The hardest part of a first class is the doorway. Not the postures, not the heat, not whether you can touch your toes. The doorway, and the ten minutes before it, when it feels as though everyone inside already knows each other and you are about to interrupt something.
They do know each other, some of them. That is what happens in a town this size after eight years. It is also completely irrelevant to whether you should walk in, because roughly a third of any given class is somebody who arrived in Sayulita this month.
Getting to me
I am about eight minutes on foot from the plaza. I am not on the main strip, which was deliberate: in here you can hear the room rather than the street. If you are driving in from Puerto Vallarta or staying further out, there is parking, so you are not circling the centre looking for a space.
My room is air conditioned. In August that is not a luxury, and I will explain why that matters for what your body can safely do another time.
Booking
There is no app and no account to create. You send me a message on WhatsApp, I read it, and I tell you whether there is space. Usually I am also the one who will be teaching you.
This surprises people who are used to booking platforms, and occasionally worries them, so let me be plain: your place is not held until I have replied. If you have not heard back from me, you are not booked yet.
Classes start at $200 MXN.
What actually happens in the room
You arrive, you find a spot, you sit down. I will say hello and ask whether you have practised before. Please answer honestly. It changes what I do with you, and “never” is a perfectly good answer that I hear several times a week.
I would rather know at the door than work it out from across the room in the third posture, which is what happens when somebody tells me they are fine.
Then the class runs, and at some point you stop thinking about the doorway.
The thing I would most like you to know
Nobody is watching you. I have taught in this room since 2017 and I have never once seen somebody go home thinking about a stranger’s balance. Everybody in there is entirely occupied with their own hips.
If you are not sure what to bring, ask me when you message. It is a one-line question and it saves you carrying something you did not need.