Forty-one sessions a week, eight mats in the room, and the whole timetable printed before you are asked for a card. Twelve euro for the first one, whichever one you pick.
Margaux Thiry took the first floor of a print works on Rue de Bomel in 2017 because it had a sprung floor already down and a landlord who did not mind the noise at seven in the morning. The room holds eight mats. It has held eight mats every week since, through two winters when it held four, and nobody has ever been squeezed in as a ninth.
Every session you will see is set against one fixed day, 06:30 to 21:00. A twenty-five minute row is a quarter of the length of a hundred-minute row because that is what it is. Nothing on this site is drawn longer than it runs.
07:14 · the middle thirty · nobody is counting out loud
07:36 · six minutes down · the blinds go upFifty-five is the only length where all five of these fit. The forty drops the floor work at the start; the twenty-five is the middle and nothing else; the hundred does all five twice over with a sit-down between them.
Five minutes standing in a loose ring. If a knee is new, say so now and not at minute forty. Eight people, so it takes as long as it takes.
Breathing, ribs, feet. It looks like the easy part and it is the part people skip at home, which is why half of them are here.
Three blocks of ten, each one harder than the last, each one with a way out that is not a failure. This is the only stretch of the session where the teacher stops talking.
Lying flat with the blinds up. Not a relaxation, a reset — you are leaving for work in a quarter of an hour and we would rather you left level.
One thing to do before the next session, said out loud, never written on a card. If you cannot remember it by Saturday it was the wrong thing to ask for.
Thursday 08:00 · First Six Weeks · week four of sixEleven sessions a week carry it. You are told what to do and then why, in that order, and somebody checks you have done it rather than assuming. Nobody stays here longer than two months unless they want to.
The bulk of the sheet and the reason the room is full at half five. You know the shapes; the work is in holding them for longer than is comfortable while somebody tells you your left side is cheating.
Saturday 08:00 · Long Hour · the last eight minutes
Wednesday 07:15 · Spine · minute twenty-twoNothing is explained twice and the breaks are shorter. You get in at 17:30, you are working by 17:34. Ten sessions, and three of them are the only ones in the week that regularly sell out a fortnight ahead.
Tuesday 18:30. That is the whole list. Margaux asks you; you cannot book your way in, and twice a year somebody is asked to go back to Level 3 for a term, which is not a punishment and is always explained in person.
Tuesday 18:30 · Load · the only Level 4 in the week
The blocks are as tall as the sessions are long. The rest of the week is on the timetable, and so is every seat still open on it.
No form before you come, no consultation to book first, no card held on file. Turn up ten minutes early, tell whoever is on the door it is your first, and bring socks.
Sunday 11:55 · Spine · the last six minutes