Jess Rothschild
speaker
92 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Jess Rothschild’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And so Janet goes to New York to teach for a couple of weeks and absolutely hates it.
I'm just telling you the truth. Studios were now open on the Upper West Side, Tribeca, and the Upper East Side. They had Janet running ragged, teaching at all three studios upwards of 12 times a week. And she was not falling in love with New York City. She was done and pleaded with Julie to just set her free back to L.A.,
Claire Veronica Walsh was part of a test group of potential new instructors. She really had no idea how to teach a class, let alone curate a musical experience for riders. But she was an ingenue.
One day, an instructor had to cancel last minute, so Claire jumped at the chance to substitute the class. Soon, Janet was mentoring her.
The lottery numbers are basically the keys to unlocking a successful playlist. It's all based on curating a 45 minute ride based on the beats per minute of each song. This was one foundation of an extensive training program that was developed over time. We're going to explore the training program in detail next episode. Janet also found a soulmate in Claire.
Maybe she was a reflection of her younger self.
They would eventually allow Janet to produce Moulin Rouge, but under very unexpected circumstances. Still, Janet wasn't convinced. But as she said earlier, Julie Rice doesn't take no for an answer.
Janet realized the only thing that could make her stay in New York was to continue mentoring young instructors like Claire Veronica Walsh and a salary of $200,000, more than any instructor would ever dream of making in L.A. Why did Julie throw that money at her? Because she wanted to be able to take her favorite instructor anytime she wanted.
With this promise began a very rough version of the instructor training program, which Janet was essentially making up as she went along.
It's like making a short film. Janet taught them how to make the class more of a conversation using rhythm riding and yoga style guidance throughout the entire ride. She also showed them how to cue transitions without excessive counting like a stereotypical instructor.
Finally, Janet brought the idea of a community ride to Julie. A community ride would serve two purposes. One, to see if these kids can actually teach a class. And second, to offer a free class to anyone who signs up. Therefore, Janet can critique the class and it's a nice give back to the community. Lord knows how, but Janet starts turning out legit superstars.
No one at any gym in Manhattan is delivering what SoulCycle is. Word of mouth began to surge.
Now there's a lot of different layers of what happened at SoulCycle. In the early days, instructors would get on the bike and stay there. The music was pretty much rock and roll that would appeal to the Upper West Side crowd or top 40. As they hired younger, more theatrically inclined performers, they started to improvise. They got on and off the bike a lot. They had more eclectic taste in music.
Now there's choreography, lights, a certain alchemy began to happen in the room. It became performance art. The poster child of SoulCycle as performance art was the quiet, wickedly smart Danny Coppell.
Danny Coppola was a star, but the women on the Upper East Side and Tribeca just didn't get it.
Scarsdale is a wealthy suburb about an hour north of Manhattan, which also happens to be Julie Rice's hometown. So she certainly knew what would appeal to that crowd.
As soon as Union Square opened on 18th Street, Julie plucked Danny out of Westchester and into downtown New York City, where he belongs.
I mean, shit was crazy. It was crazy. Danny and Claire Veronica Walsh were the epitome of the exciting young creativity that Janet was fostering at Soul.
On December 27th, 2011, the New York Post headlined, quote, tragic death of spin queen. SoulCycle staffers and clients were grieving yesterday over the loss of Claire Veronica Walsh, 22. Walsh, who had a legion of dedicated followers, was slated to teach a class over the weekend, but didn't show. The cause of her untimely death is unknown.
piano plays softly
Showing 61–80 of 92 · page 4 of 5
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