boobs might interfere with her first idea. I probably would have liked to try the first way and see if it actually was a problem for me, but she was cool about it, and I appreciated her really keeping that request in mind.

My fat didn’t cause problems with any of the exercises we did — but I don’t know how the machines are weight-rated, and I could see some of the things I did being more difficult in a larger body. Again, though, Pilates is very much about meeting you where you are, so I imagine you could do plenty of it at any size. The only question mark is how fat-friendly the instructor you get is; mine wasn’t judgmental or flummoxed at all, so you want to hold out for one like that, I guess. And if you’re concerned, it might be worth calling ahead and saying “Look, I weigh X and I’m built like Y– do you think I can use the machines effectively?”

My experience was 99% great, but I didn’t give it a full 5 points for fat-friendliness for two reasons. 1) The Reformer, regardless of its weight-rating, is definitely more accommodating of a narrow body. I was supposed to keep my arms at my sides while lying on the carriage, which I could do, but if I were about two inches wider on either side, there wouldn’t have been room for them. I’m sure there’s probably a work-around for that, but I suspect the machines you find in a typical studio would just be straight-up too small for some people. The good news is, the Reformer is not the be-all and end-all of Pilates, but that’s something to be aware of. 2) The 1% that wasn’t great… Pilates is all about working the core muscles, basically everything from your ass up through your ribs. Which means, as with ballet and yoga, you’re constantly being told to “engage your abs” — i.e., suck in your gut. That’s fine, in and of itself — but a few times, the skinny instructor would be staring at my stomach, telling me to engage my abs, and I was like, “Honey, they’re as engaged as they’re ever gonna be — you just can’t tell, because they’re UNDER A LAYER OF FAT.” She also at one point talked about how if my abs were engaged correctly while I lay on my back, they’d make “a flat shelf,” which… *snort* I mean, the actual muscles probably were flat under there somewhere, but I ain’t gonna be balancing a teacup on my gut any time soon, is all I’m sayin’.

I want to emphasize that she didn’t actually come off as rude or even insensitive with that stuff — just like her teaching habits were not geared to larger bodies, which they probably aren’t, with good reason. She was totally respectful and did make a conscious effort to consider how my body would work with the machines and stuff, so she gets very high marks from me in that regard. But if you’re more self-conscious than I am or get a teacher who’s the kind to bark, “SUCK IT IN!” that kind of thing could be problematic.

Exhaustion Quotient: 0.5

Again, we were working very slowly, it being my first time out, so I didn’t get tired at all. I worked and felt it, but it didn’t wear me out a bit.

Post-Class Invigoration Quotient: 0.5

That would be the downside of not getting even a little exhausted. I felt good walking out of there, but not so much invigorated.

Humiliation Quotient: Variable

This would totally depend on your level of self-consciousness, where the mirrors are, how cool your instructor is, and how many other people are in the room. I ended up in a LOT of positions where I’m sure I looked beyond redonkulous, but since there was no one else there, the instructor was nice, and I mostly ignored or couldn’t see the mirrors, it was no prob. And there was nothing in the way of humiliation because I just couldn’t get what I was supposed to be doing. When I was doing stuff wrong it was because, like, my pelvis was tilting up a tiny bit, not because my arms were flailing around and I was going in entirely the wrong direction, you know?

Pain Quotient: 1

I spent a lot of time wondering if I was really doing stuff right, because I mostly didn’t feel my core muscles working all that hard. I did do a couple insanely intense leg stretches on the Reformer, but except for Eve’s Lunge, they stayed just this side of the line between good-intense and OWWWWW.

This, however, only refers to how I felt in the studio. The next day was a different story.

Next-Day Pain Quotient: 2.5-3, depending on your threshold

After the aforementioned leg stretches, I fully expected my inner thighs to be on fire the next day. Funny thing is, they weren’t — I only had the tiniest twinge of leg pain. But OMG, MY ABS. Turns out I really was working those babies. Especially the upper abs, which I can still feel two days later. Put it this way: I actually said the words, “It hurts when I laugh” yesterday. It was sorta satisfying, in that “Wow, I did more than I thought” way, but definitely don’t plan on doing anything strenuous the day after your first Pilates class, even if you think (as I did) you’ve got a pretty solid core.

Other Thoughts

I’m looking forward to going back to the next 2 privates I’m signed up for and to trying a mat class. I think I would really love working on the machines on a regular basis–and I definitely really love that the studio is a 5-minute walk from my house, which makes dragging my ass there frequently much more plausible than if it were somewhere annoying to get to. But working on the machines is fucking expensive. Getting really into anything other than mat Pilates would be a big financial commitment.

But if money were no object? I’d probably be there 3 times a week, working diligently toward being allowed to hang upside down on the Cadillac. ‘Cause, dude… YOU GET TO HANG UPSIDE DOWN!

A Public Service Announcement from Your Body

Posted on March 10, 2008 by Kate Harding

Go look at the awesome, awesome thing Michelle (a.k.a. Peggy Nature) made.

Shapely Prose

2007-2010

Category Archives: Exercise