The Pose & Cons of Wellness

Bending over backwards to find a good yoga teacher

Jul 11, 2025

The first few years in a new country are the, “Finding Important Things and Doing Annoying Stuff” era. You have to open a bank account, rent an apartment, get a phone plan, connect to the internet, turn on electricity, locate the best baguette, find a doctor, locate the best pastries, track down a good dentist, discover a wine store, and seek out your community.

Errands to set up and furnish a household here are just as annoying as they are in the US. Lining up my personal medical staff was even more trying. It took a while, but I’m relieved to have found my general practitioner, dentist, elbow specialist, ENT, lab technicians, neurologist, and gastroenterologist, not to mention a pharmacy.

Lately I’ve moved on to unearthing a wellness team – French replacements for my US massage therapist, esthetician, reflexologist, acupuncturist, physical therapist, yoga teachers, and ayurvedic practitioner. These were the skilled professionals who helped keep my body moving with enough ease to teach as many as 22 yoga classes a week. They also got me hooked on self care.

I assembled that team by relying on recommendations and connections within the Philadelphia yoga and wellness community. This time I’m just throwing darts at a Google map. It’s not easy. This haphazard method has, by sheer luck, turned up some true gems, but also a couple duds.

Most of the research has been pleasant enough. I mean, who doesn’t love a massage, even when it’s mediocre? It’s also been an education. I’ve learned a bit about myself (the only yoga teacher I fully trust is me!). I’ve also discovered subtle differences between French and American approaches to wellbeing.

The fitness and wellness scene in France has evolved dramatically in the last couple decades. Aside from women bicycling to work in skirts and heels, intentional movement wasn’t a big thing years ago. When we first began regularly vacationing here, I traveled way across Paris to find a yoga studio. Not to mention, referring to the emptied front room of this teacher’s dirty little apartment as a “yoga studio” was (sorry, but this cannot be avoided) a real stretch. I once even tried for days to gain access to a “wellness center” in Paris’ 15th arrondissement, only to realize it was a “happy ending” massage parlor. That explains why they kept pulling the curtains shut every time I knocked.

There was a significant upside to the time it took for wellness to catch on in France: I never had to wait long for a treadmill. I assumed this was because, after just a few minutes, all the Parisians would hop off to catch a smoke. The downside was that taking so long to normalize running outdoors in athletic clothes resulted in some of the dirtiest looks I’ve ever received.

By contrast, when I opened my first studio in 2008, you could barely walk down a Philadelphia street without bumping into a guy with a man bun and Sanskrit tattoo rushing to Power Vinyasa class.

Today, about one in 10 people practice yoga in the US.

Yoga studios – and even athletic wear! – are every bit as prevalent in France. In the last 10 years, the number of yogis in France has tripled, to about 10 million, according to a survey by the National Union of Yoga Professionals (SNPY). That’s about 15 percent of the population of mainland France.

You’d think the dramatic uptick in wellness offerings would make finding a yoga studio easy for me. Well, you’d be wrong because I am a yoga snob. The very first class I attended started off well enough, with breathing and nice neck stretches, then – boom – we’re on our backs for bridge pose.

It’s just not done.

Since my French visa prohibits me from working, I’m not entrenched in the local wellness community. I have no one to steer me clear of yoga teachers forcing bridge pose on me before I’m warmed up. Consequently, I based my choice of studio the way I often choose wine: which one looks the coolest? The clear winner was La Nouvelle Lune, a studio in a barge anchored in the Ille-et-Rance Canal. It’s an intimate, comfortable space just a 10-minute walk from my apartment. The people are nice and you can watch little ducks paddling by at sunrise.

I threw a dart at the schedule and landed in an early-morning class taught by Caroline, a lovely, skilled teacher who knows how to prepare a body for postures. She was a new transplant from Paris and, for my first class, I was the only student. Her classes quickly grew and I kept going. I like that she prefers a slow pace that provides challenge from long-held poses. She creates class themes, plays Tibetan bowls during the final relaxation, and even gives us little cups of herbal tea after class.

Things didn’t go as smoothly with my first facial. Admittedly, this was a particularly high bar because I had the absolute best esthetician when I lived in Philly. Now I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum. After my first Rennes treatment, I spent the next two days plastering concealer over all the red circles on my face.

I had much better luck with a reflexologist, acupuncturist and massage therapist. They have all been skilled and kind.

I was especially excited when my Physical Therapist (called a kinéthérapeute or kiné, for short) told me during the first visit that he spoke English. This saved me from looking up all the anatomical terms for what was wrong with my elbow. At the beginning of my third visit, however, he firmly announced, “We speak French now.” That was the end of that. We spoke only French as he helped me avoid the elbow replacement the surgeon seemed really sweet on.

I should have done a bit more research before I signed up for a combo drainage lymphatique et madérothérapie. It didn’t quite sink in until I was on the table that the treatment includes being throttled with wooden weapons, or “tools,” as they like to call them. I felt lighter afterward and, according to the therapist’s measurements, one whole centimeter smaller. I was impressed because I’m never really sure how big a centimeter is.

I was a bit less impressed the next day by the number of tender bruises on my legs and butt.

It seems many of the body treatments offered here, like the wood whipping treatment, are intended to maintain une silhouette, rather than relieve muscle tension. I am much more used to telling a massage therapist where it hurts rather than having her take my before and after measurements.

Just as I’ve gotten my self-care groove, summer vacations are upon us. Vacations are not taken lightly in France. Many practitioners close their schedules and take off for as long as 6 weeks. This is, after all, a country where employees have the “right to disconnect” by not responding to business emails after working hours.

My yoga teacher sent a group text the other day announcing that she will be disconnecting for the rest of the summer. Class is on hold. I immediately thought about my 13 years as a studio owner, when I taught every holiday except Christmas Day, and spent each vacation worrying about how the studio was running without me.

At first I was irked that the sacred French custom of taking long vacations was interfering with my yoga class. I was used to the American way of running a wellness business: you maintain a pace that causes intense stress for owners and teachers, even while preaching the value of stress reduction.

Thing is, the French didn’t need to dive into massage and yoga to learn the secrets to wellness. They’ve known it all along: work to live, don’t live to work. Or, as Charles de Gaulle put it: