More Reflections
I’ve started up my free week of unlimited yoga at the local new installment of CorePower Yoga. I’ve been very surprised and delighted by the classes. The heated room is warm enough to make me feel very limber and it keeps me from feeling half as stiff and sore as I do the day after an OTY class. The flow is very quick moving, very grounded in the Ashtanga tradition, and very challenging both mentally and physically.
But the place is a franchise! I was talking to my friend recently and her thoughts were a long the lines of “Well, if you like the the classes, what does it matter if it’s a franchise?” And I couldn’t really answer that. It just seems wrong to me that yoga should not be spread across the country in the same homogeneous way as a McDonald’s cheese burger. But if you like McDonald’s cheeseburgers a whole lot, should you not eat them just because everybody else is too? Seems a little childish.
I’m thinking of a good compromise this fall, I’ll still attend Old Town Yoga once a week, but I’ll supplement other days with the CorePower. Yes, I suppose they will be getting some of my money that Jake would have gotten otherwise, and I shall feel appropriately guilty for that. But until Jake installs a new set of power heaters and amps up the speed of his flow, I feel I have the right to spend time doing the flow that I enjoy the most.
We face the same dilemma with climbing gyms – Inner Strength just doesn’t quite work for us. I try to ask myself if the local place was the only choice, would I go or just skip it? If the answer is skip it, then I figure I’m not hurting the local place any more by going somewhere else. Still, I get this nagging feeling that I’m contributing to my own disgust when I visit places and my only choices are unappealing chains…
i definitely understand the desire to ‘shop local’ and try to as much as possible. at least with yoga, it’s not like they grew the teachers in the remains of the torn down rainforest and then drove them by semi up here using untold amounts of fossil fuels.
as long as you’re willing to go to both, you’re not gonna put OTY out of business.
Sean, you crack me up! And of course my first thought was that the manager of the place (whom I met on Sunday night) relocated to FtC from Denver. Now, how much fossil fuel did that use?? :)
You are both right. And it sucks that Francises can both spell the death of local character, and provide competitive goading for local establishments to improve. Why do we prefer Coops to Applebees? Not just because it’s local, but mostly because it’s waaaay better. Local places have the time and dedication to produce a better product, if they have the impetus to do it as well.
So, maybe I should suggest to Jake that he start offering a heated ashtanga class?
I really do like McDonald’s cheeseburgers (no pickle please).
and have you had the southwestern egg rolls at chilis? holy shit.
yes, you should definitely tell jake that you’re liking the heated class and see if he’ll start one up at his gym. that would solve all of your problems. i bet it’s something he’ll end up doing on his own initiative sooner or later, but you might help speed things along a bit…