Hi!
This week our small team welcomes a new member… we’re thrilled that Rebecca Prusinowski is joining us! She’s worked on a ton of cool stuff and also has a very cute dog. Those two facts aren’t equally important but… it’s close. You’ll be hearing from her in one of these emails sometime soon.
In the meantime, today we’ve got an essay about the pervasive instinct to… do the most. It’s not an instinct that I myself necessarily feel swayed by, but, without naming names, we certainly do have some self-professed overachievers on our team. And this might be excitement about our new teammate talking here, but it did make me think about the importance of balance in a collaborative group. You need the one who sweats the details, striving for perfection, but equally important is the one who reminds everyone to not let “perfect be the enemy of the good.” Ahem.
Friend of Prism Xiomara Bovell is what you might call a reformed “doing the most-er,” and she recounts that pilates-fueled journey below. I personally learned what Lagree Method was from this essay, and while I shan’t be trying it myself, I’m happy to know what it is!
Yours in imperfection,Jocelyn
Xiomara is jack-of-all-trades, master of some, who has spent chapters of life as a dancer, a creative strategist and, for a few years, a boutique fitness instructor. She writes about arts, culture, and performance in her substack Live Cultures, and hosts bi-monthly community field trips to see live performances in NYC.
One thing that makes Xiomara feel well: sunshine and no agenda.
I can do it all… I just don’t want to anymore
If nothing else, I try hard. I don’t dabble, I dive—into new languages, careers, artistic pursuits, personal projects (#renaissancewoman or first-born, Virgo, AND eldest daughter of immigrants, you decide).
In 2019, after months of intrigue around the contraptions (which I now know to be megaformers) neatly lined up in the studio I passed on my commute, I decided to try Lagree—the high-intensity cousin of Pilates. It’s faster, heavier, and designed to make you suffer a little. The first class was certainly… humbling (the instructor was also kind of an asshole, but I digress). But despite the slow start, I knew that once I got familiar with the technique and language of Lagree I’d be in my element and that instructor could eat his snarky little words. As a late starter in ballet, I’d mastered the art of being the dark horse, and before long I was Lagree-literate, fluently transitioning between moves, adding challenging variations, and earning shoutouts from the instructors. In just 50 minutes, I would work every muscle in my body (even ones I didn’t know I had); sweating, shaking and internally crying, beneath the altar of a "Better Sore Than Sorry" wall decal. The 1:1 correlation between my effort on the megaformer and results I could see and feel made the mantra that hard work pays off actually feel true.
For me, overachievement is a reflex. If I’m going to do something, it’s ain't no mountain high enough—I’ll take things to the hardest, biggest, furthest degree possible (…often flirting a little too closely with the edge of burnout valley). So naturally, I didn’t just do Lagree—I set out to master it. An online application form turned into a one week bootcamp, followed by 12 weeks of intensive instructor training. I was teaching free classes alongside my full-time 9-5, juggling pitches and strategy proposals with playlists and routine plans. My training odyssey culminated in three rounds of audition classes with a room full of clients, closely examined by “master instructors” for whom I’d need to flawlessly demonstrate efficient routine sequencing, musicality, charisma, and client rapport to make the cut. It was A LOT, but I made it.
In hindsight, I’m not sure why I started teaching (though it makes for a solid subtle-flex “fun fact” at corporate icebreakers). I didn’t want a fitness career. I had a job I liked and a plethora of other hobbies. If I’m honest, I think I just wanted to prove that I could. And so, I did.