Whatnots & Bon Mots

Etiquette 101

Lyudmila Bloch wants to change the world. That she speaks Russian, English, French, and Spanish is no accident- her points are clear in both language and action.

Bloch, a renowned etiquette coach, stands up to greet you. After you sit down, she will look you in the eye and make you feel important. Changing the world is serious business- if she gives you her attention she expects you will live up to it.

Bloch teaches etiquette because manners will improve society. “I teach a great deal about tolerance and patience,” she said about her etiquette lessons, “It is also about compassion and being self-aware.”

While Bloch acknowledges this is an uphill battle, it only makes her more determined. But that determination does not come at the sacrifice of consideration, “I try not to be too judgmental and I allow people to make mistakes,” Bloch said.

Within our increasingly casual world in which we have seen erosion in both personal boundaries and public courtesy, Bloch serves as a counterbalance. Even after teaching etiquette to more than 4,000 children, she still sees everyday as a new opportunity to impart her message through every element of her life.

Bloch is dressed to impress, even on the weekend. Slender and of medium height, Bloch wears a matte black suit, the collar of her coral pink shirt stands at attention, framing her face, which appears flawless under the bright lights of the Cosi on Broadway. Bloch has blood red hair and soft features accented by a pair of red oval-framed eyeglasses. She smiles often, revealing glistening white teeth.

Then she speaks: “I do this from my heart.” Her accent is Russian, the words intimate and sentences abbreviated. When she agrees with you, she will say “absolutely,” which has the effect of making you feel like you have said precisely the right thing.

Her decision to become an etiquette coach came only after she was looking, essentially, for herself. Bloch came to New York City in the early 1980’s for marketing work from her native Russia after training as a linguist at the Moscow State Pedagogical University. When traveling to Asia on business, there were no guidelines available on how to act in social situations- except from the State Department and they were not helpful.

Sensing an opportunity in the marketplace, Bloch enrolled under Dorothea Johnson at The Protocol School of Washington, the first woman to open an etiquette school in the United States. Johnson became a role model for Bloch, both in terms of Johnson’s entrepreneurial drive and success teaching the world of protocol to the washed and unwashed masses.

After a two-week intense seminar in “Children’s Etiquette,” Bloch came back to New York to launch Etiquette Outreach for children ages 6 to 18 and adults.

Though Bloch prefers to work with children, she also works with corporate clients, providing the basics of business etiquette to many in finance such as the Royal Bank of Scotland and Goldman Sachs, as well as a new program in which she teaches spouses of corporate executives how to function at corporate events. These clients also pay better, from $2-5,000 per class, as opposed to $900 for a public school or non-profit organization.

Bloch is not in it for the money, she does it because she feels her lessons can last a lifetime. “When you take a student who is 5/6/7 years old, they are easily influenced because they don’t have any bad habits. By teenagers they have bad habits,” Bloch said.

Family problems often lead to etiquette problems. “Kids lack basic social skills because they didn’t have a positive role model growing up. It’s like dogs, there are no bad dogs, there are poor owners,” Bloch said as she explained how etiquette can bridge these deeply personal issues.

Stacy Albanese, a former client, called Bloch, “A national treasure. I wish that there were more people like her.” At a joint birthday party for Albanese’s two daughters aged three and five, “It was very challenging because she had a pack of girls who couldn’t care less about what she was saying and she did an incredible job of getting their attention and her point across. My three year old still says ‘Ms. Bloch wouldn’t like it if…,’” Albanese said.

In 2000, Bloch became an independent consultant with The Plaza hotel, where she helped design unique services for the hotel’s VIP clients, including a child etiquette seminar.

“She forced The Plaza to be human,” said Rosemary Carroll, her colleague at The Plaza hotel who co-authored a book entitled, The Golden Rules of Etiquette at The Plaza with Bloch, which was designed for kids but is easily applicable for adults.
Carroll recalled that 45 Russian orphans were at the hotel in advance of their potential adoption and Bloch convinced the hotel to throw them a party with gifts, and provided a gratis etiquette class.

“We [also] did a lot of classes for public schools. Kids would arrive wearing their jeans very low and with a cocky attitude. By the time Lyudmila was done with them, they were sitting up straight and ‘yes sir-ing’ and ‘no sir-ing,’” Carroll said. “She would tell them ‘You are exceptional. When you sit at the Queen’s table and at the White House you will know how to behave.’” They also left with their pants around their waist – and not an inch lower.

After The Plaza closed for remodeling, Bloch did not stop working with disadvantaged children. In 2005, Bloch and Carroll introduced an etiquette program to public schools in the Bronx.

Reinhardt fondly remembers working with Bloch. “She was out of our league in terms of price. It was an altruistic thing…she didn’t care about the money, she wanted to let the children to have the experience,” Sheila Reinhardt, former PTA President at The Millennium Academy/Bronx, said.

Bloch and Reinhardt see the effects of an etiquette intervention as a ripple across civilization. “When Lyudmila teaches one child about etiquette, she teaches 100…You don’t know how many generations that will go through,” Reinhardt noted.
If it were up to Bloch, etiquette would be compulsory in schools. “Education goes hand in hand with etiquette,” Bloch is fond of saying.

While most of her business comes from referrals and she does not advertise her services, her calendar is full of appointments across the eastern seaboard- this is a business where there are always new lessons to impart with a potential market as big as the country.

While there are always new opportunities, there is also the need for further education. “Etiquette evolves as our lives and our technology does,” Bloch said. The most common forms of bad etiquette today, Bloch notes, are the inappropriate use of cell phone and email.

“You are sitting in a public place and people are intruding into your space on their cell phone. This is not your apartment,” Bloch said. With perfect ironic timing, a young woman with a large backpack on her cell phone squeezed between Bloch and an adjacent table, inadvertently scattering Bloch’s papers.

Bloch drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. What would normally be cause for swearing under one’s breath was for the etiquette coach a teachable moment. “Technology is our blessing and our curse,” Bloch said calmly, “[but] we have to remember human relationships have to come first.”

posted by UpperWestSideGuy @ 10:13 PM