Take a deep, inaudible breath: ‘Midwest nice’ rules the day in her Pilates studio

I’m a true believer in “Midwest nice.” I first heard the phrase from our Realtor when she was showing us homes in the metro more than a decade ago. My initial thought was that it must be Realtor sales jargon. You know the whole marketing trope of “oh you’ll love it here because everyone is a delight.”

Also, hailing from Texas I was certain that this Midwest nice wasn’t going to trump Southern hospitality.

I was wrong.

After living here I’ve discovered that Midwest nice is pure goodness, like water from a mountain stream or a Costco sheet cake. Meanwhile Southern manners can be tinged with some major shade. I still don’t know when someone from the South says, “I love that for you,” or “bless your heart” if I’m being complimented or insulted.

Another component of Midwest nice is not wanting to attract attention to yourself. I’ve found that a lot of Kansas Citians are reluctant to become the focal point in any social situation even, I’ve discovered, while working out in a group setting.

I’ve done Pilates classes for a couple of years and one of the key components is your breathing. Breathing is the star of the show. It’s a whole inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth lateral breathing extravaganza. You can also make a lot of sounds when you’re breathing — unless you’re Midwest nice.

I didn’t even know I was Midwest nice until a guy from Los Angeles came to the Overland Park Pilates class I attend. He was a breathing dynamo. And by this I mean the dude wasn’t shy about inhaling and exhaling with extreme gusto.

Which means he was doing the breathing exactly the way it should be done. Not the Midwest nice way the rest of us were doing it, which was being as silent as we could with our breathing. We all wanted to breathe, to of course, sustain our lives, but we also didn’t want to make a sound doing it.

One day I bravely decided to do Pilates next to Mr. LA. My goal was to try to release my inner Pilates diva and really give the hearty inhale and exhale a go. I was going to use him as my breathing cover. My reasoning was that he was so loud no one would notice my increased volume.

But, ugh, as much as I wanted to I just couldn’t do it. I had what amounted to breathing stage fright. After that I decided to just go with what I know: inaudible breathing.

Then months later I attended a Pilates class in Newport Beach, California, and experienced what I’m going to call a tsunami of breathing. These people seemed extremely proud of their inhaling and exhaling prowess. The class was so loud I felt like I was inside a wind tunnel.

I would have thought this heavy breathing space would have granted me the sweet freedom to unleash my lung power but instead I got annoyed. The volume of breathing made it hard to hear any of the cues from the instructor and I got the feeling that there was some competition going on with who could breathe the loudest. I’m fairly certain the woman next to me was multitasking — performing an exorcism and birthing a humpback whale — while doing Pilates.

After this class all I wanted to do was run home to Midwest nice where our breathing is quiet and consistent, — just like our manners.

Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.