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- [00:00]
Ariana Grande
Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit BPM FM to discover more.
- [00:13]
Cynthia Erivo
This is the way it feels to move through summer in Lululemon iconic aligned softness without the front seam.
- [00:24]
Ian
For our.
- [00:25]
Cynthia Erivo
Smoothest look and feel ever, summer won't.
- [00:28]
Julie Rice
Know what hit it.
- [00:30]
Cynthia Erivo
Stretch your limits in the non stop.
- [00:31]
Julie Rice
Flexibility of the new Lululemon Align no.
- [00:35]
Cynthia Erivo
Line pant in select stores and@lululemon.com.
- [00:40]
Ariana Grande
With a Venmo Debit card you can Venmo more than just your friends. You can use your balance in so many ways. You can Venmo everything.
- [00:47]
Ian
Need gas?
- [00:48]
Julie Rice
You can Venmo this.
- [00:49]
Ian
How about snacks?
- [00:50]
Ariana Grande
You can Venmo that. Your favorite band's merch?
- [00:52]
Julie Rice
You can Venmo this or their next show?
- [00:55]
Ariana Grande
You can Venmo that. Visit Venmo Me Debit to learn more.
- [00:58]
Ian
You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that.
- [01:00]
Julie Rice
You can ven.
- [01:03]
Ariana Grande
The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license. My MasterCard International Incorporated card may be used everywhere.
- [01:08]
Ian
MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply.
- [01:10]
Cynthia Erivo
I am so excited to say we are doing a live show in New York City on Wednesday, July 9. I'll be interviewing Janet Fitzgerald and Hallie Becker live on stage at Joe's Pub. Plus we'll have live music from the band Betty whose songs are heard at the end of each episode. Tickets are on sale now@joe's pub.com just search Soul Cycle Wednesday, July 9th and I will see you there. This is Cult of Body and Soul Episode seven, Turn the Smile On. In our second bonus episode, we're going to follow three different instructors over their careers at Soul Cycle. We're also leaving New York City, if you can believe it. Yeah, we're going to see what life was like at Seoul in both Los Angeles and San Francisco. Plus, what is the culture like at the company today in 2025? Our first deep dive is with Ian, who we met last episode. But here's what's interesting. Co founder Julie Rice convinced Ian to leave his hometown of New York to open SoulCycle San Francisco pretty much immediately after he graduated training in 2012. So how did Ian become a star in San Francisco and why did he eventually leave the company five years later?
- [02:40]
Ian
Julie was like, I have a question for you. What are your thoughts on San Francisco? Like, it was just like straight out of the gate like that. And I was like, I have no thoughts on San Francisco. I had been to San Francisco one time I was offered 10 or 12. Those are the number of classes that you would be offered usually at that time, at what was the sold out rate for a new instructor at the time? So the pay was always in tiers based off of how many people were attending. But the sold out rate was what I was offered for any class that I taught if I was to move to San Francisco. And I was just like, I haven't. Not moving somewhere that I've never been. Julie did also give the advice of just like, if you have never moved, I didn't go to college. So she was like, if you've never really left New York, do it for a year. Just go for a year and if you don't like it after a year, come back. But like, you have to live somewhere that's not New York. I talked to my friend Allie. She was also approached to do San Francisco. They said that she was confirmed. She actually had never really fully confirmed at that point, but she was like, yeah. They asked me, she was like, do you want to do the trip together? So they send me and Ali out to San Francisco on Memorial Day weekend. And as soon as we land, we start walking around the city a little bit. And we're like, this is actually a pretty cool city. I think with the money that they're going to offer us, we would be getting a much better deal if we were here. And the other thought process that we had was like, we'd be the big fish here in New York. It's established that there's a lot of these other people. It's going to be harder to build as a trainer where in SF, their knowledge of SoulCycle is what we are giving them. And so we were like, we'll be the Janet of this region if we come out here. This was like within the first couple of hours of us getting there. We find an apartment in Nob Hill. We like took the ferry to Marin county to look at where the studio was gonna be. And then when we were in Marin county, our friend drove us around Muir Woods. Cause they wanted to show us like all the things that this could be literally like Mufasa to Simba. Like, everything the light touches is your kingdom. It was that. But San Francisco. I remember the first feedback that we had gotten when we had first started teaching. All of us kept on mentioning New York. Like back in New York, we do it like this. And LV was like, we had this happen when we opened la. Also stop talking about New York because it's Not New York. This is San Francisco. So what do you want to build here? You have the power to establish the culture here. There wasn't really a huge group fitness scene out there to begin with. It was really just yoga. Yoga's huge in San Francisco. I mean, they have a yoga room in their airport, for Christ's sake. Like, yoga's big there. It was technically supposed to be the San Francisco studio that opened first. But anybody that knows opening a business in San Francisco knows that that's never going to happen. It takes forever. So the Marin studio ended up being the first one to open. I remember I would wear Soul Cycle gear everywhere that I walked because number one, I got it for free. Number two, it was like, start the conversation. Oh, there's a Soul Cycle. There were only five classes on the schedule to start. All of those classes sold out with three digit waitlists. Over 100 people on the waitlist on each one. So they had to add classes. There was classes running every hour from 7:30 until 5:30. And every single one of those classes was sold out on the first day. It was one of the most exciting things for them. I think Julie and Elizabeth weren't initially gonna come for that opening. And then they flew out. They ended up not having retail bags that weekend. So they called Bri, who was the regional manager for LA, and Bri had to go to the WeHost studio on a Friday night, get every retail bag she could find, get on a last minute flight to come up to San Francisco and be there for the opening so that we had retail bags. The Castro studio opened up on Pride Weekend, the year that marriage equality passed. That just gave me chills thinking about it. Like marriage lady passed the morning that the studio opened and it was right on the corner of Market and Castro, which is where Harvey Milk used to lead his rallies. It was like on the Harvey Milk building. That was where that studio is. There was just so many beautiful, community driven things that happened around that studio that I think the fitness scene in San Francisco in general blew up because of that. The dark side of having a really close, community driven thing. People got really invested in our lives in ways that I had to watch myself all the time. It was like being a celebrity without being a celebrity, which was crazy. I was 25 or 26. I did Molly on my birthday. People found out about it and called my boss and said that they don't want a druggie teaching their classes. Like that's how tight the community had gotten at that point with soul. What I found to Be adding an extra layer of fear to that is like, I don't know if you've ever noticed when your instructor is calling out sick or is not going to be at work because it's work. Right. They're posting about it on their Instagram or something afterwards or on their Facebook and it's like, hey, sorry, came down with the flu, this person's going to be taking over my class tonight, etc. But it adds a layer of like, if your writers are really dedicated to you, they're going to start canceling out of the class if they see that you're sick. So you're just like, do I call out sick? I have to explain it to all of these people. Like, it's just so much explanation that has to happen. And then you start to see all of these other things. Like there's instructors that are so sick that are not calling out of work and going to their job. And so I should do that. There's someone that has a broken foot that is teaching from the floor with a broken foot. So if I can walk, I should be able to teach a class. There's people that are going through chemotherapy that are teaching their classes while they're in chemotherapy. And it's like, fuck, I got the flu, but I guess it's not chemo, but I guess I should go and teach my class. It's a really unfortunate toxic mentality that you start to develop that you're like afraid to be sick, you're afraid to call out sick. And so you get people that are teaching through sickness and teaching through injury. And then you wonder why that instructor is off the schedule for a little while and it's because they threw their back out because they were teaching through a back injury. Yeah, crazy, crazy mentality of calling out. And I started to really not have fun there anymore. The company had changed a lot after Julian Elizabeth had left. It had become very numbers driven as a company, which is what companies do. I can't really fault a company for bending the knee to capitalism as they do. I had been passed on a promotion a million times over that I should have gotten. I don't want to toot my own horn about it, but that reunion would not have picked up if it wasn't for me and our opening team. So I don't know, kind of like my story was being erased from everything. Even though I'd just been written up in the Chronicle and everything. I was just having a lot of contention with a lot of the higher ups. You're kind of Stared at for everything. I wasn't allowed to have a bad day. I had the worst day of my life. I think I might have told you this prior election day 2016. I was all excited because I just voted for Hillary. And then I was walking to the studio and got a text that a friend of mine had passed away from an overdose. And this was 15 minutes before I was about to teach a class, and I couldn't, like, I couldn't feel it. I couldn't think about it. I had to turn the smile on and teach my class. There was a school shooting that happened once. I had to turn the smile on and teach the class. Terrible, terrible things that have happened. I had to turn smiles on and teach a class, and I just couldn't put on the show anymore. And I think I was just kind of done being. I didn't want to be the star. I wanted to be recognized for hard work, but I didn't want to be a star anymore. And so I left San Francisco. I left SoulCycle. I thought I was leaving fitness at first. I traveled for a bit. While I was traveling, I decided to move back to New York.
- [10:40]
Cynthia Erivo
As Ian came back to New York, he also decided to become an instructor at Barry's Boot Camp, where he would finally become a certified fitness professional. Ian's been at Barry's for five years now, and he also has personal training clients. I had Ian go a bit deeper on how Seoul does not require their instructors to be certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine.
- [11:04]
Ian
So during training, there's one week where they're like, we're gonna have anatomy lessons this week. And what I started to realize was I not come from fitness background, right? I was bartending before I was teaching there, and I was never asked to learn anything about fitness. And I found that to be. I was like, I feel like people are certified in this kind of thing. Like, massage therapists can't just, like, massage people without a license. They have to know the muscles so they don't hurt someone. And our anatomy lesson was supposed to be taught by Kim Perfett. She was a master instructor. She had been around for a long time. She was, like, built of muscle, so it was like you could literally see every muscle in her body. Kim was in la, so Kim didn't end up teaching our anatomy lesson. We had, I would say, maybe 30 minutes. I honestly don't even think it was that long. And the only things that we were learning was, like, flexion and extension of a joint. And it's like when your elbow Is bent. That's elbow flexion. When your elbow is extended, that's elbow extension. And that was kind of it. And I just remember afterwards, we were talking about moves on the bike, and Janet goes to the room and is like, all right, everyone tell me the muscles that are involved in a push up. And someone goes, chest. And she's like, yes, what else? Someone's like, shoulders. In my fitness knowledge, shoulders is such a broad term. Part of your shoulder has three different muscles. And then there's like all this other shit. But someone goes, shoulders.
- [12:28]
Julie Rice
Yeah.
- [12:28]
Ian
And then someone goes, biceps.
- [12:30]
Ariana Grande
And I was like.
- [12:33]
Ian
They must have said triceps. I was like, bicep. Where's the bicep contraction? And I started to realize, like, no one really knows that much. And so I did a lot of reading on my own, but I still was never required to get certified. And I think just now, after working in fitness for so long, I've started to realize, like, how, honestly how dangerous a lot of it was. There is a master instructor that I remember taking her class. We were doing her arm series and it was some version of a cross crunch with the weights. And she was saying, do you feel that? Do you feel that muscle? That's your transverse oblique. Now just know that that muscle does not exist. You have a transverse abdominis. You have an internal oblique, you have an external oblique. Your transverse abdominis is the corset muscle that sits right above your abs, that cinches everything in. Its function is to stabilize your spine and to help you poop and push out of baby. And then you have an internal oblique and you have an external oblique, but you do not have a transverse oblique. And I believe she still says this in her class because someone mentioned it to me recently. I was a trainer there for over five years. I was certified in cpr. Never in fitness.
- [13:47]
Cynthia Erivo
I also spoke to Patty Wortham, a Pilates bar and yoga instructor in Los Angeles, to answer the age old question of is spinning actually a good workout?
- [13:57]
Patty Wortham
I mean, the short answer to is spinning a good cardiovascular workout? In some ways, the short answer to that is, yes, it is. You get on that bike. You know, anytime we engage our thighs and our glutes in resistance training, that's going to demand a lot from your heart, right? And so spinning can be very effective. It's also, it can be excellent interval training, presuming that you're not sitting on the bike going as hard as you possibly can for 45 minutes. But, you know, you could do 15 to 20 minutes of those intervals. On a bike. And that would be really good interval training. But, you know, who's gonna, who wants to pay $45 for a 15 to 20 minute sugar shot of cardio? Like, that's not what you pay for. You know, you pay for the theater of it. And so I think that what ends up happening is especially because it does feel so good, people start doing way more of it than they need to. And once you start getting into these, like, really, really over adrenalized workouts, what ends up happening is you're going to burn a ton of calories, but about 45 minutes to an hour after the workout, you're going to want to eat a Thanksgiving dinner. I'm a pretty petite person by nature, but I was at my biggest and in some ways strongest when I was doing, when I was teaching as much as I was teaching and spinning a lot. I gained a lot of muscle mass and a lot of weight because my appetite was bottomless. I mean, I just like, if I was taking that many spin classes a day on top of what I was already doing. Yeah. I mean, my body needed fuel to keep going. Like a good spin class where you're putting resistance on the bike and you're pumping into it with your thighs and your ass. Like, unless you have an eating disorder, your healthy body is going to demand fuel so that it can do that again. And so you do sometimes see people. I think people will tone up in really beautiful ways, but they won't actually shapeshift into what they think that kind of workout will give them. But that's also a much larger conversation about. A lot of people have been misled to believe that the harder and more abusive your workout is, the, the more results you'll see. That's simply not true. There's a lot of different ways to achieve results. And like, slamming your body day in and day out is really not the way forward if you want to look good.
- [16:23]
Cynthia Erivo
Our next deep dive is with Diego. In 2018, Diego began his seven year career at SoulCycle working the front desk in West Hollywood. After one year, he decided to become an instructor. Diego would be part of the last instructor training group before the pandemic.
- [16:43]
Ariana Grande
My very first day of Seoul was a front desk shift in West Hollywood. And funny enough, my very first check in was an Angela check in.
- [16:52]
Cynthia Erivo
Whenever Angela Davis taught in New York City, it was an event. I would physically leave my job on the Upper east side, race downtown, take her class and go back to work all the way uptown just to experience her class.
- [17:08]
Ariana Grande
People came for her inspiration for her words. There were portions of her class that didn't even have music in it. It was just spoken word, which was also not common. And so people would literally just bow their heads down, close their eyes and just listen to her speak, which was wild for me. When you're coming for a workout class, it was essentially church and she carried with her this cult following. And so I feel like I got introduced to the circus right away in that class. Beyonce was booked, Jay Z was booked, they had their own bikes in the corner. I actually handed Jay Z gum. I remember being like, is this life? Like, how did I get plucked into this bubble? Every Monday at noon, instantly we'd have a wait list of up to like 80 plus people. And that's like on a non holiday week, on just a regular Monday, Angela's classes, they always had to be full, no matter what, which is hard when again, you're dealing with West Hollywood, you're dealing with traffic, LA and so there would be times when bikes would open up, there'd be no one from the waitlist there. So they would throw staff in and we would be forced to write against our will. I remember one time, actually, Sorry, now you're just flooding me with memories. One time I was placed in between Usher and L A Reid and I remember Usher kept spanking my ass. That was the culture there. It was just like Olivia Wilde, Kelly Rowland and Tyler Perry, Justin bieber.
- [18:23]
Cynthia Erivo
Angela left SoulCycle in 2019 to join Turkish tennis prodigy Akin Akman in his venture in opening his own studio.
- [18:32]
Ariana Grande
I remember that was a major hit, at least for the LA market and I think for the company as a whole. Just because she did bring in so many super souls that it was very alarming to think, like, would we ever be able to get back to that point? Would we ever have our heyday like that and have that many celebrities packed into one room? The answer was no. In the last six years since she left, we've never had that amount and that capacity of super souls, of high clientele, high profile clientele. I remember when you were in those hallways for those check ins, it was just wild. Like anyone you brushed shoulders past was just celebrity, singer, actor, people flew in for this class. It was wild. I also, I'm not sure if it was before the audition or after. Somewhere in training where I was told that, like, you have to fit a certain demographic. So they needed either a Mexican person, a gay person, a girl, a boy. Like they all had different boxes to fill. And so based on where you were going to be stationed. It's like, oh, we already have enough of these people or enough of those. So it was very much stereotyped in that sense. So that's where you kind of had to take your ego out of it. Because even if you were the best writer, you had to know that, oh, your market already has enough of these people, which is another thing that in training, they ask you, are you willing to relocate? What I was told is that you always say yes. You always say that you're so flexible and everything, but by the end, if you do want to go back home, you put your foot down and you say, I'm sorry, I can't anymore. And legally, they can't force you to move anywhere. And they've already invested that much into your training.
- [20:01]
Cynthia Erivo
So that's exactly what Diego did. Because he already built a community as a front desk person and assistant manager, he was able to convince the company that he would thrive in his hometown of Los Angeles.
- [20:14]
Ariana Grande
So for me, I feel like I was a Mexican Latino vote. I was also the gay homosexual vote. And so I feel like they already had some of these in la. After I was done with training, they told me that they wanted to place me either in Texas or in San Francisco. And that's when I said, hell no. I am an LA baby, born and raised, and I'm going back to la. Regardless of what the demographics are like, I know that I can thrive there. And I was so headstrong about it. And again, legally, they can't do anything. And so they had no other choice but to put me back. So because I had no experience with Julia or Elizabeth or had any idea who they were, my introduction to this was Melanie Whelan. And in my eyes, she did an okay job. There's nothing crazy, bad or negative about it that until later on I saw just how wild shit was. But in the moment, it was okay. I think that I was getting my paycheck on time, things were going smooth. We were still a success in the public's eye, but again, I was just a small fish in the big pond. I also had no idea who got. I'm now forgetting their names. The. The Elizabeth. And I never met them. So with Julian Elizabeth, I know that they were the founders and their whole reason why I was even there. But just to show you how much I had no idea who they were. Like, even their names would slip my memory. Their faces were on newspaper clippings posted around the studios. And even still, I would forget their names just because I never got to meet Them. So Pandemic hit March of 2020. I remember we would be closed for two or three months. We were open, we were closed again. We started having outdoor activations in the Los Angeles area. We opened up in downtown la. We opened up in Century City Mall, Santa Monica one in the Valley in Westlake or Thousand Oaks. And so the bikes were spaced out. We were teaching with masks. Everyone else had masks on. We had big ass headphones that we'd have to recharge constantly. So with the headphones in the silent disco part, that's how not only you heard the music, but the instructor's directions. And so you'd be teaching in this sweaty outdoor space. And in some instances, like with Century City, you were on top of the Disney store at the mall. And so I remember it would make it a running gag that the Bloomingdale sign was right behind us. And I would teach the last class of the night and I would be doing a Mamma Mia ride on the rooftop, dressed in a fucking onesie and being like, let's hurry up before the Bloomingdale lights go off, otherwise you won't be able to find your car after. Surprisingly, with COVID I think me personally, I thrived. That's where I found the majority of my community was in a time when people were so lost, so devastated and yearning for human connection. And so I think that was a very special time when everything around us was backwards and people were telling us not to connect, and yet we still find a way to connect. And so for me, that was a way of old soul cycle still being alive and well.
- [23:10]
Cynthia Erivo
Julie and Elizabeth's replacement, Melanie Whelan, was pushed out of the company in 2019 after expensing close to $6,000 worth of Christian Dior bags. She was eventually replaced by Evelyn Webster, the current CEO as of today, 2025.
- [23:28]
Ariana Grande
Some things right out the gate that I noticed, our uniforms went from always being yellow, which I believe was the case from the start of the company, all of a sudden now was changed to black, which is funny because I feel like staff used to complain about the yellow and they look like bumblebees and they look like this and that, to now just being black. And for me it looked like a mortuary or like a funeral home. I think they just said they look sleeker and more professional. But in my eyes it's like the yellow brought the happy. Like, why take that away? And I still, to this day, I always joke about like, oh, we were there in the yellow days. It's kind of like A rite of passage at this point, the retail stipend was a big one for me as an instructor. Every month they would allot us pretty much a whole set and we were walking billboards for the company. So every month, I believe it was like $100. I don't know the exact amount, but we would get a retail stipend to be used solely on Soul Cycle clothing. And so that's why you would always see your instructors wearing soul shirts and soul sports bras and sweats and leggings, all the things, because we would be essentially given free money to use back into the company. And that's something that I also pride myself on, that I didn't purchase a single piece of retail my entire time working there because I didn't want to give my hard earned dollars back into the company. And especially after they had already been giving it to us for free. But I feel like that was a major turning point. But yeah, as soon as the retail stipend left, I stopped buying clothes and. But then they still had the expectation that please wear SoulCycle related branding while you teach. And I'm like, okay, well, you're not giving us money for these uniforms that get torn up and damaged very quickly. So how do you expect us to not only get paid? Very, very little, but. But on top of that, out of that little pay, give it back to the company. It was very backwards. Another small detail that I think was major for me was the dog policy. We used to sell onesies for dogs and be very dog friendly. I remember Pasadena had like a whole water bowl designated for the dogs that would walk by and dog treats. So Seoul not only was community for humans, but also for doggies who are walking past the studio, who we got to know their names and their owners and everything. Just to give you a little example, there is one dog in particular, Murphy, who would walk past the Pasadena studio all the time, bless his heart. His owner, Beth, lived like a couple blocks down, didn't ride a single Soul Cycle class. And yet we would see her walk her dog daily, got to know her, just to show you how strong the connections were, particularly in the Pasadena location, that we not only cared about the humans, but the dogs and people who never even took US class at SoulCycle, like, we were just so community focused. They changed the dog policy on us. And I think the reasoning behind it was like someone got bitten in New York or something. It might have been a rumor even, but they changed it. And so all of a sudden now you couldn't bring your dogs And I wasn't the only instructor who would bring their dogs. And again, I have a pug and I had a multipu, like, completely harmless. Writers and staff loved them. I always give a notice that I was bringing them, but the last time I brought them, I was written up for bringing them. And so that for me was just such a flag of, like, this is how the company's changing, that even dogs that are supposed to bring happiness to people are now a bad thing. We had to throw away the water bowls and we stopped selling the dog onesies and stuff. So it's just sad to see a lot of these fun things were stripped away from the company. Studio closures was another big one. During COVID we went from, I believe, having 13 studios in the LA market down to five. And I remember just how sad it was, each one of those leaving because each one carried their specific community. I was lucky enough to teach at a good half of them. I had regular classes in Westlake and Calabasas, Pasadena, downtown la, Hollywood, West Hollywood. And out of these, the only ones that survived were Pasadena, West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Brentwood and Manhattan Beach. Even Newport was closed down, which was our, like, our only OC location. And it was sad because you're not only killing off writers, you're killing off staff. In my eyes, as from being behind the scenes, I think there were ways that we could have retained had we allocated our money differently. But again, Soul, I think their top priority became keeping the fantasy alive and keeping the brand alive.
- [27:32]
Cynthia Erivo
After the major hit of the pandemic, SoulCycle finally partnered with ClassPass. ClassPass is a subscription service that offers access to a wide variety of fitness classes. While all of SoulCycle's competitors were part of ClassPass, SoulCycle refused to join until they had to.
- [27:53]
Ariana Grande
I firmly believe ClassPass saved this company, which I looked up. And it was December of 2022 when ClassPass started being included. Seoul refused to bring the price down. They were always like, no, we have to keep a certain standard. And so their solution, I believe, was to join Class Pass, which brought its own set of fun problems and stuff. But another wild thing was that they would never promote it. They would never admit to it. And so people would constantly saying, oh, my God, they're on Class Pass, like they use them. But they didn't admit to it. We definitely saw as instructors, our numbers go up and we were told that we would still get paid per head for these Class Pass people. So it didn't affect us that much, except that the culture maybe shifted a little bit. Now we're getting people who just want the fantasy of soul. And so they only come for one class and say, look, I took a Soul Cycle class, got their selfie by the neon sign and never come back again. And on top of all of that, they also had the beauty of being able to review these classes afterwards. And so not only were we getting shit on in person, but then afterwards, we get one star. I remember one of my favorite reviews was someone who gave me three stars very early on, not five, not one. And the only comment was, it was fine. And I, to this day, joke that I'm gonna frame that shit and put it over my toilet because it's just so representative of who I am as a person. Just, it was fine.
- [29:08]
Cynthia Erivo
Diego said the highlight of his entire career at Soul Cycle was, number one, meeting his husband there. Number two, Christina Aguilera herself showing up during a Christina Aguilera theme ride.
- [29:21]
Ariana Grande
I would correlate my theme rides to concerts that I was going to that month. So being a gay man in Los Angeles, I had plenty to choose from. So In July of 2021, Christina Elair was playing the Hollywood Bowl. And leading up to, I believe it was a week before I get notified from my superiors that, hey, they want to do a partnership like Christian wants to do a partnership with SoulCycle. And this happens often where, like, celebrities or concerts in town will partner with them. I think that it's to try to boost sales because they're hurting and they're not able to fill up their audiences. And so it's an easy way to try to get people excited about it. So they're like, we're giving away a free ticket giveaway, which ended up being the entire room. So leading up to the class, just before entering the room, I remember all the managers and everyone was there from hq, which I was like, this is weird. This isn't normal. All the managers were there and they huddled, and they're like, diego, by the way, in case she shows up. In case she shows up, turn on the lights, lower the volume, blah, blah. And I was like, wait, what do you mean, in case? And they're like, just in case. And I was like, no, no, tell me now. Yes or no. And so lo and behold, we get to the last song of the class. We're playing Fighter. And right when the bridge happens, door swings open. Christine Aylor walks in, turn on the lights, freaking out. To this day, front desk staff would troll me because there's pictures of videos of me just, like, gawking at the woman. And yeah, she ended up giving tickets away to everyone in the room. So that's why it kind of kept me going and keeping my faith and my belief in it.
- [30:54]
Cynthia Erivo
Hey, two quick things before we break. One, did you know you can watch every episode of Cult of Body and soul on YouTube? If you want to see videos and photos of all the instructors, we have it all waiting for you. Go to YouTube and search Cult of SoulCycle. Second announcement I am so excited to say we are doing a live show in New York City on Wednesday, July 9. I'll be interviewing Janet Fitzgerald and Hellie Becker live on stage at Joe's Publisher. Plus, we'll have live music from the band Betty, whose songs are heard at the end of each episode. Tickets are on sale now@joezepub.com just search SoulCycle Wednesday, July 9th and I will see you there.
- [31:42]
Ariana Grande
This episode is brought to you by Polestar.
- [31:44]
Julie Rice
There's only one true way to experience.
- [31:46]
Ariana Grande
The all electric luxury SUV Polestar 3.
- [31:48]
Ian
And that's to take a test drive.
- [31:50]
Ariana Grande
It can go from 0 to 60.
- [31:51]
Ian
In as little as 4.8 seconds with the dynamic handling of a sports car. But to truly understand how it commands.
- [31:57]
Julie Rice
The road, you need to be behind the wheel. Up to 350 miles of range.
- [32:01]
Ariana Grande
The 3D surround sound system by Bowers and Wilkins. It's all something you have to experience to believe.
- [32:06]
Ian
So book your Test drive for Polestar.
- [32:08]
Ariana Grande
3 today@Polestar.com if you went on a.
- [32:12]
Julie Rice
Road trip and you didn't stop for.
- [32:13]
Ian
A Big Mac or drop a crispy.
- [32:15]
Julie Rice
Fry between the car seats or use your McDonald's bag as a placemat, then that wasn't a road trip. It was just a really long drive.
- [32:25]
Ian
At participating McDonald's.
- [32:33]
Cynthia Erivo
Our third instructor, deep dive, is with New York instructor Noah Shaw. Noah was at Seoul for 12 years up until 2024. Noah is worthy of a biopic onto himself. He is the single most unlikely fitness instructor in New York City. Janet Hand picked him as a recruit after he went from 300 to 200 pounds just by riding at SoulCycle.
- [33:00]
Julie Rice
So one day I'm riding like a madman. I'm riding two times a day at SoulCycle. WeHo. I'm riding so much and I've I walked in the first day I was over £300. I lost over £100 in a little over 90 days. People were calling the studio and they were asking when I was riding because they wanted to ride with me because I was just like, I was loud and I was fierce and I was Just going for it. And I thought about a life of crime and violence and I've been shot at, I've been stabbed. And a matter of months later, Janet called me. She said, are you riding tomorrow at 12 o' clock? And I said, I hope so. And she goes, well, I need you. And so I stopped, showed up the next day at like 11:45. And I said, what's going on? She goes, lady Gaga's riding. And Lady Gaga's spiritual advisor likes you, thinks you have great energy and wants you to sit next to Lady Gaga for her first ride. Lady Gaga's spiritual advisor was a yoga teacher from New York named Trish Donegan. And Trish had gone up to Janet and said, specifically, I want Noah sitting next to Gaga for her first ride.
- [34:05]
Cynthia Erivo
Shortly after, he was Gaga's co pilot for her first ride, Janet asked Noah if he ever thought about being an instructor.
- [34:12]
Julie Rice
And I was like, no, that seems like the furthest thing. My doctor just told me I'm going to die. Six months ago of a massive heart attack.
- [34:19]
Cynthia Erivo
Janet recruited Noah and he was given a one way flight to New York City and told to find a place to live.
- [34:26]
Julie Rice
So when I got to Soul Cycle, not only had I gotten sober, which is a highly spiritual event, you know, there's an old saying, religion is for people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is for those of us who've been there. My SoulCycle class was a spiritual class, end of story. You got a great workout, but you were gonna change.
- [34:47]
Cynthia Erivo
Noah had a unique perspective on SoulCycle because he was extremely close with one of their most popular instructors, Stacy Griffith. She mostly teaches on the Upper east side, which is filled with the 1 percenters of Manhattan and the Hamptons. Stacy is the same instructor who we talked about cutting the COVID vaccine line in episode four in you Create Monsters.
- [35:10]
Julie Rice
There was every single other instructor at SoulCycle and then there was Stacy. She was held to a different standard. She was paid more than anybody. She had a life of luxury and her birthday every year, it was a spectacle with every rider trying to outdo every other rider by the expense Hermes blankets. They were like paying homage to her, literally and financially. They would stack gifts for days like cases of the most expensive champagne, boxes of caviar. So the writers were trying to peacock and out impress themselves in a very. In the most simple terms. I always like to go to like Occam's Razor, you know, the most simple term is usually the answer. It's a pretty side and it's all about, I've got More than you do. Okay, you've got more than I do. I'm going to marry your husband. How about that? And a lot of that happened. Upper east side, east 83rd. There was a phenomenon, and I knew this because I worked at that studio. A lot of the women. The Escalades would pile up out front of on 83rd, and the women would not bother bringing clothing to class because they would just grab whatever they wanted off the rack, run in the bathroom, change into it, and then run into class and never pay for was the height of entitlement. They just tore the tags off. They just tore the tags off and left them. And the staff would find tags in the bathroom. They didn't care. It was nothing to them. You know, $30, $80, $120. It's nothing to them. This was just their. They had earned this right. These were people who. A lot were super soul. A lot were extremely wealthy. So it was that entitlement that we see throughout our society. This is just a small sample of it. So the Stacy phenomenon grew. And Stacy ended up buying an apartment two doors away from East 83rd. She redecorated and did it all in the finest furs and wallpapers and all the best stuff, because she deserved it. She worked her ass off. And I'm not gonna deny it or listen, if somebody's gonna pay you thousands of dollars to teach a soul cycle class, I had to fight to get my $150 a class, and that was two pay raises. I went from 50 to 100 and then to 150, and I was selling out classes. I started out at $50 a class, then they gave me $100 a class, and then they gave me $150. And I'd been there for over 10 years when there were instructors like Stacy who were making thousands of dollars a class. I always used to say, it's Animal Farm, Some pigs are more equal than others. Charismatic leaders throughout history were just captured on a spin bike for SoulCycle. These are charismatic leaders. These are MLK. These are Julius Caesar like. These are charismatic leaders like Kendrick. Kendrick is charismatic. Drake is not. Drake is interesting. Drake is good. Drake produces a lot of music. Kendrick is charismatic because he speaks and people listen. And that's what great soul cycle instructors all have in common, is when they spoke, it wasn't just about the music. It's when they spoke to the class through the microphone the people listened to. So at the moment that Janet recruited me, I was working as a case manager at one of the Biggest rehabs in Beverly Hills. I am the first and only instructor to ever be hired out of the mental health world. And I was led by great psychiatrists and great psychologists and shown techniques of how to work through this. As I pay attention and being a bit older, it gives me a little bit of a look back. And there's a lot of people going to Soul Cycle because of mental health issues. A lot of anorexia, bulimia. There were a lot of people who were riding too much. I would always say, what's going on in your life? I would pull them aside. You've been here a lot. You're writing a lot, like, two, three times a day, like, what's going on? And I had no problem doing that because I was trained how to do that. I was trained to help people open up to what was going on in their lives and feel comfortable and safe talking to me, knowing that I was available to them. Maybe one of the only people in their lives who had noticed that something wasn't right.
- [39:30]
Cynthia Erivo
Noah clearly did not fit the stereotype of a fitness instructor. But that can sometimes be to your advantage if you stick out long enough to connect with people on a human level.
- [39:41]
Julie Rice
So I thought that with Janet recruiting me and friends with Stacy, that I didn't think I was gonna have an easy time of it. But I thought I gained a little grace, and that grace evaporated instantly upon my arrival in New York. Training was hard. You know, as Haley had said in earlier episode, if they didn't like you, it was gonna be hard. And it was hard. It was brutal. I got picked on, and I got screamed at, like, nobody can ride to that. Nobody can ride to that. That's too fast. That's too fast. Fast. It was brutal. They wouldn't give me a class. They wouldn't put me on the schedule. There was a meeting every week of the upper Bs, the higher people. And word leaked out that somebody had asked, is he still fat? Can he even teach a class? Is he still fat? Does he still look gross? That's how superficial it was. And I was like, I thought I was in good shape. I'd been £300 nine months previously. I was told by a doctor I was going to have a heart attack at any moment. Here I was. I'd finished SoulCycle training, and I couldn't get a class. They wouldn't give me one lousy class. And everybody in my group was teaching on the schedule. I don't know. To this day, I don't know what Janet, you Know, I'm an alcoholic. I'm a sensitive guy. There might not have been any issue. It was more Soul Cycles issue with me in not giving me any classes. I don't know if Janet specifically didn't like me or didn't want me to teach or whatever. I have no idea. But it just felt like she was the representative for me of my connection with SoulCycle. And when the connection was, like, severed or I was pushed away, it felt like that was mom going, no, go away.
- [41:18]
Cynthia Erivo
The reality is Janet Fitzgerald had nothing to do with programming. This was SoulCycle co founder Julie Rice's department. Perhaps they felt he needed more time to develop or wasn't, quote unquote on brand. Still, Janet was SoulCycle to him, so he felt hurt by her, but it was definitely misplaced.
- [41:40]
Julie Rice
You know, the postdoc person I was most emotionally attached to outside of Stacy, who Stacy and I had history, so I knew Stacy and Stacy knew me. But Janet was the one who, like, changed my life by letting me become a Soul Cycle instructor. So to not get her approval was really interesting and really felt, you know, I processed things differently. I mean, not differently. I just. I feel everything.
- [42:02]
Cynthia Erivo
Years later, Noah ran into Janet at one of the infamous holiday parties. He was now an established instructor, and he was finally able to express some gratitude.
- [42:12]
Julie Rice
And I said, you know, Janet, I can't thank you enough because you really taught me how to play other music that wasn't just the dance music. And they gave me the freedom to play the rock music and the other side sort of stuff that I like, like REM and U2 and Bruce Springsteen and things like that, which I've gotten from her and from Sue Molnar. And I said, you know, we have a lot of riders in common. I said, I get a lot of my riders when I'm not teaching that they go, take your class. She goes, you know, I have the same thing. I have writers who have taken your class, and they love it. I was like, wow, it's cool that we kind of cross over like that. I said, I feel honored that any writer of yours would take my class. She said, yeah, in her very cool way, and she's very cool. She has a cool, cool thing about her. And that was just a brief conversation, but it sort of, like, was like a big. For me, it was a full circle to, like, get to express gratitude to her for somebody that I'd been angry with for holding me back into. Me thinking I. That not wanting me to be an instructor. But I love. I love happy endings. And it's not that it was happy. Like, joyously we hugged and kissed and threw each other around, but it was peace. And I strived for peace. And we had made peace with each other.
- [43:24]
Cynthia Erivo
In December 2012, it was announced that Soul would be opening its first Brooklyn studio in Noah's neighborhood of Williamsburg.
- [43:32]
Julie Rice
I rode down there, and it was still under construction. It was still just wood. I walked up on the podium and I leaned against the wood wall. There was nothing installed yet. And I just pictured the room being filled. And nine months later, that happened. So I finally got my first class, and it was the worst possible time slot in all of Soul Cycle history. It was 12:15 on Mondays at Upper East 83rd. Like, nobody is around to ride in a class. Everybody's on the phone because they're booking their bikes and they're obsessed with it. In New York City, it was a definite thing. It was like there was Central park, there's the Empire State Building, and there's.
- [44:10]
Cynthia Erivo
Noon on Mondays by the Pandemic. Noah cultivated a dedicated following, particularly in Williamsburg with his signature rock star ride, where he played all classic rock music. He had also opened four studios. Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and Short Hills, New Jersey. Once New York was granted permission to hold classes outside in masks, SoulCycle and Barry's Boot Camp jumped on it, holding classes on rooftops throughout the city. While I was running on a treadmill in a mask indoors at Barry's, Noah was teaching outside in the freezing New York winter.
- [44:48]
Julie Rice
So Brooklyn Heights had an outdoor studio, and it started off in the fall. It wasn't so bad and it was nice and the temperatures were moderate. Everybody was super excited. I was selling out glasses. Everybody was so excited to get back to anything slightly normal, even if it was riding in masks and like, germinating every bike. But wintertime came. It was so cold that instructors were calling, going, I'm not going to teach today. And they would just go, Noah, you have three classes. And it was just. It was brutal. But I was happy to be teaching again. I was happy to be making money. You don't teach, don't make money. And I had enough of not making money. When I wasn't teaching for all those years. After I finished training, I lost a lot of money. So there were some big time instructors in their mind and in my mind, because they were getting paid more and they were just calling out, they were saying, I'm not. Can I teach? It's too cold. And I didn't care. I was so happy to be seeing my riders because I had built a following at Brooklyn Heights and I was teaching the Sunday morning Survivor, which is a really big glass whole cycle and I was selling it out and I was teaching a Friday night Rockstar ride in Brooklyn Heights and I was selling it out. So I was so glad to have my gang back, my people.
- [46:04]
Cynthia Erivo
Culture of Body and Soul is created, executive produced and narrated by Jess Rothschild, sound design by Caitlin White, theme song and original music composed by Elizabeth Ziff. This is our final episode for now, but stay in touch on Instagram JessXNYC where we may have future bonus episodes, interviews and live events. For now, this is Cult of Body and Soul and thank you for coming on this ride.
- [46:40]
Ariana Grande
Can you identify an Elphaba just from.
- [46:42]
Ian
Her defying gravity war cry? Can you name every actress in the Wicked to Waitress pipeline? Or does the phrase witch switch mean anything to you? Well then, good news. My name's Quincy. And my name's Kevin and we're the host of Sentimental Men. We're here to talk and maybe scream.
- [47:03]
Ariana Grande
About our favorite women in musical theater.
- [47:05]
Ian
The Witches of Wicked. So if spending a Friday night in.
- [47:09]
Ariana Grande
A no good deed Rabbit hole on.
- [47:11]
Ian
YouTube sounds like your idea of a.
- [47:12]
Ariana Grande
Good time, then Sentimental Men is the podcast for you.
- [47:16]
Ian
And with guests like Jessica Vosk, Lucy Jones, and Stephanie J. Block, chances are we've already got an episode with your favorite Elphaba or Glinda.
- [47:24]
Ariana Grande
Like Laura Bell Bundy, Brittney Johnson, and Mackenzie Kurtz.
- [47:27]
Ian
So pause your riff compilations, put down your copy of the Grimmery, and give Sentimental Men a listen. You can find us on the Broadway Podcast Network or wherever you listen to podcasts.