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Trend Alert: Is Yoga The New Golf For Corporate Chumps?
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 18, 2011
Modified Feb 18, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 18, 2011
Modified Feb 18, 2011
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Whether it's Spaghetti Tacos, Vodka Eyeballing, or hiring a bartender for your "mature" party, trend pieces often carry the stench of desperate editors trying to manufacture a nonexistent story in just the right packaging. But if the Post wants us to spend our Friday wondering if yoga is the new golf, how could we say no?
The Post interviews the peppy Polly Payne about her pretzel-like moves through the corporate world—Payne says she does yoga with two of her male supervisors from her online ad network job on a regular basis. She thinks it's helping her climb the corporate ladder, and doesn't think there's anything weird about getting sweaty in skimpy attire with her bosses. Corporate consultant Amy Hedin, who advises the "top 0.5 percent" of companies worldwide, is the one who posits that yoga is now replacing golf: “They woke up one day and thought, ‘I can’t be doing this!’ I have one client in particular who said he would go to this one private golf club three times a week with his work peers, get really hammered, have four or five martinis. Now he’s going home or going to work out.”
Some companies have initiated yoga as a team-building exercise in their offices; we would still feel awkward if we saw our boss in certain compromising positions. Even law firms now offer yoga classes! But don't underestimate the ability of certain hucksters to take advantage of a good thing—private equity real estate fund employee Jay Solomon says he put yoga on his resume when he was applying for jobs last year. “I put advanced yoga practitioner...just some bulls - - t at the bottom of the resume. All these guys were like, ‘Oh, I do yoga, come here, let me show you my yoga mat in the office'...I think it automatically marks you as slightly alternative, creative and modern."
But wasn't corporate America founded on the principals of exclusivity, tacit discrimination and sexism? Will this seismic shift toward New Age attitudes destroy the few remaining boys' clubs left in America? And most importantly, who will play golf now? After all, according to Hedin, you can't take a "pre-exisiting relationship to the next level" with putters and polo shirts. If only someone could come up with a way to combine golf and yoga, all our problems would be solved.
Tagged
corporate culture
golf
trends
yoga
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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