Reading a timetable you did not write

The class name is the least useful thing on the row.

I wrote my timetable already knowing what everything on it is, which is no help to you at all. So here is how to read it.

Start with the time, not the class

The best class on the timetable is the one you will actually attend. Everything else is secondary and people get this backwards constantly, choosing a style they like at a time they will not reliably make.

Find the times that fit your week first. Then look at what is in them.

The rough map

Broadly, the timetable divides into four things.

Alignment work, held long, technical, props involved. Slower, harder than it looks, best for learning and for anything that hurts.

Flowing practice, continuous, warmer, more cardiovascular. Best when you are rested and want to move.

Restorative and slow work, low effort, high support. Best when you are depleted, ill or travelled.

Then the things that are not yoga at all: Pilates and barre, which are strength and control work, dance, and Qigong, which is its own tradition.

The names will not tell you enough

They are shorthand for traditions with long histories, and two classes with the same name in different towns can be very different hours.

If you cannot tell from the name, that is not a failure of comprehension. Ask me. I can tell you what a class actually is, which no timetable can.

The one filter that helps most

How did you sleep, and what did you do yesterday. Answer those two honestly and half the timetable rules itself out.

Do not build the perfect week

Pick two. Go to them for a month. Then change one.

Everybody who plans five classes across four disciplines in week one is practising twice a month by March.

All posts

Book First Visit Directions WhatsApp