In Defense of SoulCycle

SoulCycle gets a bad rap from many, many people.  Just this weekend, the Times’ Style Section poked fun at the spinning empire - without naming names, but if you’re at all familiar with the SoulCycle brand (including the admittedly eye-roll inducing skull-and crossbones logo), you know who was being referenced.  Truth be told, much of it was spot on: it’s dark, it’s loud, it’s INSANE to throw punches with weights when you’re surrounded by 70 other people in a room smaller than a New York City apartment with hands so slick with sweat you dropped your SmartWater 3 hill sprints ago.  And the article didn’t even touch upon what many people think is the most egregious part - it’s expensive.  $34 per class, not including the price of shoes and water, and many studios don’t have locker rooms and shower facilities.  All that, coupled with the heavy-handed “find your soul” “athlete, warrior, rockstar” mantas, can come across as wildly out of touch, I’ll admit.  It’s a fitness class, not a religious ceremony.

 

Sidewalk graffiti.  So edgy!

Indulge me for a minute.

I’ve mentioned that last year, I wasn’t in a great place.  I was unhappy and unfilled, and found it very easy to feel very sorry for myself.  I adopted a cat.  That should really tell you all you need to know.  

I regret nothing. I LOVE HIM!

During this time, it was hard for me to feel good about most things, and that extended to running.  Ultimately, the act of running did cheer me up, but the process of going for a run – and I’m just talking about getting dressed and going down three flights of stairs – seemed insurmountable.  And so, I decreased my running dramatically, not even cracking 100 miles in a month for the first couple of months of 2013.

In spite of all of this (which I realize sounds dire, and I guess reflecting back, it kind of was), I kept going to SoulCycle.  Truthfully, the biggest motivation was a financial one; running was free, so there were few concrete and immediate negative repercussions to bailing, aside from, you know, continuing to not run and feel bad about it.  But to register for a SoulCycle class and not attend was to throw away $34.  So while there were nights where I literally cried myself to sleep (not just because Dorito bites and scratches), there were also mornings where I took my puffy eyes and skull-and-crossbone clad body to a spin class. 

Often, SoulCycle instructors will encourage you to set a goal for the class, and will remind you throughout to think about your goal.  This morning, for example, my goal was to really focus on my crunches, so there is plenty of vapid and vain goal setting going on, believe me.  But last year, my goal every single ride was to spend the 45 minutes not thinking about what was making me anxious and unhappy.  No “I have totally screwed up that work project.”  No “I’m going to be alone forever.”  No “I’m so selfish because these are such ‘first-world’ problems.”  For 45 minutes, I just wanted to not be sad.  And I swear to you, trite as it sounds, being in that dark room, surrounded by 70 other sweaty people, listening to weird Rihanna remixes at maximum volume might as well have been a religious ceremony, it impacted me so significantly.  If nothing else, for 45 minutes a day, I felt better.

I’m not claiming SoulCycle was the cure for my sadness and anxiety (also not a cure – actual therapy, which did nothing but made me feel dramatically worse, and which I ended after about 4 sessions.  Incidentally, breaking up with that wackadoo therapist was actually a turning point in my mood and mental health, as it felt to me like the first time I was making a conscious decision to do something that would make me happy).  But it was something that gave me, if not outright joy, than at least not depression, at a time when I needed it.  

So even though I'm back to being (mostly) happy and (generally) healthy, there is still something about being in the dark of the studio that makes me feel like I’m taking care of myself, beyond just exercising.  If that means I’m drinking the $34 Kool-Aid, so be it.  At least I draw the line at the $288 cashmere throw, adorned with – what else, skull-and-crossbones.