My experience: The Class by Taryn Toomey
It’s 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Fresh Palo Santo incense fumes filled my lungs as I sat down on the front row gray yoga mat. I went into The Sacred Space Miami studio without many expectations, having done only minimal research on The Class and its instructor, Taryn Toomey. I gathered she and it were pretty famous due to the fast-filled spots that had to be triple confirmed in light of a long waitlist but I didn’t understand why, skeptical as to what could be so novel about a hybrid exercise/yoga class.
In a ten-minute private meet and greet (above) with Toomey and ten other women prior to starting The Class, what struck me more than whatever Toomey said was the way some of the women borderline worshipped her. One woman from Mexico claimed she travels to wherever Toomey teaches whether it's in NY, LA, Miami or Whistler for The Retreatment because of how The Class makes her feel: healed. The concept of healing through physical movement was one Toomey stressed in her class overview, basically equating it to a sort of spiritual cleanse. Healing of what, I asked myself: trauma, abuse, anxiety, stress, fear, pain, general negativity? According to Toomey, all of the above, plus boundary transgressions, a phrase she mentioned a lot. I asked her what techniques she suggests for times of anxiety and panic. “Breathing and self-awareness” she answered, explaining that we must differentiate between a thought and an emotion. Thoughts can be controlled, paused or redirected in the mind. Emotions, on the other hand, are feelings that we have to acknowledge and “feel into our bodies” if we are to understand them. Interpret that how you will. It was time to start.
Part music festival, part high-intensity interval training (HIIT), part power yoga/ deep breathing, part preacher like sermon without the context of religious faith. Yea I was confused too. I actually almost passed out in the beginning. My breath control was off. There was a lot of start and stop. You go from doing one exercise repetitively for the duration of an entire song– whether it’s jumping jacks, burpees, squats or hip thrusts to standing super still. Hand on chest to feel a racing heartbeat, feet shoulder-width apart and no fidgeting for a couple of minutes. Without the option to hit the cooldown button, like on the treadmill after a sprint, that sudden cardio burst to sudden motionlessness made me light-headed. Cue a water break!
I should mention this was an almost 100-women class save for two men. Floor mats were side by side, two inches apart. The rules were no talking to or touching your neighbor, out of respect for personal space and sweat emission. There was also a cameraman walking around filming, photographing and subconsciously reminding us to “suck it in” in case our sweaty face makes a cameo in one of Toomey’s promotional materials.
For some reason, I chose the mat directly in front of the loudspeaker that little did I know would proceed to blast songs from Florence + The Machine (Toomey is a huge fan of Florence) to nature sounds to EDM pop remixes for the next hour and a half. During those EDM portions, Toomey instructed us to dance, shake it out and jump around arms-a-flailing. To a non-informed spectator, it would most definitely appear like an African tribal dancing class, complete with chant-like cries of “ugh!” on the beat. Or perhaps a rave of middle-aged moms. Being that I do frequent music festivals, nightclubs and SoulCycle, I tend to be comforted by the deafening sound waves that most likely cause high-frequency hearing loss. It’s a way to get out of my head, “get lost in the music” and “be present,” as the platitude goes.
On top of the music, throughout intervals of dance party, core conditioning and meditation techniques was Toomey’s vague, quasi-spiritual talk of “intentional choices” and “listening to your body” and “nonpermanence.” I can’t forget the profanity mixed in there too. The integration of fitness and wellness is at the crux of boutique fitness businesses, with a startup culture that is fused with mantras and self-help slogans. Even The Sacred Space Miami’s reception desk and parking lot offer wisdom:
Let’s take SoulCycle, one of the OG brands to normalize $30+ workout classes. I confess I was one of those pioneers as a high schooler back when they only had one location on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and I’m still a fan. This image is found on SoulCycle’s website and most of its studios’ walls:
Look at all that inspiring and positive world play! #Marketing #Mantra
Well, it worked over a decade ago and still works to attract and retain followers. Much like a religious cult, a boutique fitness brand nowadays is a system of physical and spiritual devotion towards fitness, where the instructor can be seen as a guru or life coach. It’s the assurance that if we commit ourselves to these workout classes, we will become both physically and spiritually fit enough to transform our lives for the better. We can easily measure physical fitness but what about spiritual fitness/health? As if doing enough jumping jacks will give meaning to our lives? For some people, it might. Spiritual, simply means relating to or consisting of the spirit or soul. Basically, our spirit determines how we cope with life, our outlook on it and the motivations behind the choices we make. Ideally, a spiritual lifestyle is conducive to fulfilling a purpose in life. In the case of fitness, however, spirituality has nothing to do with religion. Both men and women believe in the promise of these boutique gyms and truly hope to realize their fitness goals. It starts by following the instructor who talks big and provides a sense of temporary relief from our struggles in a supposed safe space. Toomey is one of those instructors that people fan-girl over. I kept asking myself, why? Why are we always trying to copy the cool “it” girl or follow the latest trend? Until the next one comes along, that is.
“Remember that your soul chose this beautiful body,” Toomey repeated throughout The Class. She expanded on this during a panel session after class, that the idea is to feel an alignment between the spirit and the body; the mind and the brain. It’s about integration that leads to empowerment. Our soul has to learn to work in harmony with our bodily organs. It requires an internal conversation or check-in, constantly questioning what we need. “If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it,” she’d say if you had to do the modified version or the squats instead of the burpee. In a world of comparisons and external validation, it’s about learning to self-celebrate versus self-loath. According to Toomey, everything that is practiced in the studio can be applied to life in the outside world. Just when I’m dying during a song-long set of curtsy lunges, Toomey shouts, “This will be over soon. It’ll pass. Nothing is permanent.” With that, it was on to the next “dance like no one is watching” set. That ability to transition “from state to state without clinging to the past” takes practice, explained Toomey– whether it’s switching hats daily from mom to businesswoman to The Class instructor, in Toomey’s case, to transitioning life stages from child to adolescent to adult. “It’s OK to cry, to laugh or to scream,” she’d remind us, because apparently it is common for people to cry in her class. Unclear if she referred to crying from current physical pain or past emotional pain or both. Essentially, The Class serves as a suspension of time where anything goes and the physical exertion is translated into an emotional and psychological release of all the “bad” our souls and bodies endure in the outside world. With every convulsive-like gesture, we were instructed to make the conscious, intentional choice to cleanse our bodies. “Shit is only in there, until it’s not!” Toomey reminded us.
P.S.
· Post-workout and pre-panel we were offered a yummy green juice
· The Class will introduce male-only sessions starting in February 2019
· Song playlists are available on Apple Music and Spotify (sans Toomey’s commentary)
