Jess Rothschild - SoulCycle and the Cult of Spinning

This week’s guest is Jess Rothschild, creator of documentary podcast "Cult of Body & Soul," which dives into the history of cult fitness brand Soulcycle. She explains the spinning company's origins, how the workout environment was engineered to create an almost religious experience, and why instructors chosen for their devoted followings and special charisma made it a cultural phenomenon.

They discuss the social hierarchies that formed inside and outside of class, the mysticism infused into the culture, and what she herself loved about it--and how the corporate takeover of the brand changed everything.

SOURCES

Cult of Body and Soul

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Trust me? Do you trust me?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ever lead you a story? Trust? This is the truth,
the only truth.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two Soulful cyclists who have actually experienced it.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I am Lola Blanc and I'm Meg and Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Today our guest is Jess Rothschild, creator of Cult of
Body and Soul, a documentary podcast about spinning brand Soul Cycle.
She's going to tell us about the company's origins with
a workout environment engineered to create an almost religious experience,
and how instructors chosen for their cult followings and special
charisma exploded the brand.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
She'll talk about the social hierarchies that formed inside and
outside of class, some of the flings that happened with instructors,
the mysticism infused into the culture, and how the corporate
takeover of the brand changed everything.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
And this is just a little bit more of a
lighter episode.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
We know so Cycled isn't like a cult, but there
were some actually pretty surprising things we found out about
it and some pretty culty aspects.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Indeed, before we go cycling with Jess Megan, what's your
cultiest thing of a week?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
All right?

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, as always, we are like speaking about something that
might be current this week, but when it airs it
might be a few weeks from now.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
So just know that this is current this week. The well,
you're not being dated in your references. I'm not being dated.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
So fifty cent and Netflix released the Sean Combs The
Reckoning documentary, which I have you have seen yet?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Can't haven't? I've seen it forty times.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Maybe it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
Very sad, very informative, and just an incredible job done
by fifty cent. So who I was really drawn to
and the doc that I would love to have on
the podcast actually is his childhood friend and his partner.
His name is Kirk Burrows, and he had a quote

(02:04):
that they put kind of about the beginning. Kirk saw
Sean pushing around a woman and he said this, I
pushed that to the back of my mind. That was
a really bad moment. But he was weak. Does that
make me part of a Shawn Combe's cult? I may
have been the first disciple, believer and then overall protector

(02:25):
against all odds mm. And what stood out to me
is this man was a childhood friend of Sean who
saw many difficult things in his life happen, and he
was also seeing the good things that Sean was helping
build within this culture of building up, you know, a
community that had been so overlooked and whatever. So the

(02:47):
cognitive dissonance this man must have been experiencing was just
very surreal, I imagine. And then just for him to use
that religious language unpromptad and the identity fusion. Also, like
in the byte model, the information control was such a
perfect storm because there's this culture of don't snitch, you know,

(03:11):
which is very needed many times because as we know,
you know, if you get the cops involved or something,
they can go badly. But it did just create this
perfect storm of people not sharing information, people trying to protect,
as we see so often in cults, the broader message
and not take down somebody who might be a bad

(03:32):
actor because they don't want to take away the good happening.
And it was really horrible and it was really eye opening.
You know, these cult like groups can form anywhere.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, wow, I mean I wanted to watch it already,
but now I absolutely want to watch it. Someone else
had actually mentioned I think that same person to me
and that it must have been the same quote, because
it seems to have stood out to a lot of people,
the cognitive dissonance that that person was experiencing, and that
I think that probably numerous people were experiencing. Yeah, yeah,
knowing that the like these two conflicting things were happening

(04:06):
at the same time, and oh my gosh, yeah, I
feel so bad for those women and all, yeah, everyone
involved with that.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
But I can't wait to watch. Yeah, give it a watch.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
It's it's you can't press stop once to press play.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
You know what I mean? I do know what you mean?
What about you? What's your cultiest thing of the week?

Speaker 3 (04:26):
I am finally reading a book that has been recommended
to me like four hundred billion times, not an exaggeration,
It was literally four hundred billion times, which is parable
of The Sewer by Octavia Butler, who is this like
pioneering black woman science fiction author before that was really
a thing anywhere. And this book has been referenced so

(04:49):
many times because it takes place in around this time. Actually,
I want to say, it's like a couple of years
from now and the world has gone to shit, and
the inequality become so incredibly stark, and water has become
such a scarce resource.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
So's it's already like a setup that I'm here for.
I'm interested in it.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
But the main character is this I think teenage girl
who has this superpower called hyper empathy and basically she
creates a religion. Like the book is about her survival
during this time period and how she's creating this religion
for people to follow and building this community, which is

(05:29):
so desperately needed in these you know, dystopian times.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
I'm sure there are a million.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Books like this, but I had not read any novels
that specifically captured the experience of the person forming the group,
which I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know,
you know, if it becomes like a culture just a
religion or what. But it's very, very culty, and it
reads like you are in the mind of somebody who
is really trying to create a you know, religious community.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
So it's super interesting. I want to read it. I've
been suggested it exactly one time and it was just now.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, I feel silly that it's taken me this long,
because honestly, a ton of people have recommend it's supposed
to be like one of the great speculative fiction. I
don't know the difference between sci fi and speculative fiction,
but let's say it's both. It's one of the great
novels in that category apparently, and I am really loving it.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
So anyway, that's my culty thing. Cool.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
I mean, it sounds like you start to kind of
side with the person starting the cult to my correct.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Well as I'm going I'm like, you know, with my
cult podcast or brain, I'm like, don't start the cult.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
But I see why I need it.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, But in the world, like everybody is like stealing
from each other and killing each other. It's a very
violent book, Like there's some really gruesome imagery in there,
and you know, you're really rooting for this community to
form because the people need each other so badly, and
she does not, because this character does not seem to
have any malicious intentions.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
So you know, I'm like, oh, this were the.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Real world, would you get corrupted by the power of
the people who begin to follow her?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
You know, like, I don't know, it's it's fun.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Come back when you finish it, I will Okay, perfect, Okay, great,
shall we talk to Jess.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Welcome Jess Rothschild to Oh my God, to trust me.
I was going to say, to podcast podcast. I mean
that's also technically true. Welcome to this podcast trust me.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I
love you guys, excited to have you.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
You also have podcasts, which is why you were here,
called Clouds of Body and Soul, which is about Soul Cycle.
And obviously you know Soul Cycle is not a literal cult,
but we will be discussing some of the dynamics.

Speaker 2 (08:06):
There's cultish behavior surrounds it, but no, it's not.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
It's not nexium. We're not. Let's not be too hyperbolic
about it. But it was surprising to me how culte
it got.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
So oh, I'd be interested to hear what yell if
you found to be the most cultish.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, yeah, there were things where I was like, whoa,
And we'll get in talk with them, Yes we will.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, what drew you to start a podcast docu saries
about Soul Cycle?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
So I have hosted my own show, a weekly pop
culture show called Hot Takes and Deep Dives since around
twenty eighteen twenty nineteen. On that show, I interview people
everyone from Rosi o'donald to Isaac Mizrahi Sandra Bernhard, and
separate from those pop culture interviews, it also serves as
an incubator for things that I am just obsessed with

(08:58):
in my daily life. And I did an episode of
that show called The Cults of Soul Cycle about like
two or three years maybe three years ago at this point,
and where in that episode I had a fellow Spin
instructor friend. He did not teach at Soul Cycle, but
he did teach at a Soul Cycle competitor, and we

(09:18):
just basically talked about everything Soul Cycle. And so this
had been percolating in the back of my mind. I mean,
Will before you even had a podcast. I was the
friend at the brunch table screaming that I could not
believe that no one had made a documentary about Soul Cycle.
To me, this is the most fascinating story ever told.
So that's what drove me to do that episode, is

(09:41):
that I just wanted to talk about it all day long.
And eventually, once I got into making documentaries, documentary podcast series,
this is my second of course, it was going to
be on Soul cycle, because this was the thing I'm
the most passionate about.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
It's your special interest.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
Yeah, the other being Fire Island, which is also exacinating
the history.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yeah, I love that you love these topics. What is
Fire Island? What is Fire Island? Yeah? Oh, where are
you guys? Located? Los Angeles? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Okay, So I'm a New Yorker and so Fire Island
is off the coast of Long Island. It's about two
hours from New York City and you take a ferry
to get there, and it's basically this gay fantasia.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
These two communities that are right that are a mile apart.
One is very focused towards gay men. That's the Pines.
You may have heard of, the Fire Island Pines. And
the one right next door is called Cherry Grove, and
that one is very like bohemian trans people, lesbians, older
gay guys, very interesting, kitchy. Yeah, and like you know,

(10:45):
everyone mixes and mingles between and there's a lot of history.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
We were gonna ask you, like what the kind of
connection between the two are, But as you're speaking about it,
I'm like, well, that was kind of, you know, a
very integral part of the soul Cycle community was that
it was very diverse.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
LGBTQ. Yeah, I'm super gay.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, as a gay person myself, A lot of the
work I do is focused on gay pop culture and
then also queer history, like I just find so fascinating,
like who came before us?

Speaker 4 (11:16):
Right, there's no pop culture that's not gay pop culture.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So you are taking soul Cycle classes yourself.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, I was a devote, serious devote from like twenty
ten to twenty nineteen. I stopped going at the end
of twenty nineteen, but definitely for like six years in there.
You know, I started off kind of light and then
I got really sucked in, and then towards.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
The end I was on my way out.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
But for I would say six years, I mean, is
it embarrassing to say it was the singular focus of
my life?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
No?

Speaker 3 (11:51):
No, I mean I think that's probably true for a
lot of people. Yeah, but that makes you the perfect
person to be making this podcast.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
I'm talking to us about this. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
We love when someone's actually experienced the thing that we're
talking about.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, So tell us how soul Cycle began.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
So, soul Cycle was founded by three women in two
thousand and six, three women who really didn't know each other.
One was a spinning instructor, this one woman, and the
other two one came from a LA she was a
talent agent and the other one had a background in
real estate.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
But they all really didn't know each other very well.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
And the one who was the spin instructor, the two
women were her clients, like they would take her close.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
And that's how it was founded.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
I mean, there's a longer story, but basically, these three
women got together and thought, hey, let's create this thing.
Like the talent agent who lived out in LA there
was a studio that she loved that really was the
bone structure of what and the emotion not even the
bone structure, I should say, rather the soul, the actual

(12:55):
embodiment of what. Soul cycle really managed to scale beyond
anyone's dreams. There was this spin studio in West Hollywood
that the talent manager loved, and she would then recruit
the woman who owned and was the main spin instructor
at that LA studio. Her name is Janet Fitzgerald, and Janet,

(13:16):
if you've listened to Cult of Body and Soul, is
the lead of Cult of Body and Soul. And they
eventually were able to recruit her to Soul Cycle, and
she taught over four hundred instructors that went through the
training program. There would not be soul Cycle without this woman, Janet,
whose roots were in la and they basically created a

(13:37):
copycat version of what she brilliantly designed and embodied.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Did you ever take a class with Janet? Specifically?

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Oh my god, I've been obsessed with this woman for
over a decade.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
It's so funny.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
There are a few questions that I get over and
over again, but especially as the series was airing. It
first premiered in May of this year, and people would say, like,
where did you find this Janet?

Speaker 1 (14:03):
I'm like, hello, I've been following this woman for gerald.
You mean Madonna? Yeah, the Madonna of spin.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Wait, okay, okay, I've never taken a spin class. So
for listeners who are like me and don't understand this culture,
like what makes an instructor like Janet so special.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
That's a really great question.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
So the difference between spinning and really any other group,
if you suppose you're comparing it to like yoga, or
like pilates, or like a boot camp, like a battery's
boot camp type class, Spinning is different and it's this
is not unique to soul cycle, but in this instance
we'll focus on soul cycle. Spinning is different because the

(14:47):
instructor is on an elevated podium facing the class, and
you are staring at the instructor. With yoga pilates boot camp,
the instructor is in the background, they are walking around.
You can't even see the instructor. And soul cycle and

(15:08):
spinning is the exact opposite. You are projecting all of
your focus onto the instructor. Interesting, and the instructor has
curated this musical journey for you to go on, whereas
in those different modalities the music is not the primary focus.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I've taken yoga classes where it is, but I didn't
really like those yoga classes.

Speaker 4 (15:30):
Well, I will tell you, Jess. I was a two
thousand and nine West Hollywood Crunch girly. Okay, I was
doing the spin upstairs, and I remember like Bob from
Biggest Loser was always in it, which I thought was
really cool.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Was he teaching, No, he was just in the class
because you know, he was an instructor. He was a
very popular spin instructor in La oh oh interesting.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
Well he would there was just this one particular class
that he would be at and it would just be
like the energy was so insane. You would like get
on the bikes. Do you guys remember that song? I
was like, let me see a hip swing.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
We'll have to take that because I don't want to
just keep it up.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
But like you'd all just I grew up like the
cult that I grew up and we weren't allowed to dance.
So I have no idea how to dance. I have
no idea. I've never like been into that world. So
this was just my first chance of like dancing with
a giant group of diverse, interesting people.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
And the endorphins were like pumpin' you're saying for a
cycling class. Yeah, so you're dancing. Yeah, it's like dancing.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
You're really hitting on something with the dancing because spinning,
I mean spinning.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
You're on a stationary bike.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
You know, if we we zume out last, you know,
just like what is spinning? You know, I think most
people know what spinning is. You're on a stationary bike,
but you are moving your body to the rhythm of
the music, which mimics the tribal experience of dancing.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Right because it's a pack that's all moving together.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
And you're riding to the rhythm. So it is like
dancing on this bike.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yes, yes, and everybody it would be like, you know,
the beat would drop and you stand up all at
the same time and then you like do your choreography.
And I was just like this is I can't miss
this class.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
There's a lot of choreography, like you're getting up, you're
getting You're not just like sitting on the bike right. No, no, no, no,
Like you're getting up, you're sprinting, you're climbing hills. There
are lots of different dance oriented like moves. You're moving
your body back and forward on the bike. You're doing
also like push ups on the handlebars, like there are
a lot of different bars, so your move.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
There's a lot of different choreography. It can be a corporate.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
It's sort of like mental gymnastics.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
It was just so fun.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Wow, Okay, I understand why it would feel more like
a shared a rave.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah. It's like self help meets rave meets guru meets.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
And also, unlike pilates or whatever, there's also a lot
of stuff going on with the lights, Like the lights
are dark and they'll flick on the lights. It's certain
like there's a lot of ambiance that's happening there. It's candlelight,
so there's candles. Sometimes yoga can do that, but it's
lit by candles. And then when all of a sudden,

(18:16):
if a beat drops, they'll like flick on the lights
that connect it to like a strobe, like a disco ball.
It's theater. It's an immersive theatrical experience.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Okay, that does sound fun. Actually now I'm remembering I
went to one. I did go to one spinning class
one time with my mom and it was the hardest
thing I've ever done.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
And I left halfway through.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
So my mind experience, I'm bad at working out, but
with the right.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Music and the right lighting, you know, maybe I could
make it. I think so.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
And just like going back to twenty of your points,
you know, it was started by these three women and
then one of them gets kicked out, which was my
first like culty ding ding ding, is that there's this
unspoken person trope where it's like we don't say roots
name and even like kind of some slurry language about
like Grandma Ruth and you know, making her just this

(19:09):
person on Grada that I'm like that's culte.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
One person refers to her as the boogeyman in the corner,
and I thought that quote was so good that I
titled at the name of the episode, Yes.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yes, explain to us who Ruth is.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
So, Ruth is the spin instructor who introduced the other
two women who created Soul Cycle. She was the original
spin instructor who introduced them. She was just a New
York spin instructor, hustling, trying to make it. You know,
she was a divorcee. She was older. She was like

(19:42):
a good decade older than the other two women. And
she was running around to a bunch of different studios
and these two women separately who didn't know each other.
They were taking her class at different studios, and she
had a dedicated following, and she introduced the two of
them be like, you know, because they'd each talk to
her about, Oh, it's my dream to open a spin

(20:03):
studio and she's like, oh, why don't we all like
work together.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah. So that's who Ruth was.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
And it seems like Ruth maybe didn't have the same
access to like a lawyer or a contract that the
other truth.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Ruth was very naive. She was not a business woman.
She was not a lawyer. She was not, you know,
unlike the other women were like sharks in business. One
was a talent agent in LA and Hollywood, and the
other woman had a lot of business experience. She worked
in real estate. She had worked on another startup before.

(20:36):
And so Ruth, I mean, her whole career was in
dance and then spin instruction. So she was definite at
a disadvantage.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
But that happens a bit later, right, Nope, Oh no,
she got cut kicked out immediately.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
That happened after the first like year and a half. Okay, yeah,
the first year and a half, she was no longer
an owner.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Tell us about the first year.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
So the first year, Ruth was teaching the majority of
the classes.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
The first year it was like crickets.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
It wasn't like an overnight success like immediately.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
The first six months were difficult.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
That the classes maybe had like six or seven people
in them, and Ruth was teaching the majority of the classes.
She brought over all her clients from those independent you know,
like New York sports club type gyms, and they slowly
were finding instructors to teach these classes, and eventually they

(21:45):
opened an outpost in the Hamptons a summer outpost, and
that's when it exploded because a lot of these Upper
east Side, Upper West Side meaning if you think of
like the Real Housewives of New York City and.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
I always am, I always think.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
When I the main that was the main clientele of
Soul Cycle, and they all went out to the Hamptons,
you know, just like Ramona and Leanne. Just think of
visualized Ramona Singer and Countess Lawanne as like the clientele
for this.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
As you know from Ramona in these people.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
You're Ramona Turtle time the eye on the runway.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
You're just speaking another language.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Sorry, please continue.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
So they opened this summer outpost in the Hamptons and
that's where it really exploded because that is where people
like Kelly Rippa and Brookshields and Kira Sedgwick, Katie Kuric,
a lot of like New York based celebrities started taking
their first Soul Cycle classes out in the Hamptons because

(22:50):
people are obsessed with working out out there because it's
it's part of the social fabric. It's a way to
get invited to dinner. It's a social climbing type of thing.
And cut to it's after Labor Day, we're back to
the city. All of a sudden, Kelly Rippa is on
the TV talking about Soul Cycle, talking about her favorite instructor,

(23:14):
and then it blows up in the fall. That was
like two thousand and seven.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
After the first full year.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Now they've got celebrities and classes, and once you have
that social proof of a celebrity talking about the thing,
everyone wants to check it out to say that they
were there to get the photo, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
And that's how it exploded.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
I mean, I really credit Kelly Rippa for putting Soul
Cycle on the cultural map.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
So some of these star instructors, what was it about
them that was so compelling versus a different run of
the mill instructor.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, I would say the best Soul Cycle instructors were
charismatic leaders. They knew how to speak to the class
through the microphone and make you feel something. It was
the words they were saying. It wasn't necessarily how they looked,
it was what they were saying. It was like the

(24:15):
best preacher or like when you think of like Obama,
He's a charismatic, powerful speaker, and that was what the
best Soul Cycle instructors were able to do.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
And I think somebody listening might be like, Okay, you
can't compare Obama to a soul cyclone.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
But I again and Mochelle Obama loves soul cycle. They
people went to the White House to teach soul cycle.
It was like, see if your Asians like these people.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
We were speaking the language at that level, and that's
when it kind of becomes more exciting and dangerous.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know something else, you know, I actually really haven't
said this anywhere. I certainly don't say it in this series,
but I talk a lot about addiction in the series.
I say, you know, the most common path to fitness
instructor and fitness enthusiast is musical theater major.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Or addict in recovery. Yes's fascinating or addict period.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
And therefore a lot of instructors had this performance background.
You know, you can file those people under the very
charismatic leaders. They know how to like hold the room.
And then also when you combine that with people who
have years of life experience or they're in recovery and
they're able to talk about that experience, talk about that

(25:40):
life experience, maybe they're not talking explicitly about recovery, but
twelve step language totally.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Is there a way of life.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
It is a way of life, and I do I
am saying I believe it would seep through the classes
and seep through the walls. I do think it was
this unspoken thing of why some of those very charismatic,
the people who were really successful. A lot of those
people do you have long time recovery or have They've

(26:11):
been through a lot in their life and they have
the tools to be able to talk to a group
of people because they have the experience doing that.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
That's so interesting.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
So again as a cycling nube, like what are people saying,
because like I've gone to work out classes and all
they're saying and other types of classes usually is like
and lift your but you know, like there's there's.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
No five Yeah, yeah, focus on the glutes like it's
it's very like practical.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, Like what's what's the kind of sermon? Yeah, I
mean that would be difficult. Well, let me think I
mean some some some instruct there's one very well known instructor,
Angela Davis, who taught in West hollyge She taught in
LA And there's a guy in one of the episodes
who is talking about her class specifically, and like she

(27:07):
was Beyonce and jay Z's favorite instructor, and he said
there were some classes where there was no music.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
She just spoke.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Oh, so it really was like a sermon that was
not the norm, that was like unique to her. But
I would say, Okay, in my we'll talk about like
my experience. I would say. They would be specific about
what they were going through in their life, or they
would tell stories from the from their past and different
frameworks for how to deal with challenges in your life

(27:39):
that weren't just Mel Robbins.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Let them mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Okay, this is like old school theory, a lot of
metaphysical language.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
That's what Janet Fitzgerald.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
She would talk a lot about metaphysics, a lot about
psychic behavior. You know, she's very connected to a lot
of psychics. And so the class beingbued with the spirituality,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
It's spirituality.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
If I haven't said that already, right, that's what spoke
to me. Yeah, because I wasn't getting that anywhere else
in my life, so I would go there for that.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
So it is like it's church like then.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Yes, yeah, we have a quote here that says the
structure of the ritual, the group, the community, and the
elation at the end of the ride was very similar
to being raised in a Christian environment. This is by
one of your intervieways named John Hill. It was rapturous.
He said, yes, yeah, euphoria peak experiences, and then you
kind of become dependent on going back.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Well you get it's that dopamine hit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, you don't become dependent, but like think of any
drug you take right you get it, and then you
spend the rest of your time kind of like chasing
that feeling. And sometimes you do get that feeling and
sometimes you don't, but you're always looking for that feeling.
Like that's been my experience right with Soul cycle in particular.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
I mean, people get addicted to working out in general
just because of what it does to the chemicals in
your brain. But I can imagine that if there's also
this like hypnotic almost like dance element where there's a
spirituality spiritual talk happening at the same time.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Honestly, I'm sold, I kind of want to go I'm
soul No.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
I know, it's crazy, you know, for me, it was
the spirituality, But then honestly, you could talk to somebody
else and be like, yeah, I didn't he you know,
I have a friend He's like, I didn't care about
the spirituality piece at all. For me. It was more
for me, meaning for my friend who's in the series.
He talks about how he used to love going out
to clubs, and you know, people go to clubs for

(29:49):
a reason. They love the dance, they love the tribalism,
they love all of that. They love that party environment.
And as you get older, you're not really going out
to the club anymore, and maybe the only you really
get to dance is at a wedding, you know, the
older you get, and like you're working a job, you
can't like be out late nights. And this gave you
an opportunity to basically go to a rave at like

(30:12):
whatever time you want, literally all day every day.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah right, it's your schedule, right.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
One of the things I found interesting about the instructors
is that they weren't really required to get a degree.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
And I know, yes, that's still insane to me. Especially,
it's more like how charismatic are they?

Speaker 4 (30:31):
How much are And you did also say like it
was like how much space are they giving you to
process and to project? Onto them instead of just screaming
stuff at you. Like, there's this art to it. So, yes,
we're attracting a lot of musical theater majors or just
theater majors, and they become rock stars. You said people
would be trying to touch them and whatever. Wow. One

(30:53):
of the things that stood out to me was how
they made it kind of sexy and a very formula
a way that I was like, Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Can you speak a little bit about that. Yeah, it
took me a while to figure out.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
So it's funny a phrase that kept coming up. They
were taught to teach from their vagina, okay, And it
took me forever to And I talked to Janet about this,
like I'm like, what are they talking about? Like what
does this mean? Like please break this down and plain english.
And what I realized what it means is like riding

(31:30):
from your or emit to ride from your vagina. Rather,
what it means is to ride in like a rhythmic.
It's like moving your hips in a certain way. I
do think that's ultimately what that means. And like having
like a life source and yeah, it's kind of like
when you look at Jalo when you look at Ricky Martin,

(31:51):
when you look at the way they dance, it's the
movement of the hips that does create a certain sexual
seductive there's.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Something going on. Must add candle light. I was gonna say,
there's candles. Looking people in.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
The eye exactly like when they're really coming down from
a fast ride, make eye contact, like.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Then giving them a little touch on the hand, playing
a few slow songs.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
In the beginning, one of the quotes is like they
either want to fuck you or be you. Yes, it's
kind of what the instructors were taught.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah, which brings me to my question of how were
they selecting instruct Like what were the criteria for selecting instructors.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
If not certification, you audition, Yeah, and then if you
pass the audition, you're then enrolled in like an eight
week training program, and that's where all of that gets taught.
They basically teach them how to curate the playlist, how
to ride from the vagina, and how to do all

(32:54):
these sort of like little like theater tricks that there's
a bit of like snake charming to it. How to
really like hook the ride into coming back to your
class over and over. I mean This is also how
they get paid, right, You're not getting paid if you're
not filling up your room. So how to yeah, hook
the rider, how to hook clients, and and also how
to structure the class.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
There's there's just a formula to it.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Of course, you know, like taking somebody on a journey
through music.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
It makes sense to train your instructors to make it
a welcoming environment. I mean that's that's as I have
them made it a little too welcoming.

Speaker 4 (33:29):
I was obsessed with Adken. Oh he's huge, it's so hot.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
I can I encourage your encourage your listeners to look
up Acn. If you just go on Instagram, type in
a k I N, he will pop right up. I
means he now has his own very successful studio called
Acin's Army, and he has he has had a cult
like flowing following since day one. And he was the

(33:55):
top instructor at Soul for many years. He was making
over a million dollars a year. He Wow, he would
teach like six or seven classes a day. He never
needed a day off because he was brought up as
a young tennis prodigy, got it.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
He never needed a day off.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
He's built you know, like Ai to do this job,
and he is huge, and when he left soul Cycle
to open his own studio, it was a big loss
for the company.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
Wow, And I'm not saying him in particular, but it
does seem as though there was a culture of some
of these male instructors or even a female instructor sleeping
with the students.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Well, I think that happens in any job. That's not
unique to Soul Cycle.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
But also exercise class, so it's not like it's school.

Speaker 4 (34:50):
Well, I mean some of it was very scandalous, like
it was on page six. Married people sleeping with their instructors.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
It's not unique to soul Cycle, but.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, all of that stuff is certainly present here.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Yeah, I suppose when you know, the instructors are like
put on this sort of pedestal and developed a literal
and are literally higher than everybody else. Like certainly that's
going to create more of a god complex.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, sex complex.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Yeah, also make them just more appealing to you know,
like it definitely creates a.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Little Yeah, they're dripping, they're dripping in sweat. They look
really good in skimpy clothing. Like the sweat, the glistening
of that also The other difference is, I guess most
fitness studios you're surrounded by mirrors. But there's something about
the mirror layout that's interesting is you're you're so focused

(35:49):
on the instructor, you're not really looking at yourself, whereas
in a lot of other studios you're just looking at yourself.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah, you're not. That's all I do totally. I'm like,
why do I look so stupid this movement?

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Why am I not pulling my butt up? Why am
I frog shaped?

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (36:07):
No, I mean it is.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
It is a perfect storm, and again would get pulled
right in.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
But it was what forty dollars a class is? Is
that what it is now? Today? It's forty dollars a class? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
When I was going it was thirty four dollars a class,
and when it started it was twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Dollars a class. Well, inflation, so that's just like inflation.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
Yeah, yeah, I mean there was one one interesting comment
a woman made that was like she started to kind
of realize red flags about her sohul cycle, you said,
outside of the class, Like not when she was in
the class, but like she'd like maybe see her bill
at the end of the year and be like, I'm sorry,
I just spent nine thousand dollars at Soul cycle.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
That's a you know estimate.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah, but yeah, were there any moments where stuff like
that happened to you where you were like, oh, dang.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Well, you know, I'll be honest. I mean, yeah, so
I certainly was spending that kind of money on it
a year.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
But I would say for me, and this didn't occur
to me until later when I was like taking a
step back. For me, there was an element of wanting
to please certain instructors, meaning I would force myself to
go even a class that I didn't if I was
exhausted after a day of work, like it's five o'clock,

(37:27):
I'm exhausted. I just want to go home and collapse.
I wouldn't cancel out of a class. I would still
go to, like a six thirty class, because I still
wanted to be seen as like one of the Golden Riders,
one of the favorites.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
There was one.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Guru I had at Seoul who really was the woman
who hooked me, and she's interviewed in the series. Her
name is Stevie, and she is a wizard.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
A witch.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
She is incredible, She's everything that you want the experience
to be. And there were times I just wanted to
go to bed and not force my body to go
through this extreme physical experience. But I didn't want her
to like forget about me, right, it's the sick. I
don't know what it is. I don't I don't know
what the word is. But there was this for me

(38:14):
wanting to remain one of the special ones.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Were there people who were going just overboard that you
talked to doing this podcast, like just going to too
many classes a day, pushing themselves too hard?

Speaker 1 (38:31):
For sure. Oh. I would see people who would take
like three in a row. Oh my god. Yeah, there
was high intensity workout.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
I mean, if Adkin was teaching what are you supposed
to do?

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Just not just kicking? He was teaching six classes a day.
I guy to take six.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
His riders, which was like basically ninety eight percent female.
His riders would if he was teaching like three classes
in one location and then two classes in another location,
they would literally follow him from two a studio.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Oh my god. He's John Lennon of cycling.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yes, yeah, he caused what you called the Great Divide?

Speaker 1 (39:08):
What what was that? Just when he left.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
The great divide referred to the people who were part
of the training team, people who were like lead basically
like people who like were soul Cycle branded and like
they were soul Cycle like working for the very like
company forward. Acken was never like branded in soul Cycle.
Accen was branded as himself. He just he worked for

(39:34):
soul Cycle because that was his employer and that's where
he could make the most amount of money doing this thing.
But he was his own brand and his own name.
And so that was the great divide in the sense
that he didn't have to play by the.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Rule I see. And merch was like a huge part
of this for everybody.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
Yes, every month k new merch is dropping and he
was just like, well, I'm not wearing a shirt at all.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yes, that he.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Would, he would never really wear soul Cycle clothing. And
then he started and then he started selling his own merch.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Oh is that allowed?

Speaker 2 (40:08):
It was allowed in his case because again they bent
every rule for him because they wanted to hang on
to him as soon as long as possible, at least
back in the day. Today these rules are different. Today,
You're allowed to teach at multiple different studios, you can
be a yoga instructor and teach at Soul Cycle and
teach someplace else. Ten years ago, if you were a
Soul Cycle instructor, you could only teach at Soul Cycle period.

(40:32):
Ackin because he was this unicorn different specimen. They didn't
want to lose him, so he could do whatever he wanted.
So in addition to teaching at Soul Cycle, he also
would teach his own boot camps at like a Lululemon
or different studios that he could just go in there
and teach his class, get the money and not have

(40:52):
to necessarily split it with a huge corporation. And that's
for sure. He can sell his merch at out right
thing or online.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
So he's sort of an outlier in terms of the
Soul Cycle culture. But Soul Cycle because of the way
that people are have to audition to become instructors and
are being selected specifically for their charisma, it like fosters
this environment where the little cult leadery type instructors can arise.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Let me put a little addendum on that or a
little asterisk. So Acin, for example, was recruited, he didn't
have to audition, got to There were some people who
were like superstars from like different areas of New York City.
They kind of got to fast pass the whole process.
They certainly didn't have to audition. Maybe they had to
go through the training a bit. But a person like

(41:46):
acin he wouldn't have to go through the whole training, right,
They wouldn't have to patience for that, Like he would.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Just like put me on this, I'm not doing this.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
Yeah, it seems like if somebody had a following, they
were like, just come on, come join the team and
like bring your following with you, and.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
It's very rare. But yes, like that happened to Act
and then.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
A few other people Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, was there
Like how do I put this question? Like, you know,
in cults typically there's an ink group and an outgroup,
and like you, this is the only way to live
your life.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Like how much of that was kind of going on
in the community. I'm not sure that was so present.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Okay, yeah, well I'll say this, if you were in
a clique of a particular instructor and then you, as
just a human being with like free will, decided that,
I know, when you want to do this. For whatever reason,
maybe you got turned on to a different workout or
maybe you moved or like whatever it is, Yeah, you

(42:46):
weren't in the click anymore, right, because the clique was
dependent upon being in that class and then going to
dinner after the class or going to brunch after the class.
The class was the nucleus for these cliques. Right.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
It would start in the class and then the teacher
would like tap you on the shoulder like, oh, come
to we're going out after. Like that's how it manifested.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
Right right, And I have to imagine there are enough
people at least just on their own making it their
entire personality, which like core not necessarily coming from the top,
but like I go there for my social life and
my spiritual life and my workout life and my you know. Yes,
So how did the company evolve over time? It kind

(43:31):
of explodes. There's all these celebrities going like what's the journey?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
So at first there were maybe like five or so
locations just New York City alone. That was when it
was like very homegrown, like mom, it was still run
just by the Eventually it was the two those two women,
and there was so much love and care, like every
studio had its unique personality and it was just pure hospitality,

(43:58):
like they always the found used to say, we're not
in the fitness industry, We're in the hospitality and service industry.
And you could really feel that how much care was
put into For example, if you they somehow the front
desk knew you were having a bad day, they would
give you a swag bag like full of clothes just
for whatever reason. Or if you missed a class, they

(44:21):
would drop some extra classes in your I remember getting
an email, oh, five extra classes because I was like
a frequent you know, user of soul Cycle, frequent rider.
And then they were acquired by Equinox, which is a behemoth,
and that enabled the company to expand to California, to Chicago,

(44:44):
to Miami, to Boston, to the major cities in the
United States. You know California, you know Los Angeles and
San Francisco. They were all over. And then Equinox really
started like clamping down, like there has to be this
many riders. Like it evolved out of being this like

(45:05):
homespun company to being really money driven and like unit driven,
like bodies in the room. They no longer cared about
the actual riders as people. You were just like a
metric to them. And because there were so many more studios,
it became more lax with who they were passing through.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
They just needed people to teach.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
These classes instead of there being like, let's let's say
I'm giving just like a raw number, like instead of
there being like five classes a day at a particular studio,
now all of a sudden, there's ten classes a day.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Well, who's going to teach those classes.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
It's not going to be the magical unicorn instructor. How
many of these can you pump out?

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Right?

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (45:45):
And so the quality control for the instructors really started
to go down. It just wasn't possible to maintain that
level of quality that they had, and so in it
turned a lot of people off that are like, oh,
it's not what it used to be. You know, all
of a sudden, the studios aren't as nice that the

(46:08):
front desk people aren't able to maintain.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
They're not able to get to.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Know the riders the way they used to because there's
so many more people.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Yeah, it seems like the front desk people are like
a very important component. It's like being a door person
at an exclusive club.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Yeah, you know, in the beginning and the glory days,
like they were trained deeply in hospitality. How to remember
every single person's face, their name, where they grew up,
how like talk to them. Remember when they tell you
they went on vacation, remember it? Yeah, Like now to
remember every single detail a person shares with you and

(46:44):
then ask questions like that is hospitality. And they would
go through a rigorous hospitality training program.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
Wow, what a skill good for actors. And that that memorizing, well.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
It's customer service.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
I mean that was the secret sauce of Soul Cycle
was not only are you getting that cult like ritual,
dancy experience in the room, the spiritual, just all of
that magic in the room, but the minute you walk
in the door of the actual storefront, people are acting
like they're your best friend.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
What can I do for you? Can I get you water?

Speaker 4 (47:17):
And you feel special? Wellly, you can't go back in
time and join Soul Cycle.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Why not? It's still exactly. Don't worry, I'm too bad
at working out happened? Can you tell us a little
bit about what an opening ride at Soul Cycle entails,
like the new studio blessing and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Oh my god, yes, so I interviewed. So there's a
guy in the series. Miles who his job. He worked
for corporate and it was his job to lead the openings,
how to build out the studios across the country and
like oversee you know, everything like the sound proof thing,
everything to do with sound, the design of the studio,

(47:56):
and there was there is a crystal behind every Soul
Cycle bike. I didn't know about this until I started
working on the series. There's a crystal behind every Soul
Cycle instructor bike that has been blessed before they open
the studio for the very first ride.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
They like it like.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Cleanses all the energy in the room and they like
do this whole ritual. And the purpose of the crystal
is that whatever goes on in the room, like during
any class, for like hereafter a lot of energy gets expelled,
gets dumped on the floor, is in the airs, in
the atmosphere, and the crystal is meant to absorb the
energy so that it's a clean environment for the next

(48:40):
instructor coming into the room.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
And who came up with the crystal? Where did that
come from?

Speaker 2 (48:46):
One of the founders interesting and it was very she's
very into spirituality.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
She brought that to it. Is that still true now
that Equinox owns it. I have no idea. Yeah, I'm
gonna take a guest.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
I would say, no, you know, I y okay, here's
my gas and this is pure. My guess is that
the crystals that were there to First of all, they're
not opening new studios, so we'll just say that. So
there's no more like opening rot like, they're not building
out anymore new studios. Because I've ridden a lot in
the last year. There, I know now I noticed the

(49:20):
crystal behind the bike.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Oh so yeah, it's not like they took them out.
They're just there right right, So.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
Yeah, like what brought you because you took a long
break from so it's like five years. Yeah, what It
sounds like a lot of people maybe felt it might
be a toxic or like it might be not for
them anymore, but then they always kind of come back.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
What's what's that journey? Why did you stop? Why did
you stop? And why did you come back?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
I stopped? I stopped, Uh because my favorite instructors left.
I don't have a dramatic story really as to why
I stopped, just because my favorite you know, preachers weren't
there and I was there for the theater of it.
I was there for the preaching, the spirituality, and quite frankly,
I don't even love spinning.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
I don't even like a bite.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
I would prefer to like run or box, like it's
not my chosen form of cardio.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
So like I was there for the theater of it.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah, later I would say, like I would literally work
out at the gym and then go to Soul Cycle
because that was my entertainment.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
Oh my god, that's so interesting.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
It was like going to the theater. It was like
seeing a Broadway show.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
Yeah, we're getting your heart right really high up at
the same time.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
So what I left was because my favorite performance was,
for lack of a better word, started to leave. You know,
I'm very into health and fitness, and so I just
start to go their places and I like different modality.
I love to box, I like a lot of different things.
So and then the pandemic hit and so forget about
it that all these places were closed.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
So I didn't go for five years.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
And then I knew I wanted to tell this story
because I mean, to me, this is so interesting and
I could and I could always talk about Soul Cycle
even when I wasn't going just the experience of it
was still inside of me, and I loved just commiserating
and talking to people about it. So I knew I
was going to go on this journey of creating the
series and like interviewing people, and Janet was the very

(51:20):
first person who I reached out to, and I knew
that I was going to have to go back, so
like just for like journalistic purposes. Yeah, what's changed, what
stayed the same, And also a lot of the series
is my experience, like meeting my friends there, my experience
with my guru, soul Cycle instructor, my connection to different

(51:44):
people there, and so I had to go back to
legitimize the whole thing. So that's when I went back.
But I will say I kept going back for the
latter part of the year because I so deeply loved
and was so deeply moved by Janet's class even today

(52:04):
in twenty twenty five. Wow, so Janet's still teaching there. Yeah,
she's still teaching there. I talked to her frequently, and
doing the series reconnected me with all these people who
like kind of left my life because they either left
the company or they you know, they were my soul
Cycle friends. Some of them became more close friends, but

(52:25):
a lot of them, like I just knew from riding there,
and so it reconnected me with all these people. And
that's been a beautiful byproduct that I never would have anticipated. Yeah,
it maybe fall a little bit back in love with it.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
I mean, is this episode secretly just a sales pitch
for Janet? Because now I want to I know, I
was like, if I'm ever in the city, I will
come to that with you. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Yeah, she's fascinating. Yeah, she's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Yeah, I have to know.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
So the third woman who kind of got edged out,
like you know, obviously the other two women still this
company made a ton of fucking money.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
So what where did they sold it for a They
each got ninety million? Ninety million? Yeah, and what about
the initial instructor.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Well, because she was cut out after that first year,
she went on to co found Flywheel, which was their
main competitor, at least in New York. I mean, they
were franchised all over the country. But she obviously didn't
make any money.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
She made zero million. How did they get her zero million?

Speaker 3 (53:29):
How they how do you kick someone out who's like
the reason you start the endeavor in the first place.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
She didn't how many paperwork. She never had a contract signed.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
It appears allegedly allegedly, it appears they did it on
good faith. Oh no, she never signed anything. Oh girl,
I don't understand how this could happen. I don't understand
how should.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Reason that fucking exists. She should get her forty million
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Yeah, I'm I'm sure, I'm sure she's bought it.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
But yeah, it's just it's a sad part of the story,
for sure.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
It's a sad part of the story.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Yeah, So where is soul cycle now? Because a bunch
of locations closed of a pandemic? Like, how are they doing?

Speaker 2 (54:13):
They're doing okay, I mean, listen, when I take Janet's class,
it's full on a Sunday, nine thirty am.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
That class is full.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I think, like the star instructors still do pretty well
in their classes, but they're not opening a new you know.
It's listen, it's like any rise and fault, like any
business like hits its peak and then it kind of
like plateaus. Now, you throw in a global pandemic, you
throw in like the world has changed, right, you know,

(54:44):
not only since the pandemic, but I think ever since
the twenty sixteen election, everything has been so politicized and
really divided a lot of people apart. And so I
think you see that play out in this company as well.
And I trace that how the presidential the twenty sixteen
presidential election affected the company affected morale.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
There was a little scandal, a little pro Trump scandal
from one of the main investors, right.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Yeah, So yeah, if you listen to it, you'll you
get more into the nitty the nuance of you know why.
It was many different things that contributed to its quote
unquote downfall, although it's not a downfall, but many people
are gainfully employed there. Yeah, many and many riders still
love it and still go three four times a week,

(55:35):
like I see them there. And so to me, that's
that's a great I mean, this place has been in
business for over twenty years. To me, what could you ask,
you know, But yeah, in the court of public opinion,
maybe that's changed a little bit.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
But it's just felt. The whole thing is just fascinating. Truly.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
It sounds like it was this kind of it had
a cult following, shall we say, more so than being
an actual cult, for being this like a really special
place that gave you this high and this like special
spanential experience and then Corporate America, as as Corporate America does,
just kind of ruined it.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
That's perfect. That is the perfect summation.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
Yeah. Yes, I liked something that Stevie said your in
your Favorite Instructor where she was just like, people say,
I want to go back to the good old days
of it, and you need to just stop focusing on
that and leave room for new things to come in
the future. And I was like, oh, clock that, because.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
I also was like, yes, correct, I do need to
do that. Yes, yeah, that's good life advice.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, listen, Stevie had an extremely
devoted hole like following, and yeah, when she left a
lot of her riders were heartbroken. I mean that's the
reason that I stopped going. And it was when she
left the company for a variety of reasons.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Which she clearly spill spells out in the series.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
And yeah, what she basically says is, you know, she
talks to people from some of the like iconic nights
that we had there, and they're like, Oh, don't you
wish we could like just recreate that Monday night at
eight thirty and her exact phrasing is for her to
say that, to put that energy out there, it takes
energy away for her looking for her next big thing.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Hey man, no, amen, is not that's religious?

Speaker 2 (57:26):
H yes, yes, I was just going to say, like
preach queen, but that's religious true. And I love that
and that period and I can see how somebody like
saying stuff like that to me while I'm on a
bicycle and a rave would really get Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
So the rave part doesn't get me.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
It's this fascinating yeah, and somebody didn't need to do this.
This is Yeah, it's a really cool story and deep dive.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Oh thank you, I want to say.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Also, you can watch so it was created as an
audio docum mentory, which like is ever on all podcast platforms,
but I have a full visual documentary of it on
YouTube where it uses all found footage and you can
see photos and videos of all the instructors. So if
you're like, oh, I'm on into podcast, if you want
to watch it, you can watch it.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
As a documentary.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
If you just type in Cultive, Body and Soul videos
anywhere and google like, you'll get looped into my YouTube
channel and then you can watch it it's like a
seven part series.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
That's how I listened, and it was very invigorating because
you can see off you can see all the people
and get kind of like, oh, I can see how
I can really get me or I have Stevie wud
be like.

Speaker 1 (58:37):
So cool and that's it and it's just cool to
see all the jam it. It really like puts you
into the room. Yeah, great podcast, Thank you, great stuff.
Remind us the name of the podcast.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Yeah, so if you just search for Cultive, Body and Soul,
you'll find everything related to that.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
And my Instagram is jess x n YC.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
And then if you follow me on Instagram, like you'll
see all the interviews that I do, and also you know,
I do lots of different projects, but it's all sort
of in this wheelhouse of like gay Witchy.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
We love gay wait too shit, amazing. Well, thank you
so much for joining us. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
This was wonderful.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
All right, Okay, so Megan, it's part of the episode.
We've come to the time where I ask you if
you would joined Soul Cycle.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Absolutely, of course I would. Oh my god. Number one.
I love spinning.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
Even though the more I watched the stock, I was like, oh,
it's incredibly hard on your joints, and it's probably not
that great for you to do very often. But anyway,
I love it. If somebody were up there yelling like
motivational soul stuff at me, I would be hooked. It
just was out of my price point, thank god, because

(59:54):
we know how many different things I would join if
I could afford it. So thank you once again, Universe
for not giving me enough money.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
To take full cycle. I'm with you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
If I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
I really would have to go and see, because, like
I said in this episode, the one spinning class I
tried was horrible and I had to leave.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
So I am just that out of shape. But I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Maybe you know, I think you'd like it because it
is dancing. I guess it's probably music dependent. Like if
the music were music I was really vibing with, then
then maybe yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
If it's like dance music, I'm out. I don't want it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
You'd find you at the right playlist, the right teacher,
and you'd be hooked, Okay, hooked if the teacher's flirting
with you too, like they're kind of trying to do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Like I.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Try to think of all the exercise programs, the one
that seems the most like I could get obsessed with
it is CrossFit because of the competitive nature and everybody's
shouting at each other that they can do it and
the like like, I feel like I need that and
I need to like feel like I'm winning something if
I do good job.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Hi, Oh my god, well then it might not be
for you. Listen. I hate exercising. I really need to
trick myself into doing it. Well.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Join us here next week and as always, remember to
follow your gut, watch out for rad flax.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
And never ever trust me. Bye. Hi. This has been
an exactly right production hosted by me Lola Blanc and
me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is ge Holly.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Kuttner.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hartstark
and Danielle Kramer.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me coult Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Got your Own Story about Cults? Extreme belief our manipulation.
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.