This studio is community led. That phrase gets used loosely, so let me tell you what I mean by it, because for me it is a way of deciding things rather than a sentiment.
What I am trying to build
Strong bodies and steady minds, for the people who live here.
Not flexible bodies. Strong ones. Strength is the thing that carries your shopping up the hill, gets you back on the board at fifty, keeps you working, and keeps you independent at seventy. Flexibility is useful and it is not the point, which is why so much of what happens in this room is standing up and holding something difficult rather than reaching for your toes.
And steady, not calm. Calm is a mood and it comes and goes. Steady is the ability to hold your attention on one thing while it gets uncomfortable, and it is trainable, and it turns out to be the same skill whether the uncomfortable thing is the fourth minute of a standing pose or a difficult week.
What community led commits me to
That the room is mixed, on purpose. Someone in their seventies next to someone in their twenties, a first class next to a fifteenth year, people who live here next to people here for a fortnight. A studio that quietly sorts itself into one type of person has stopped being a community centre and become a club, and the drift happens without anyone deciding it.
That every person in the room gets taught. Not just the ones who are already good at it, and not just the ones who ask. The most capable person in a class is the easiest to teach and the least in need of it.
That the timetable serves the week people actually have. Early mornings before work, classes for children in the afternoon, and something on most days rather than a handful of showcase sessions.
That the price does not decide who belongs here. Adult classes are $200 MXN, children’s are $120 MXN, and you can come to one without buying a course.
Why the room is mixed on purpose
Because it works better. A room where the strongest person is not the newest teaches everybody something, and the person on their first day learns more from the person beside them than from anything said at the front.
It is also the honest position for a studio in a town like this. Sayulita is not one community, it is several sharing a few streets, and a room that only served one of them would be a smaller and worse room.
Since 2017
That is the actual test of any of this. Not what gets written on a page, but whether the same people are still walking in years later, and whether the ones who arrived nervous are the ones now holding the door.
That is what I am here for. Everything else on this site is detail.