My Yuppie Rant: Am I a yuppie-in-training?

I had a minor case of personality identity/stereotype crisis this morning. My roomie/bestie, Jen, told me I will one day make the great yuppie. This made me laugh, mostly because she said it in her typical “salty old man” voice. But then I got to thinking (not too hard, it’s still the first week of classes, mind you) and I thought, am I an aspiring yuppie? I mean, yeah, young, urban, professional—I qualify as two out of those three things. I shopped at Banana Republic the other day so maybe two and a half out of three on a good day. But otherwise, do I really fall into the soon-to-be-yuppie category?

Here’s me in a nutshell right now:
- I’m interning at Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that helps to ensure clean water and safe food.
- I do yoga and shop at farmers markets.
- I am taking the following classes: Environment & Development, PR Portfolio (we are working with the Arlington Academy of Hope this semester), Theories & Methods of Nonviolence, and an independent study focusing on sustainable agriculture.

There is a definition that maybe comes sort of close to me, but is it yuppie?

Now, let’s take a look at my favorite Urban Dictionary definition of “yuppie”…

Acronym for Young Urban Professional. Group whose culture blends the hippie/counterculture values of the 60s and the materialistic monetary-based values of the 80s. Usually congregate in Starbuck's, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and a wide variety of vintage clothing boutiques. Includes both moderate Liberals (Majority of yuppies), and moderate Conservatives (smaller group of yuppies), although both the far left and the far right enjoy dissing them.

Far left dude: I hate these damn yuppies! They claim to be "artists" and "bohemians", yet their materialistic pursuits embody the very antithesis of the counterculture, and price real "artists" like me out of the neighborhoods they move to!

Far right dude: I hate these damn yuppies. I can't stand they flaunt their metrosexuality with their designer labels, lattes, luxury cars, and globally conscious health food stores. It's european-wannabe wimps like them that corrupt America!

In my marketing classes at AU, we learned heaps about how to how to define your audience. I once had an assignment where I had to “brand” myself. We learned how marketers segment their audience with Web sites like this, with 67 different ‘types’ of people. But even now, as I go through these market segments, I still can’t find quite the “yuppie” definition that I strive to find.

But bear with my existentialism for a moment, when I ask, can you ever really “define” a person? I mean, no, clearly, is the answer to that. Which is good. I mean, there are definitely people out there that fit the mold of a yuppie as defined above, but then you have to consider that not everyone agrees to this definition of a yuppie, or any other stereotype on Urban Dictionary for that matter. This one word alone has 45 definitions.

Jen asserted that perhaps what we have here is a case of regional yuppiedom. So, for example maybe a yuppie in Orange County is a 30-something, fashion-conscious, Whole Foods-shopping, Starbucks-addict. He “cares about the environment” (duh—he only buys organic!) and drives a Lexus HS250h, because he can afford it and wants to have a hybrid so he remains cutting-edge.

Or, maybe in D.C., the yuppie is a 30-something-year-old woman who shops at Whole Foods because she likes their selection of organic, healthy food, she still enjoys her Starbucks and her shopping, though she tries to not go overboard, because she’s sort of anti-capitolism. She drives a Prius, because it isn’t too flashy and is environmentally friendly.

I think you see what I am getting at here. I mean, in the grand scheme of the universe, these people are the same.

However, in conclusion, and because this yuppie rant has gone on far too long, I can happily say, I am not a yuppie, and do not aspire to be one, and in fact could never be one if I wanted to (despite the fact that I plan to eventually own a hybrid and yes I wear a Northface jacket and yes I do yoga and yes I own an Apple computer and yes I shop at Whole Foods.)

Despite all of this, my one saving grace is that I do not like Starbucks. At all. I was born and raised on Cape Cod, and I am a Dunkin' Donuts girl for life.

So there you have it, folks.

Lock the knee. Lock your eyes.

This week, I picked up my Bikram yoga practice again. I practiced Friday night, did Saturday afternoon, and am leaving for the Sunday morning class in about an hour. I practiced Bikram last fall/winter for about six months, but then stopped when I went abroad to Australia. There was actually a Bikram studio a few miles from my apartment down there, but I didn't really see having that much extra time or money to keep going, so I never kept it up. Then, last semester, my life was crazy and my class schedule, the Eagle, and babysitting just didn't allow for me to squeeze in yoga. It is a little bit frustrating to go back to Bikram after such a long break. I remember everything my body used to be able to do that it can't do anymore, and I am sort of mad at myself I let that happen. But, I don’t want to say I regret not going, because you can’t really regret something you had basically no control over. I missed it a lot.

This semester I have made room for it in my schedule to go three to four times per week, because with Bikram, (and most yoga), it is really important to go at least that many times, ideally five days. The more you regularly your practice, the more you get out of it.



Bikram yoga, also known as hot yoga by some, is basically a 26-posture, 90-minute routine developed by Bikram Choudhury. It is always performed in a room with a temperature of about 105 degrees and 40% humidity with the lights on bright. This allows your body to sweat out toxins but more importantly limbers up your muscles so you don't strain something while you are working on the pretty demanding poses. It is amazing how much more flexible you become after spending a little time in the heat.

I remember on my couple days of yoga back in August 2008, I looked around the room at all the ripped bodies, some curvy, some with not a drop of fat on them, but mostly all in great shape. Let’s just say you could tell who had been coming for a while and who, like me, were just starting out. I started to compare myself to everyone around me. Then the class began and I started to compare myself to how well my body was working compared to other people in the room. Then I remember during Ardha Chandrasana with Pada-Hastasana, which is a pose where you extend your arms with your biceps at your ears and push your body as straight as can be to each side, holding for a minute, then repeat again. It’s the first real pose aside from the all-important breathing exercise, but it’s intense. This excruciating cramp hit my right bicep (which isn’t used to doing any work) and then all I can remember thinking was, “Ohh, this isn’t gonna be easy, is it?” From then on I sort of knew I had to forget everyone else in there and focus on me. I perform my best postures when I completely free my mind of distraction and focus on my own eyes in the mirror. Which is sort of why I titled this entry that. There are a lot of phrases the instructors tend to use a lot, specifically, “Lock the knee!” “Push more! Fall more! Back back back!” etc. But I really like repeating, “Lock your eyes” to myself because it actually does help. I usually stand in the front, because if I can’t see my eyes in the mirror, I often can’t focus. If I concentrate on my own gaze, I'm not thinking about anyone or anything else, and I can work through some of the balancing poses a lot easier. The balancing poses are my hardest. I'm fairly flexible all around, but I can't balance for the life of me.

I think that is the beauty of most lasting exercise routines, specifically yoga, which is so individual. You do it for you, no one else. No one in there is going to pat you on the back and say, “You know, you had a really excellent triangle pose today, much better than last week!” because no one knows your practice except you. Sometimes instructors will encourage beginners with comments on how well they did, but generally it’s more of a comment to their stamina and staying in the room than specifics about their postures. Instructors are always there to motivate, but they are not what keeps you going. This is going to sound really cheesy, but it’s your internal dialogue and patting yourself on the metaphorical back that keeps you going. Sometimes it’s congratulating yourself for touching your head to the floor in standing separate leg stretching pose, sometimes it’s just for getting your butt to class. Or to play on what Emerson once said, “Finish each pose and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

I'm off to see what I can do today. Namaste, everyone.


(not Bikram, but me doing yoga in Brisbane, one of the only photos I have of me in any yoga pose.)