On TikTok, content creators offer advice on how to achieve “Pilates arms” — lean, sinewy biceps that do not appear overtly muscular — or, more broadly, a “Pilates body,” which typically just means thin. Ms. Monaco-Vavrik worried that these were coded ways to tell women they needed to make themselves small and take up less space — that rather than building strength by lifting weights....
[Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of history at the New School said,] “I do think that when you look at the dominant aesthetics and messaging around Pilates princesses or Pilates girlies, it definitely upholds very traditional aesthetics of female beauty.... I appreciate that kind of analysis, but it kind of falls apart when you look deeply at it.... Perhaps most foundationally because Pilates does get you very, very strong. Pilates is a really intense workout.”
This gets my tag "MSM reports what's in social media."
Here's the viral video the article is about. It's exactly the video you'd expect from a 24-year-old barre instructor and fitness influencer who studied political science and communications. It's what I'd have said at age 24.
By the way, I just watched a movie made by a 24-year-old woman, and I got the feeling it was exactly the kind of story I thought up when I was that age. Not saying I could have made the movie that topped the Sight & Sound "Greatest Films of All Time," just saying I remember these young-woman thoughts.
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87 comments:
Connections was a great TV series. However, I don't think they ever came up with something so fascinating as to suggest the desire to be healthy is a conservative authoritarian endeavor. Further, to suggest that pilates and running is politically conservative and strength training is liberal.
I think the debate is whether everything must be viewed from a political ideology in order for someone to rationalize it.
Wouldn't it be weird if Pilates just turned out to be a great workout? Ahhh...the feminist eye...trained on all things. And the Times is there to report on all of it.
I dunno. I once took a few Pilates classes. It was all women + me. The women were of varying ages and shapes. I found it to be the farthest thing from political thinking or branding I could imagine. It was all I could do to figure out what movements came next, how to keep up with the rest of them, and how to remain stable on that insane machine...whatever it's called. A reformer?. Ahhh....there's the politics. Reforming from what?
I reluctantly agreed to go to duets with the wife who has motivational problems when it comes to fitness. The workouts do not feel as intense as a strength workout with a focus on elongation rather than contraction. The next day the ache is different- the entire muscle is sore, evenly distributed instead of intense knots and trigger points. I also ‘grew’ an inch….
Some ideas are so stupid that only a leftist intellectual can believe them.
Maybe a tag for Ms Althouse?
Ann: Did law school change your way of thinking? Or was it clerking for a federal judge? Or working at Big Law?
Yesterday a friend of mine, who has lost a lot of weight in the last 2 years mostly by walking and looks great, said, "I don't think I've been this thin since I was twelve."
I told her, when you catch the local pedophiles ogling you, you know you've arrived.
It's political in the same way lifting weights has been politicized. White guys spending any time in the gym was practically declared by the MSM as being adjacent to the hitler-youth.
If working out is wrong, I don't want to be white.
If you have thin sinewy biceps, you may be very fit, but you are not very strong. This sort of navel gazing is getting so tedious.
A toned body is a strong body, a healthy body without the bulk.
While the male gaze is always categorized as being sexually evaluating in nature, the female gaze seems always to be socially evaluating.
"No man should remain amateur in the matter of physical fitness. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."
- Socrates
Pride and Politics (PP) (no pun intended... maybe, baby).
Exercise is gay.
Fascism is when you don't need to shove men to get them out of your way.
I tend not to go along with the notion that the Frankfurt School somehow ruined America, but the idea that everything is political has certainly become pernicious. Maybe we got it from the French or evolved it on our own, though.
What's left and what's right, though, is always shifting. You can certainly find historical moments when fitness and trimness were left or "progressive" ideas. Things aren't in and of themselves easily capable of being pigeonholed as political or as right or left, reactionary or progressive.
Feminism is when you do.
Everyone needs useful strength for what they do and like to do. Pilates arms are toned but not strong from the perspective of baling hay. But if you don’t bale hay and have an office job and just carry stuff that weighs under 30 pounds you are strong
" ... a 24-year-old barre instructor and fitness influencer who studied political science and communications."
"Studied". To what extent? I always assume that this means they took an introductory class to fulfill some graduation requirement.
Lazarus said, "I tend not to go along with the notion that the Frankfurt School somehow ruined America"
I'll see your Frankfurt conspiracy and raise you a Kalergi.
Not a lot of people know this, but Hitler was a failed Pilates instructor before he got into dictatoring and all that.
Instead of doing Pilates, maybe we should all just download the chair yoga charts that I keep seeing ads for, and do that instead.
In so many cases, "gym strong" isn't very strong. The number of gym-rats that have lower back problems, sciatica, torn ligaments or tendons, or are in a constant state of recovery from overtraining are all too numerous.
Real strength is being farmer strong - strength + endurance. Much rarer, and takes a whole different lifestyle. If I was Amish, I'd start a bunch of farmer gyms for 'English' vacationers and make them bale hay all day.
Ah, baling hay.
After I graduated high school a summer job I had been promised fell through, and I was in scrambling mode. Somebody told me about a farmer who needed a hired hand for a day to bale his hay, so I said sure.
Hard, heavy work ensued. I could handle the physical exertions, but the worst part was riding on the wagon behind the baler and breathing the blue smoke it emitted for hours. Talk about a headache.
You'd think these people would have had enough of their navels by now.
"the idea that everything is political"
That's not what is really going on. What is really going on is the insatiable personal struggle for hierarchical dominance. The induvial clammer to be a cut above the rest. The outward espousal of this position or that group membership is only the means to the end. The end is ascendency above others.
So bourgeois. This is written for principally well-off white people, and those striving to be, bc are the type who would worry about shit like this. Research consists of interviews with "communications" professors, social media influencers, educrats, and DEI hires known to the journo. The rich have their own private instructor coaches and the poor or struggling don't have the time, energy, or money for this. Everybody else joins a gym and does the best they can. So who does that leave? Bottom line: A fluff piece for the clicks.
However, on my way to the farm I did think I was going to be a fascist that day.
Bob Boyd said...
“Not a lot of people know this, but Hitler was a failed Pilates instructor before he got into dictatoring and all that.”
Today the “One Leg Circle”, tomorrow the “Spine Twist”!
"What is really going on is the insatiable personal struggle for hierarchical dominance. The induvial clammer to be a cut above the rest."
The NYT crabs in the NYT bucket have seen others trying to improve themselves, and they shan't have it!
The Maddow left: All the Assassins are Trump supporters!
Even the ones trying to kill Trump!
Corrupt Demofucks are never to blame.
RSM: I spend 40 hours a week as a 65 year old man unloading trucks breaking down pallets stocking shelves crushing cardboard collecting massive amounts of shopping carts, and working a check stand where I have to unload the card scan the items and bag the groceries.
It's like doing KP duty in boot camp. Absolutely exhausting. We do have a bunch of gym rats that work at the store: weightlifters, ultra runners, bikers, swimmers rock climbers White mountain backpackers etc.
But you're absolutely right. Having a job where you take 20 to 30,000 steps do hundreds upon hundreds of body weight squats plus hundreds of squats with 20 to 40 lb boxes plus hundreds of overhead presses of said boxes and then thousands upon thousands of 1 lb lifts.
I call it get shit done shape
So first, everything was about race. Now everything is about politics. Why can't a thing just be a thing by itself?
If you want efficient exercises to improve physical performance, check out this guy. His focus is on overall fascia strength. A lot of the stuff is just common sense warm-ups that boxers swimmers track athletes used to do back in the 40s and 50s.
Jack Thompson Coaching
@jackthompsoncoaching
@Howard, "Farmer strong" & "get shit done shape" are pretty much the same thing. There's a 3rd version that I call SOCOM strong, which is even rarer and harder than both.
Those guys just enjoy being in pain all the time.
Gahh, who the hell actually says "girlies" besides troons?
RSM, absolutely, I'm a big fan of John McPhee. We both have the same family crest. Strong like Bull, Smart like Tractor
RSM, I spent a week dive-buddied with a guy who had once been SOCOM strong. Modest size, maybe 5'8". Retired. Very very relaxed about everything. Very very attentive to detail. Very very not messed with by the other divers, who had been instantly clued in by the fact that he dove with a steel 50 instead of an AL 80.
so, just to be clear?
obesity is GOOD! leanness isn't just Bad.. It's RACIST!!
serious question: WHY are whites TRYING to kill blacks?
they ARE, aren't they?
WHY ELSE are they being encouraged to be morbidly obese?
ALL babies are to be aborted..
Any white survivors are to castrated and doped
Any black survivors are to be fattened up, until they DIE
I am an older, chubby woman who takes Pilates classes. Most of the other participants are even older than me. We do it for mobility, to help our knees and backs. Then again, I take my classes at the Y, not some high end studio. The class attendees reflect where you go. I started taking Pilates after my daughter was born as part of the recovery effort many years ago. Pilates is actually part physical therapy for dancers.
Thanks for the link to Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.
I've wanted to watch it now for quite a while but I forgot its title and I forgot how I found out about it in the first place.
Strangely enough, my internet search for "foreign film really long woman does nothing" was a fail.
I was an ROTC commission, and although I did Ranger-Challenge in college (which was tough), I also went through Ranger-School when I was 23 and trying to get that stupid tab damn-near killed me, lol. Those "SOCOM strong" guys who stay within the career field are something else. Unreal levels of endurance...Olympic level.
The "Sight and Sound" poll used to mean something. Just like the Nobel Prize or Pultizer prizes literature used to mean something. Or the Hugos.
But they've lost all their credibility as they've gotten more and more political and far left. The movie is now No.1 in the S/S poll because its a chick movie with a chick lesbian jewish director.
I guess you have to write about something. Shockingly, there's a social hierarchy. Even more shockingly, some women are considered more beautiful than others. And the most shocking revelation of all, being higher status and looking good are worth the time and expense and work of getting there.
Just like in every society, ever.
"...worried that these were coded ways to tell women they needed to make themselves small and take up less space — that rather than building strength by lifting weights...."
So much BS here, where to begin? As a seasoned, female, 5' tall gym rat, let me tell you that years of lifting weights do not necessarily make you 'take up more space' as not all women bulk up. It's genetics plus hard work. My IG feed is full of women doing amazing things with weights: powerlifting champs and beefy, muscular women are a dime a dozen. There is also growing awareness of how weightlifting helps women maintain muscle mass into old age. This woman isn't very active on social media as a consumer.
Whenever I see this "coded message" phrase, I can't help but think of hardcore religious types and how they are always looking for "demonic influence" everywhere.
very traditional aesthetics of female beauty
the privileging and white centering of just one aesthetic as "traditional" I literally can't even (if that's still a thing)
Ms. Monaco-Vavrik worried that these were coded ways to tell women they needed to make themselves small and take up less space
The hyphenated last name is a dead giveaway :)
BTW, I noticed my least favorite MSM Film Critic, Richard Brody, voted for it. Here are his other Top 10 movies:
Jean-Luc Godard - King Lear
Shoah
The Last Laugh (Silent 1924)
Chaplin - The Gold Rush
Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (male actor plays female roles)
Citizen Kane
Playtime
Faces
Daughters of the Dust 1991 (Director Black and Female)
With critics like this, no wonder the S/S poll is what it is.
Modern Leftist: "Everything I don't like is Fascist. Literally Hitler. I'm shaking now."
And to think, they wonder why we don't listen to them. It's hard to pay attention to a bunch of lunatics.
Good grief. We’ve had decades of shouts from the rooftops regarding the need to eat healthy, stay active, and build/maintain one’s strength to protect one’s aging bones. Now we’re chastised and mocked for it? There must be a law of nature called the Conservation of Judginess.
I encouraged my daughter to lift weights, since its good to have a certain amount of strength. But she was more interested in exercises that would burn up calories and keep her thin. Plus, she found weightlifting "boring".
ALP said, "There is also growing awareness of how weightlifting helps women maintain muscle mass into old age."
Bingo. It's been said millions of times, "a pound of muscle burns 1.5x as many calories as a pound of anything else." If you want to burn more calories at your resting metabolic rate, get more muscle mass.
Muscle mass was your ancestors' semaglutide.
RSM, Socrates was Socom strong. He retreated from Delium to Athens with all his gear, when younger hoplites were dropping their shit. No one fucked with him even though such individual retreaters were traditional game for enemy cavalry and their own agricultural slaves. Soc just looked bad enough that they went for easier prey.
RLTW
JSM
Do Pilates, lift weights, play pickle ball, ride a bike, whatever, it's all good. Just don't listen to anyone who insists that very thing is political.
Authoritarians, fascists and marxists are the ones who think that every action is political. Normal people don't think that way.
Remember kids, before you:
Exercise
Read
Eat
Shop
Post on social media
Travel
Blah-blah-blah
Be sure to consult with AOC's handy dandy guide to "Why are you a Nazi/bigot?". [Updated hourly]
Haha I forgot that Socrates was a Hoplite. Thanks JSM.
I am "Regardingly Ravished" by your reminder,
RSM
Leftists can't wait for the day when a Chinese-style cultural revolution arrives in the U.S., and instead of merely ruminating over whether something like Pilates is too "white" or too pro-"thinness," commissars will have the power to ban it and force its adherents to crawl over broken glass expressing repentance.
Political Pilatehood (PP). Sequester the thought.
I've been digging ditches for the past week and more -- laying the groundwork (pun intended) for a French drain. I also have been going to physical therapy for tendonitis of my hamstring. I discovered that the two are counter-productive. Do I want to get better or do I want to finish this project? I was very ill just over a month ago with chronic pain, lack of flexibility and the inability to do normal, everyday tasks -- or get out of bed without momentum and hurt. Turns out I may have PMR Polymyalgia Rheumatica. My rheumatologist has me on steroids and the pain went away the second day. My bloodwork dropped inflammation markers from sky high to almost zero. Thank God for Medicare, my supplement, and Big Pharma. I thought I just turned 70 and I am infirm and dying. I did change a lot of my diet. I eat terribly.
Marcus, maybe a temporary course of something like clomid to stimulate increased testosterone production will help you dig out of the hole you are in. When I was remodeling my house recovering from deep heart failure, it was a God send. I built a fence, deck, flagstone patio redid the hot tub skirt, laid 5-tone of crushed rock, etc.
I tapered off after a year with the same energy and recovery capacity.
I hope the steroids you are on are not prednisone
My short answer to this id FU. I'm supposed to avoid being fit and strong and die young because of feels? FU and your studies!
I go to pilates specifically BECAUSE I want to be fascist today. Don't let these people shame ya'll.
I've never been to a Pilates class, and I likely never will. But if I ever do, I swear I will be thinking, "I’m going to be a fascist today."
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RSM, the Fitter with Hitler ad is hilarious (Hitlarious?).
RR
JSM
do they just get up in the morning and say, whats the stupidest thing I can write today,
I just turned 65 and got a Medicare Supplement Plan G + Wellness which provides me with unlimited free memberships to participating gyms including an upscale Pilates gym which I joined. After three introductory classes on the reformer, still no fascism lessons. I’ll have to inquire during my next class. Lol
I am pretty sure you (Ann) referenced Pilates as a personal practice sometime in the past. What were the politics of your class? Mine is pretty liberal, with many belonging to the local temple. The Russian instructor (came here for her Russian university English requirement and didn't go home) is personally very conservative.
Well Pontius Pilates did sentence Jesus to death, and he was Roman, and the Romans were pretty fascist. I know this because I studied history. But then thinking about Rome is fascist too, so maybe I'm the fascist. Maybe in the future everyone will be fascist for 15 minutes.
Romans were all about Spartan races, while Jesus probably did hot yoga. Mohammed was probably into HIIT. Buddha into pilates?
JaimeRoberto, thanks for the inspiration:
Is Pilates leaving you wanting more? Try Pontius Pilates! Based on ancient Roman fitness practices. First, an exhilarating full-body scourge.Then, some practical weight moving as you carry a big hunk of wood a couple of miles. Next, the stretching of your life, along with a bit of acupuncture. Finally, roll a huge stone - it’s more fun than a tractor tire!
Try Pontius Pilates today! At an Antonia Fortress - I mean Fitness, near you.
SPQR
JSM
Are we sure about the second "r" in her profession?
@JSM, Join Pontius Pilates and wash your hands clean of bad fitness habits. We'll flagellate your fat right off your fascia, and don't forget, NO JESUS CAN BEAT US!
RSM: Ha!
RR
JSM
I'm not going to be influenced by anyone whose birth year starts with a 2.
"do they just get up in the morning and say, whats the stupidest thing I can write today,"
I doubt they have the intelligence to make such a plan but the outcome doesn't change.
RSM and others, thanks for the many laughs this afternoon.
kids say the darndest things.
They are attacking peoples efforts to stay healthy. This is evil, and such characters should be chased off after a good beating.
"A 24-year-old barre instructor and fitness influencer who studied political science and communications..." There sure were a lot of those in law school. It was pure joy to watch them melt into puddles of panic in federal income tax class.
Wait 'til she finds out where Joseph Pilates came from.
"Women who exercise for anything but health are low key trannies" Lay off the sauce, it's not helping you.
You can certainly find historical moments when fitness and trimness were left or "progressive" ideas.
Seems like it’s been this way for most of my life. Leftists are always criticizing red states like Alabama and Louisiana for their unhealthy incidence of obesity, and lauding blue states like Vermont and Colorado for their commitment to physical fitness, although when you look closer the differences are more than accounted by racial demographics. Black Alabamians tend to be monstrously fat, and white Coloradans athletic and slim, regardless of their politics.
You can certainly find historical moments when fitness and trimness were left or "progressive" ideas.
Seems like it’s been this way for most of my life. Leftists are always criticizing red states like Alabama and Louisiana for their unhealthy incidence of obesity, and lauding blue states like Vermont and Colorado for their commitment to physical fitness, although when you look closer the differences are more than accounted by racial demographics. Black Alabamians tend to be monstrously fat, and white Coloradans athletic and slim, regardless of their politics.
"Pilate...definitely upholds very traditional aesthetics of female beauty"
You mean like the Victorian female stage performers with their exaggerated hourglass figures, the celebrated beauties that Rubens painted, or the Paleolithic European "Venus" figures?
Or does Ms. Petrzela mean "traditional" as "When *I* was a twenty-something Know-it-all?"
Howard: Methylprenisolone. Two weeks at 24 mg daily, two weeks at 16 mgs daily, one week at 8 mg daily and then back to the doc. No side effects yet. Pain gone. Inflammation markers next to zero. I'll be asking the doc about my treatment plan
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