🇬🇧 The Flâneuse and Pilates: Inhabiting the City and the Body | 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

Description

The provided text explores the historical and symbolic connection between female urban exploration and mindful physical movement, specifically through the lens of the "flâneuse." Centered on the Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris, the narrative highlights how women have had to reclaim the right to walk alone and observe the city as active subjects rather than passive objects. Drawing on the work of Lauren Elkin, the source examines the social challenges and freedoms associated with women navigating public spaces independently. This external journey is ultimately mirrored by the practice of Pilates, which is described as a form of "interior wandering" or internal flânerie. Both activities serve as vital methods for women to repossess their own bodies and inhabit the world with conscious intention. In this context, movement becomes a quiet but powerful act of self-affirmation and personal liberation.

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Imagine right now that you are sitting at a small round table outside a Parisian cafe.
Speaker #1
Oh, yeah. That sounds amazing.
Speaker #0
Right. You've got a cup of coffee or, you know, maybe a matcha just resting on the marble tabletop. You are perfectly alone.
Speaker #1
Best feeling in the world.
Speaker #0
It really is. You have nowhere to be, no errands to run, no one waiting for you. You're just sitting there taking up space and watching the city move around you.
Speaker #1
I mean. It feels relaxing, right? Maybe even a little luxurious.
Speaker #0
Exactly. But just sitting there is actually the result of a massive, quiet, historical rebellion.
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is something we are really getting into today.
Speaker #0
We are. Today's deep dive is looking at a stack of sources that draw this completely unexpected line between 19th century urban history, the simple act of taking a walk, and, of all things, rolling out your exercise mat.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it sounds like a wild leap, but it all connects beautifully.
Speaker #0
It does. We were pulling from a really fascinating essay and some instructional materials from Studio Biopolites Paris. And those materials heavily reference Lauren Elkin's cultural history book, Flores.
Speaker #1
Right. And there's also that guidebook by Caroline Berger de Femini called My Pilates Holiday Book.
Speaker #0
Yes, exactly. So our mission today is to explore how the simple act of taking up space, whether that's, you know, occupying a public square or consciously moving your own body. is actually a profound act of claiming freedom.
Speaker #1
And to really grasp the weight of that freedom, we kind of have to rewind a bit. We need to look at the history of simply walking through a city.
Speaker #0
Okay, set the scene for us.
Speaker #1
So if you study modern urban history, particularly Paris in the 19th century, you inevitably collide with this very famous archetype, the flaneur.
Speaker #0
Oh, right. Like the ultimate urban wanderer. The guy who just strolls around the metropolis absorbing the vibe.
Speaker #1
That's the one, yeah. The fliner was the celebrated, very masculine figure of modern city life. I mean, he had the absolute unquestioned right to just walk without a destination.
Speaker #0
Which sounds so simple, but it was a huge deal.
Speaker #1
It was. He could wander aimlessly, stop to contemplate the architecture, or just completely disappear into the anonymity of the crowd. He was basically a sponge for the modern metropolis.
Speaker #0
The street completely belonged to him.
Speaker #1
Right. But for a woman during this exact same period, walking alone was never just a neutral act. It was an act heavily burdened by social norms, surveillance, and honestly, deep suspicion.
Speaker #0
Okay, let's unpack this. Yeah. Because the idea that simply walking down the street was a suspicious activity feels so foreign to how we navigate cities today.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's hard to imagine now.
Speaker #0
Why was a woman walking alone such an affront to society back then?
Speaker #1
Well, it comes down to the concept of gratuitousness, like the pure pleasure of wandering. The right to produce absolutely nothing and just exist in the public sphere. That was exclusively a male privilege.
Speaker #0
Wow. So a woman's presence in the street historically had to be justified.
Speaker #1
Exactly. She couldn't just, you know, be there. She needed an alibi.
Speaker #0
An alibi. Like she was committing a crime just by stepping onto the pavement.
Speaker #1
Socially speaking, she kind of was without a clear, productive purpose like running a specific errand or waiting for a chaperone or heading to a known destination. She was immediately subjected to the social gaze.
Speaker #0
She was being watched.
Speaker #1
Watched, judged, categorized. She was deemed a threat to moral order. The street was essentially this theater of morality, and women were tightly constrained by its rules.
Speaker #0
So if we look at this through a modern lens, the historical male fluner basically had unrestricted main character energy.
Speaker #1
Oh, completely.
Speaker #0
He could just roam the city, observe the world, and treat the metropolis as his own personal playground. Meanwhile, women were essentially forced to act as background extras.
Speaker #1
Yeah, background extras who had to frantically signal that they had a specific destination just to avoid being targeted or criticized.
Speaker #0
Which is so exhausting to even think about.
Speaker #1
And this leads right into Lauren Elkins' central insight in her book, Flaneuse. She asks this really poignant question. Why is urban history so obsessed with the male flunner but entirely silent on the women who walked alone?
Speaker #0
Because obviously women have always traversed major cities. Paris, London, New York, Tokyo.
Speaker #1
Right. But their experiences were invisibilized. They were just written out of the narrative of the modern wandering intellectual.
Speaker #0
I'm trying to wrap my head around this invisibilized experience. Is the flaners this female wanderer? Is she just a female version of the flaner?
Speaker #1
Not at all. Or are we looking at an entirely different psychological mechanism?
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.
Speaker #1
It's a fundamentally different psychological experience. And that difference is really rooted in tension. I mean, the male wanderer didn't have to carry the psychological weight of the public gaze.
Speaker #0
His wandering was completely frictionless.
Speaker #1
Exactly. The Flaneuse, on the other hand, represents a specific experience of urban space that is permanently marked by two conflicting forces.
Speaker #0
What are they?
Speaker #1
Well, it's the deep desire for freedom on one side and the constant hyper-awareness of being watched on the other. She never really got to put that invisible backpack down.
Speaker #0
That is just an exhausting way to exist. But, you know, our materials don't just leave us in this broad, abstract historical concept.
Speaker #1
No, they get very specific.
Speaker #0
Right. They anchor this female liberation to a very specific physical geography in Paris. They take us to Place Saint-Sulpice on the left bank.
Speaker #1
Place Saint-Sulpice is so fascinating because it functioned as this discreet theater of female liberty.
Speaker #0
Paint a picture of it for us.
Speaker #1
Well, physically, it's this elegant... orderly square. It's dominated by a massive church, animated by a fountain, and surrounded by cafes and bookstores. It's kind of a crossroads leading toward the Luxembourg Gardens and the Latin Quarter.
Speaker #0
Sounds beautiful.
Speaker #1
It is. But historically, it became a crucial neighborhood where women, intellectuals, artists, and writers began to exist differently in public. They started to really claim the space.
Speaker #0
And the visual evidence provided in the studio BioPilates materials really brings this to life. There's this one illustration that completely sets the mood.
Speaker #1
Ah, I love that illustration.
Speaker #0
Right. It shows a woman sitting perfectly alone at a cafe table right by the San Jose Fountain. She's wearing a dark trench coat over a green turtleneck.
Speaker #1
Yeah, very chic.
Speaker #0
Totally. And she's got a cup of green tea or matcha and a closed notebook on the table. She isn't talking to anyone. She isn't rushing. She's just looking out at the square.
Speaker #1
That image per- perfectly encapsulates what the essay describes as the inversion of the gaze.
Speaker #0
The inversion of the gaze. That sounds important.
Speaker #1
It's huge. It's a massive shift in cognitive agency. I mean, think about the mechanics of being looked at versus doing the looking. For centuries, the female body in the public space was an object. It was exposed, observed, commented upon, and controlled by societal surveillance. To be looked at is to be defined by the observer.
Speaker #0
So you are basically the object of someone else's reality.
Speaker #1
Precisely. But the flanuz, the woman at the cafe, the woman walking the square, inverses this entirely. She sits. She reads. She chooses her own rhythm.
Speaker #0
She's calling the shots.
Speaker #1
Yeah. She observes the facades of the buildings and the people passing by. By doing this, she ceases to be an object and becomes a mobile consciousness.
Speaker #0
A mobile consciousness. I love that phrasing.
Speaker #1
Right. She is the one doing the looking. She is defining the world around her rather than letting the world define her.
Speaker #0
Think about what that means for a second. It means that something you might do on a random Tuesday, you know, taking a laptop to a coffee shop, sitting alone and people watching, was actually a hard-won radical reclamation of public real estate.
Speaker #1
Absolutely.
Speaker #0
These women didn't necessarily shout or protest in this square to make their point. They rebelled simply by walking, by sitting, by looking, and by making their presence an affirmation.
Speaker #1
They proved that the city wasn't just a place to travel through, it was a place to inhabit.
Speaker #0
And inhabiting implies a real sense of ownership and comfort. Walking alone became a way of thinking, feeling, and existing on one's own terms.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's the ideal anywhere.
Speaker #0
Well, okay, I'm with you on the romantic image of the cafe.
Speaker #1
I hope.
Speaker #0
And claiming cognitive agency. But I have to push back here for a second.
Speaker #1
Go for it.
Speaker #0
Because this feels like we're painting a picture of a total victory that hasn't actually happened. If I'm being perfectly honest. Yeah. I don't feel like a victorious mobile consciousness when I'm walking home at dusk.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
I still plot my route based on which streets have the best lighting or where there are more people around.
Speaker #1
You've hit on the exact sobering reality check that the essay highlights. It calls this history a fragile conquest.
Speaker #0
Fragile is definitely the word for it.
Speaker #1
Because the truth is, even today, walking freely in the world remains a luxury. The freedom to walk alone is not equally distributed.
Speaker #0
Not at all.
Speaker #1
It is entirely dependent on your social, cultural, political, and economic context. Depending on the city, the country, the neighborhood, or, like you said, even just the time of day, a woman still cannot walk freely without a strategy.
Speaker #0
No, I mean, think about your own daily commute, or the micro-calculations you make if you decide to go for an evening walk. It takes a massive toll on the nervous system.
Speaker #1
It really does. The sources detail the modern realities of this mental load.
Speaker #0
It's the constant need to adapt your route, modifying what clothing you wear depending on where you're going, altering your pace.
Speaker #1
Or holding your phone strategically in your hand.
Speaker #0
Yeah, or threading your keys between your knuckles just in case.
Speaker #1
The operative words in the text are calculating, anticipating, avoiding. For many, the street is still a space of exposure rather than a space of true liberty.
Speaker #0
It's tactical urban planning just to go for a stroll.
Speaker #1
Yeah. It really is.
Speaker #0
It highlights the profound unfairness that half the population has to carry this mental map of safety at all times. And it frames, plays Sans Salpis, as a double symbol.
Speaker #1
Oh, so?
Speaker #0
Well, on one hand, it's a beautiful monument to what has been conquered, the right to sit at the cafe to observe the world. But on the other hand, it is a stark reminder of the freedom that is still missing and still heavily conditional.
Speaker #1
Which leaves us with a pretty profound problem. If the physical public space of the city is still restrictive, still exhausting to navigate because of that persistent hypervigilance, where do you go to experience total uncompromised freedom?
Speaker #0
Where is the territory you can fully claim?
Speaker #1
Right. If you can't control the sidewalk, what can you control?
Speaker #0
That is the million-dollar question.
Speaker #1
You reconquer your own physical form. You go inward.
Speaker #0
Okay, wow.
Speaker #1
This is where the materials from Studio Bio Pilates Paris make an incredibly bold connection. They argue that conscious movement, specifically Pilates, is the modern continuation of the Flanos' rebellion.
Speaker #0
Wait, hold on. Let me just pause you there. You're trying to tell me that walking through a Parisian square in a trench coat... and doing leg circles on a mat in your living room are the same thing.
Speaker #1
I know, I know.
Speaker #0
Because that feels like a massive stretch. Yeah. No pun intended.
Speaker #1
It sounds completely disjointed until you look at the psychological mechanics of both activities.
Speaker #0
Okay, walk me through it.
Speaker #1
The essay describes the practice of Pilates as an interior flannery, an interior wandering. Think about how your sensory feedback works in the city.
Speaker #0
It's mostly threat-based, right?
Speaker #1
Exactly. Is someone walking too closely behind me? Is this alley too dark? Your environment completely dictates your physical responses.
Speaker #0
Right. My body is reacting to external stimuli that I can't control.
Speaker #1
Exactly. Now think about the mechanics of Pilates. The sensory feedback is entirely internal and mastered.
Speaker #0
Mastered how?
Speaker #1
Like you're asking yourself, how does the spring tension feel? Is my spine aligned? How deep is my breath? You are substituting a hostile, unpredictable external environment for a mastered internal one.
Speaker #0
Oh, that makes so much sense.
Speaker #1
Just as the Flinos inhabits the city by walking at her own chosen pace, the woman practicing Pilates inhabits her body through conscious movement. The text uses this brilliant phrase, slowness as resistance.
Speaker #0
Slowness as resistance. Let's dig into how that actually works.
Speaker #1
Exactly.
Speaker #0
Because in a world that demands we move quickly, productively and frankly defensively through physical space slowing down to focus entirely on breath alignment and internal sensation is an act of defiance it really is you are producing anything for anyone else you are just existing in your own physical space both the walk in the square and the movement on the mat are acts of full appropriation of one's own presence caroline
Speaker #1
burgess the feminist guidebook touches on this when it shows a woman practicing on a reformer being gently guided that image stood out to me too It radiates the sense of safety and intentionality. The resistance of the Reformer Springs actually mirrors the pushback of the city. But here, the practitioner is in total control of the tension.
Speaker #0
And the visual parallels they use to explain this are just stunning. There's an illustration in the materials that shows two women from behind.
Speaker #1
Oh, yes, the split image.
Speaker #0
Yes. On the left, you have the woman in the dark blue trench coat looking out a window at the cobblestone square of Saint-Sulpice.
Speaker #1
Classic Flemishness.
Speaker #0
Right. And then on the right, you have a woman in modern workout gear holding a large Pilates ball above her head. And the genius of the illustration is that the very same 19th century cityscape, the church, the buildings, the fountain, is reflected inside the Pilates ball she's holding.
Speaker #1
It visually literalizes the metaphor perfectly. The world she cannot fully control outside is perfectly contained and mastered within the sphere of her own practice.
Speaker #0
Practicing Pilates in this context isn't just about physical fitness or core strength.
Speaker #1
Not at all.
Speaker #0
It's like doing urban planning for your own anatomy.
Speaker #1
Wow, yeah.
Speaker #0
If the outside world is constantly dictating your pace, telling you which streets are safe, and forcing you to calculate your path, then conscious movement is the one neighborhood where you are the absolute architect.
Speaker #1
You set your own speed. You choose your range of motion.
Speaker #0
Exactly. You occupy your physical space fully deeply and without a single apology to anyone watching.
Speaker #1
Because there is no one watching. You have become both the city and the Flanos. You are exploring the landscape of your own muscles, your fascia, your breath, without the burden of the external gaze.
Speaker #0
That is so powerful.
Speaker #1
The woman on the mat ceases to be a body displaced by social obligations, just as the woman at the cafe ceased to be an object of observation. She becomes a body that decides.
Speaker #0
A body that decides. Wow. Let's take a breath and recap the incredible journey we've just been on.
Speaker #1
It's been a ride.
Speaker #0
We started in the male-dominated streets of 19th century Paris, where a woman walking alone needed an alibi just to avoid suspicion.
Speaker #1
Right, from needing an alibi to claiming the square.
Speaker #0
Yes. We move to the quiet, radical rebellion of the flanus, sipping matcha, and people watching a placent sulpis, completely reclaiming her cognitive agency.
Speaker #1
And then bringing it into the present.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Finally, we unpack the modern realization that when the outside world is chaotic, exhausting, and still laden with restrictions, conscious movement like Pilates becomes the ultimate way to inhabit your own presence.
Speaker #1
If we synthesize the core value of this whole deep dive, it comes down to the vital practice of existing intentionally. Taking up space is not a passive event.
Speaker #0
No, it takes work.
Speaker #1
Whether you are walking a city block, sitting at a cafe, or controlling the tension on a reformer, claiming your space is an active, ongoing practice, it is about moving from being the object of someone else's world to the subject of your own.
Speaker #0
And that brings me to a final thought I want to leave you with. something to just mull over as you go about your day.
Speaker #1
Oh, I love these.
Speaker #0
We've talked about conquering the physical city and we've talked about conquering the physical body. But what does it mean to be a flanus in our digital spaces?
Speaker #1
Oh, that is a great question.
Speaker #0
Think about it. When you are wandering the Internet, scrolling through feeds, navigating social media, are you wandering aimlessly on your own terms or are you constantly being watched, tracked and quietly told where to go by algorithms?
Speaker #1
It's a whole new type of surveillance.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Just as the women that played Sensual Peace had to reclaim the physical square from the societal gaze, how might you reclaim your digital territory with that exact same intentionality? How can you become the mobile consciousness of your own screen?
Speaker #1
Something to really think about.
Speaker #0
Definitely. So next time you find yourself sitting in a cafe taking up space, remember the quiet radical history that gave you the absolute right to just sit there and decide where you want to go next.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

Studio Biopilates Paris is France's only STOTT PILATES course hosting center, offering sixteen years of expertise in this world-renowned Pilates method. STOTT PILATES is described as a modern approach based on biomechanics and rehabilitation while respecting Joseph Pilates's original principles. Caroline Berger de Fémynie, founder of the studio Biopilates Paris, has been the only instructor authorized in France since 2008 to train other STOTT PILATES instructors. The success of this method is based on its scientific approach, versatility, international recognition, and respect for the Pilates heritage.

Le Studio Biopilates Paris est le seul centre de formation STOTT PILATES en France, offrant une expertise de seize ans dans cette méthode de Pilates mondialement reconnue. STOTT PILATES est décrite comme une approche moderne, basée sur la biomécanique et la rééducation, tout en respectant les principes originaux de Joseph Pilates. Caroline Berger de Fémynie, fondatrice de Fémynie, est l'unique instructrice habilitée en France depuis 2008 à former d'autres instructeurs STOTT PILATES. Le succès de cette méthode repose sur son approche scientifique, sa polyvalence, sa reconnaissance internationale et son respect de l'héritage du Pilates.

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Speaker #0
Imagine right now that you are sitting at a small round table outside a Parisian cafe.
Speaker #1
Oh, yeah. That sounds amazing.
Speaker #0
Right. You've got a cup of coffee or, you know, maybe a matcha just resting on the marble tabletop. You are perfectly alone.
Speaker #1
Best feeling in the world.
Speaker #0
It really is. You have nowhere to be, no errands to run, no one waiting for you. You're just sitting there taking up space and watching the city move around you.
Speaker #1
I mean. It feels relaxing, right? Maybe even a little luxurious.
Speaker #0
Exactly. But just sitting there is actually the result of a massive, quiet, historical rebellion.
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is something we are really getting into today.
Speaker #0
We are. Today's deep dive is looking at a stack of sources that draw this completely unexpected line between 19th century urban history, the simple act of taking a walk, and, of all things, rolling out your exercise mat.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it sounds like a wild leap, but it all connects beautifully.
Speaker #0
It does. We were pulling from a really fascinating essay and some instructional materials from Studio Biopolites Paris. And those materials heavily reference Lauren Elkin's cultural history book, Flores.
Speaker #1
Right. And there's also that guidebook by Caroline Berger de Femini called My Pilates Holiday Book.
Speaker #0
Yes, exactly. So our mission today is to explore how the simple act of taking up space, whether that's, you know, occupying a public square or consciously moving your own body. is actually a profound act of claiming freedom.
Speaker #1
And to really grasp the weight of that freedom, we kind of have to rewind a bit. We need to look at the history of simply walking through a city.
Speaker #0
Okay, set the scene for us.
Speaker #1
So if you study modern urban history, particularly Paris in the 19th century, you inevitably collide with this very famous archetype, the flaneur.
Speaker #0
Oh, right. Like the ultimate urban wanderer. The guy who just strolls around the metropolis absorbing the vibe.
Speaker #1
That's the one, yeah. The fliner was the celebrated, very masculine figure of modern city life. I mean, he had the absolute unquestioned right to just walk without a destination.
Speaker #0
Which sounds so simple, but it was a huge deal.
Speaker #1
It was. He could wander aimlessly, stop to contemplate the architecture, or just completely disappear into the anonymity of the crowd. He was basically a sponge for the modern metropolis.
Speaker #0
The street completely belonged to him.
Speaker #1
Right. But for a woman during this exact same period, walking alone was never just a neutral act. It was an act heavily burdened by social norms, surveillance, and honestly, deep suspicion.
Speaker #0
Okay, let's unpack this. Yeah. Because the idea that simply walking down the street was a suspicious activity feels so foreign to how we navigate cities today.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's hard to imagine now.
Speaker #0
Why was a woman walking alone such an affront to society back then?
Speaker #1
Well, it comes down to the concept of gratuitousness, like the pure pleasure of wandering. The right to produce absolutely nothing and just exist in the public sphere. That was exclusively a male privilege.
Speaker #0
Wow. So a woman's presence in the street historically had to be justified.
Speaker #1
Exactly. She couldn't just, you know, be there. She needed an alibi.
Speaker #0
An alibi. Like she was committing a crime just by stepping onto the pavement.
Speaker #1
Socially speaking, she kind of was without a clear, productive purpose like running a specific errand or waiting for a chaperone or heading to a known destination. She was immediately subjected to the social gaze.
Speaker #0
She was being watched.
Speaker #1
Watched, judged, categorized. She was deemed a threat to moral order. The street was essentially this theater of morality, and women were tightly constrained by its rules.
Speaker #0
So if we look at this through a modern lens, the historical male fluner basically had unrestricted main character energy.
Speaker #1
Oh, completely.
Speaker #0
He could just roam the city, observe the world, and treat the metropolis as his own personal playground. Meanwhile, women were essentially forced to act as background extras.
Speaker #1
Yeah, background extras who had to frantically signal that they had a specific destination just to avoid being targeted or criticized.
Speaker #0
Which is so exhausting to even think about.
Speaker #1
And this leads right into Lauren Elkins' central insight in her book, Flaneuse. She asks this really poignant question. Why is urban history so obsessed with the male flunner but entirely silent on the women who walked alone?
Speaker #0
Because obviously women have always traversed major cities. Paris, London, New York, Tokyo.
Speaker #1
Right. But their experiences were invisibilized. They were just written out of the narrative of the modern wandering intellectual.
Speaker #0
I'm trying to wrap my head around this invisibilized experience. Is the flaners this female wanderer? Is she just a female version of the flaner?
Speaker #1
Not at all. Or are we looking at an entirely different psychological mechanism?
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.
Speaker #1
It's a fundamentally different psychological experience. And that difference is really rooted in tension. I mean, the male wanderer didn't have to carry the psychological weight of the public gaze.
Speaker #0
His wandering was completely frictionless.
Speaker #1
Exactly. The Flaneuse, on the other hand, represents a specific experience of urban space that is permanently marked by two conflicting forces.
Speaker #0
What are they?
Speaker #1
Well, it's the deep desire for freedom on one side and the constant hyper-awareness of being watched on the other. She never really got to put that invisible backpack down.
Speaker #0
That is just an exhausting way to exist. But, you know, our materials don't just leave us in this broad, abstract historical concept.
Speaker #1
No, they get very specific.
Speaker #0
Right. They anchor this female liberation to a very specific physical geography in Paris. They take us to Place Saint-Sulpice on the left bank.
Speaker #1
Place Saint-Sulpice is so fascinating because it functioned as this discreet theater of female liberty.
Speaker #0
Paint a picture of it for us.
Speaker #1
Well, physically, it's this elegant... orderly square. It's dominated by a massive church, animated by a fountain, and surrounded by cafes and bookstores. It's kind of a crossroads leading toward the Luxembourg Gardens and the Latin Quarter.
Speaker #0
Sounds beautiful.
Speaker #1
It is. But historically, it became a crucial neighborhood where women, intellectuals, artists, and writers began to exist differently in public. They started to really claim the space.
Speaker #0
And the visual evidence provided in the studio BioPilates materials really brings this to life. There's this one illustration that completely sets the mood.
Speaker #1
Ah, I love that illustration.
Speaker #0
Right. It shows a woman sitting perfectly alone at a cafe table right by the San Jose Fountain. She's wearing a dark trench coat over a green turtleneck.
Speaker #1
Yeah, very chic.
Speaker #0
Totally. And she's got a cup of green tea or matcha and a closed notebook on the table. She isn't talking to anyone. She isn't rushing. She's just looking out at the square.
Speaker #1
That image per- perfectly encapsulates what the essay describes as the inversion of the gaze.
Speaker #0
The inversion of the gaze. That sounds important.
Speaker #1
It's huge. It's a massive shift in cognitive agency. I mean, think about the mechanics of being looked at versus doing the looking. For centuries, the female body in the public space was an object. It was exposed, observed, commented upon, and controlled by societal surveillance. To be looked at is to be defined by the observer.
Speaker #0
So you are basically the object of someone else's reality.
Speaker #1
Precisely. But the flanuz, the woman at the cafe, the woman walking the square, inverses this entirely. She sits. She reads. She chooses her own rhythm.
Speaker #0
She's calling the shots.
Speaker #1
Yeah. She observes the facades of the buildings and the people passing by. By doing this, she ceases to be an object and becomes a mobile consciousness.
Speaker #0
A mobile consciousness. I love that phrasing.
Speaker #1
Right. She is the one doing the looking. She is defining the world around her rather than letting the world define her.
Speaker #0
Think about what that means for a second. It means that something you might do on a random Tuesday, you know, taking a laptop to a coffee shop, sitting alone and people watching, was actually a hard-won radical reclamation of public real estate.
Speaker #1
Absolutely.
Speaker #0
These women didn't necessarily shout or protest in this square to make their point. They rebelled simply by walking, by sitting, by looking, and by making their presence an affirmation.
Speaker #1
They proved that the city wasn't just a place to travel through, it was a place to inhabit.
Speaker #0
And inhabiting implies a real sense of ownership and comfort. Walking alone became a way of thinking, feeling, and existing on one's own terms.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's the ideal anywhere.
Speaker #0
Well, okay, I'm with you on the romantic image of the cafe.
Speaker #1
I hope.
Speaker #0
And claiming cognitive agency. But I have to push back here for a second.
Speaker #1
Go for it.
Speaker #0
Because this feels like we're painting a picture of a total victory that hasn't actually happened. If I'm being perfectly honest. Yeah. I don't feel like a victorious mobile consciousness when I'm walking home at dusk.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
I still plot my route based on which streets have the best lighting or where there are more people around.
Speaker #1
You've hit on the exact sobering reality check that the essay highlights. It calls this history a fragile conquest.
Speaker #0
Fragile is definitely the word for it.
Speaker #1
Because the truth is, even today, walking freely in the world remains a luxury. The freedom to walk alone is not equally distributed.
Speaker #0
Not at all.
Speaker #1
It is entirely dependent on your social, cultural, political, and economic context. Depending on the city, the country, the neighborhood, or, like you said, even just the time of day, a woman still cannot walk freely without a strategy.
Speaker #0
No, I mean, think about your own daily commute, or the micro-calculations you make if you decide to go for an evening walk. It takes a massive toll on the nervous system.
Speaker #1
It really does. The sources detail the modern realities of this mental load.
Speaker #0
It's the constant need to adapt your route, modifying what clothing you wear depending on where you're going, altering your pace.
Speaker #1
Or holding your phone strategically in your hand.
Speaker #0
Yeah, or threading your keys between your knuckles just in case.
Speaker #1
The operative words in the text are calculating, anticipating, avoiding. For many, the street is still a space of exposure rather than a space of true liberty.
Speaker #0
It's tactical urban planning just to go for a stroll.
Speaker #1
Yeah. It really is.
Speaker #0
It highlights the profound unfairness that half the population has to carry this mental map of safety at all times. And it frames, plays Sans Salpis, as a double symbol.
Speaker #1
Oh, so?
Speaker #0
Well, on one hand, it's a beautiful monument to what has been conquered, the right to sit at the cafe to observe the world. But on the other hand, it is a stark reminder of the freedom that is still missing and still heavily conditional.
Speaker #1
Which leaves us with a pretty profound problem. If the physical public space of the city is still restrictive, still exhausting to navigate because of that persistent hypervigilance, where do you go to experience total uncompromised freedom?
Speaker #0
Where is the territory you can fully claim?
Speaker #1
Right. If you can't control the sidewalk, what can you control?
Speaker #0
That is the million-dollar question.
Speaker #1
You reconquer your own physical form. You go inward.
Speaker #0
Okay, wow.
Speaker #1
This is where the materials from Studio Bio Pilates Paris make an incredibly bold connection. They argue that conscious movement, specifically Pilates, is the modern continuation of the Flanos' rebellion.
Speaker #0
Wait, hold on. Let me just pause you there. You're trying to tell me that walking through a Parisian square in a trench coat... and doing leg circles on a mat in your living room are the same thing.
Speaker #1
I know, I know.
Speaker #0
Because that feels like a massive stretch. Yeah. No pun intended.
Speaker #1
It sounds completely disjointed until you look at the psychological mechanics of both activities.
Speaker #0
Okay, walk me through it.
Speaker #1
The essay describes the practice of Pilates as an interior flannery, an interior wandering. Think about how your sensory feedback works in the city.
Speaker #0
It's mostly threat-based, right?
Speaker #1
Exactly. Is someone walking too closely behind me? Is this alley too dark? Your environment completely dictates your physical responses.
Speaker #0
Right. My body is reacting to external stimuli that I can't control.
Speaker #1
Exactly. Now think about the mechanics of Pilates. The sensory feedback is entirely internal and mastered.
Speaker #0
Mastered how?
Speaker #1
Like you're asking yourself, how does the spring tension feel? Is my spine aligned? How deep is my breath? You are substituting a hostile, unpredictable external environment for a mastered internal one.
Speaker #0
Oh, that makes so much sense.
Speaker #1
Just as the Flinos inhabits the city by walking at her own chosen pace, the woman practicing Pilates inhabits her body through conscious movement. The text uses this brilliant phrase, slowness as resistance.
Speaker #0
Slowness as resistance. Let's dig into how that actually works.
Speaker #1
Exactly.
Speaker #0
Because in a world that demands we move quickly, productively and frankly defensively through physical space slowing down to focus entirely on breath alignment and internal sensation is an act of defiance it really is you are producing anything for anyone else you are just existing in your own physical space both the walk in the square and the movement on the mat are acts of full appropriation of one's own presence caroline
Speaker #1
burgess the feminist guidebook touches on this when it shows a woman practicing on a reformer being gently guided that image stood out to me too It radiates the sense of safety and intentionality. The resistance of the Reformer Springs actually mirrors the pushback of the city. But here, the practitioner is in total control of the tension.
Speaker #0
And the visual parallels they use to explain this are just stunning. There's an illustration in the materials that shows two women from behind.
Speaker #1
Oh, yes, the split image.
Speaker #0
Yes. On the left, you have the woman in the dark blue trench coat looking out a window at the cobblestone square of Saint-Sulpice.
Speaker #1
Classic Flemishness.
Speaker #0
Right. And then on the right, you have a woman in modern workout gear holding a large Pilates ball above her head. And the genius of the illustration is that the very same 19th century cityscape, the church, the buildings, the fountain, is reflected inside the Pilates ball she's holding.
Speaker #1
It visually literalizes the metaphor perfectly. The world she cannot fully control outside is perfectly contained and mastered within the sphere of her own practice.
Speaker #0
Practicing Pilates in this context isn't just about physical fitness or core strength.
Speaker #1
Not at all.
Speaker #0
It's like doing urban planning for your own anatomy.
Speaker #1
Wow, yeah.
Speaker #0
If the outside world is constantly dictating your pace, telling you which streets are safe, and forcing you to calculate your path, then conscious movement is the one neighborhood where you are the absolute architect.
Speaker #1
You set your own speed. You choose your range of motion.
Speaker #0
Exactly. You occupy your physical space fully deeply and without a single apology to anyone watching.
Speaker #1
Because there is no one watching. You have become both the city and the Flanos. You are exploring the landscape of your own muscles, your fascia, your breath, without the burden of the external gaze.
Speaker #0
That is so powerful.
Speaker #1
The woman on the mat ceases to be a body displaced by social obligations, just as the woman at the cafe ceased to be an object of observation. She becomes a body that decides.
Speaker #0
A body that decides. Wow. Let's take a breath and recap the incredible journey we've just been on.
Speaker #1
It's been a ride.
Speaker #0
We started in the male-dominated streets of 19th century Paris, where a woman walking alone needed an alibi just to avoid suspicion.
Speaker #1
Right, from needing an alibi to claiming the square.
Speaker #0
Yes. We move to the quiet, radical rebellion of the flanus, sipping matcha, and people watching a placent sulpis, completely reclaiming her cognitive agency.
Speaker #1
And then bringing it into the present.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Finally, we unpack the modern realization that when the outside world is chaotic, exhausting, and still laden with restrictions, conscious movement like Pilates becomes the ultimate way to inhabit your own presence.
Speaker #1
If we synthesize the core value of this whole deep dive, it comes down to the vital practice of existing intentionally. Taking up space is not a passive event.
Speaker #0
No, it takes work.
Speaker #1
Whether you are walking a city block, sitting at a cafe, or controlling the tension on a reformer, claiming your space is an active, ongoing practice, it is about moving from being the object of someone else's world to the subject of your own.
Speaker #0
And that brings me to a final thought I want to leave you with. something to just mull over as you go about your day.
Speaker #1
Oh, I love these.
Speaker #0
We've talked about conquering the physical city and we've talked about conquering the physical body. But what does it mean to be a flanus in our digital spaces?
Speaker #1
Oh, that is a great question.
Speaker #0
Think about it. When you are wandering the Internet, scrolling through feeds, navigating social media, are you wandering aimlessly on your own terms or are you constantly being watched, tracked and quietly told where to go by algorithms?
Speaker #1
It's a whole new type of surveillance.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Just as the women that played Sensual Peace had to reclaim the physical square from the societal gaze, how might you reclaim your digital territory with that exact same intentionality? How can you become the mobile consciousness of your own screen?
Speaker #1
Something to really think about.
Speaker #0
Definitely. So next time you find yourself sitting in a cafe taking up space, remember the quiet radical history that gave you the absolute right to just sit there and decide where you want to go next.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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Speaker #0
Imagine right now that you are sitting at a small round table outside a Parisian cafe.
Speaker #1
Oh, yeah. That sounds amazing.
Speaker #0
Right. You've got a cup of coffee or, you know, maybe a matcha just resting on the marble tabletop. You are perfectly alone.
Speaker #1
Best feeling in the world.
Speaker #0
It really is. You have nowhere to be, no errands to run, no one waiting for you. You're just sitting there taking up space and watching the city move around you.
Speaker #1
I mean. It feels relaxing, right? Maybe even a little luxurious.
Speaker #0
Exactly. But just sitting there is actually the result of a massive, quiet, historical rebellion.
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is something we are really getting into today.
Speaker #0
We are. Today's deep dive is looking at a stack of sources that draw this completely unexpected line between 19th century urban history, the simple act of taking a walk, and, of all things, rolling out your exercise mat.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it sounds like a wild leap, but it all connects beautifully.
Speaker #0
It does. We were pulling from a really fascinating essay and some instructional materials from Studio Biopolites Paris. And those materials heavily reference Lauren Elkin's cultural history book, Flores.
Speaker #1
Right. And there's also that guidebook by Caroline Berger de Femini called My Pilates Holiday Book.
Speaker #0
Yes, exactly. So our mission today is to explore how the simple act of taking up space, whether that's, you know, occupying a public square or consciously moving your own body. is actually a profound act of claiming freedom.
Speaker #1
And to really grasp the weight of that freedom, we kind of have to rewind a bit. We need to look at the history of simply walking through a city.
Speaker #0
Okay, set the scene for us.
Speaker #1
So if you study modern urban history, particularly Paris in the 19th century, you inevitably collide with this very famous archetype, the flaneur.
Speaker #0
Oh, right. Like the ultimate urban wanderer. The guy who just strolls around the metropolis absorbing the vibe.
Speaker #1
That's the one, yeah. The fliner was the celebrated, very masculine figure of modern city life. I mean, he had the absolute unquestioned right to just walk without a destination.
Speaker #0
Which sounds so simple, but it was a huge deal.
Speaker #1
It was. He could wander aimlessly, stop to contemplate the architecture, or just completely disappear into the anonymity of the crowd. He was basically a sponge for the modern metropolis.
Speaker #0
The street completely belonged to him.
Speaker #1
Right. But for a woman during this exact same period, walking alone was never just a neutral act. It was an act heavily burdened by social norms, surveillance, and honestly, deep suspicion.
Speaker #0
Okay, let's unpack this. Yeah. Because the idea that simply walking down the street was a suspicious activity feels so foreign to how we navigate cities today.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's hard to imagine now.
Speaker #0
Why was a woman walking alone such an affront to society back then?
Speaker #1
Well, it comes down to the concept of gratuitousness, like the pure pleasure of wandering. The right to produce absolutely nothing and just exist in the public sphere. That was exclusively a male privilege.
Speaker #0
Wow. So a woman's presence in the street historically had to be justified.
Speaker #1
Exactly. She couldn't just, you know, be there. She needed an alibi.
Speaker #0
An alibi. Like she was committing a crime just by stepping onto the pavement.
Speaker #1
Socially speaking, she kind of was without a clear, productive purpose like running a specific errand or waiting for a chaperone or heading to a known destination. She was immediately subjected to the social gaze.
Speaker #0
She was being watched.
Speaker #1
Watched, judged, categorized. She was deemed a threat to moral order. The street was essentially this theater of morality, and women were tightly constrained by its rules.
Speaker #0
So if we look at this through a modern lens, the historical male fluner basically had unrestricted main character energy.
Speaker #1
Oh, completely.
Speaker #0
He could just roam the city, observe the world, and treat the metropolis as his own personal playground. Meanwhile, women were essentially forced to act as background extras.
Speaker #1
Yeah, background extras who had to frantically signal that they had a specific destination just to avoid being targeted or criticized.
Speaker #0
Which is so exhausting to even think about.
Speaker #1
And this leads right into Lauren Elkins' central insight in her book, Flaneuse. She asks this really poignant question. Why is urban history so obsessed with the male flunner but entirely silent on the women who walked alone?
Speaker #0
Because obviously women have always traversed major cities. Paris, London, New York, Tokyo.
Speaker #1
Right. But their experiences were invisibilized. They were just written out of the narrative of the modern wandering intellectual.
Speaker #0
I'm trying to wrap my head around this invisibilized experience. Is the flaners this female wanderer? Is she just a female version of the flaner?
Speaker #1
Not at all. Or are we looking at an entirely different psychological mechanism?
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.
Speaker #1
It's a fundamentally different psychological experience. And that difference is really rooted in tension. I mean, the male wanderer didn't have to carry the psychological weight of the public gaze.
Speaker #0
His wandering was completely frictionless.
Speaker #1
Exactly. The Flaneuse, on the other hand, represents a specific experience of urban space that is permanently marked by two conflicting forces.
Speaker #0
What are they?
Speaker #1
Well, it's the deep desire for freedom on one side and the constant hyper-awareness of being watched on the other. She never really got to put that invisible backpack down.
Speaker #0
That is just an exhausting way to exist. But, you know, our materials don't just leave us in this broad, abstract historical concept.
Speaker #1
No, they get very specific.
Speaker #0
Right. They anchor this female liberation to a very specific physical geography in Paris. They take us to Place Saint-Sulpice on the left bank.
Speaker #1
Place Saint-Sulpice is so fascinating because it functioned as this discreet theater of female liberty.
Speaker #0
Paint a picture of it for us.
Speaker #1
Well, physically, it's this elegant... orderly square. It's dominated by a massive church, animated by a fountain, and surrounded by cafes and bookstores. It's kind of a crossroads leading toward the Luxembourg Gardens and the Latin Quarter.
Speaker #0
Sounds beautiful.
Speaker #1
It is. But historically, it became a crucial neighborhood where women, intellectuals, artists, and writers began to exist differently in public. They started to really claim the space.
Speaker #0
And the visual evidence provided in the studio BioPilates materials really brings this to life. There's this one illustration that completely sets the mood.
Speaker #1
Ah, I love that illustration.
Speaker #0
Right. It shows a woman sitting perfectly alone at a cafe table right by the San Jose Fountain. She's wearing a dark trench coat over a green turtleneck.
Speaker #1
Yeah, very chic.
Speaker #0
Totally. And she's got a cup of green tea or matcha and a closed notebook on the table. She isn't talking to anyone. She isn't rushing. She's just looking out at the square.
Speaker #1
That image per- perfectly encapsulates what the essay describes as the inversion of the gaze.
Speaker #0
The inversion of the gaze. That sounds important.
Speaker #1
It's huge. It's a massive shift in cognitive agency. I mean, think about the mechanics of being looked at versus doing the looking. For centuries, the female body in the public space was an object. It was exposed, observed, commented upon, and controlled by societal surveillance. To be looked at is to be defined by the observer.
Speaker #0
So you are basically the object of someone else's reality.
Speaker #1
Precisely. But the flanuz, the woman at the cafe, the woman walking the square, inverses this entirely. She sits. She reads. She chooses her own rhythm.
Speaker #0
She's calling the shots.
Speaker #1
Yeah. She observes the facades of the buildings and the people passing by. By doing this, she ceases to be an object and becomes a mobile consciousness.
Speaker #0
A mobile consciousness. I love that phrasing.
Speaker #1
Right. She is the one doing the looking. She is defining the world around her rather than letting the world define her.
Speaker #0
Think about what that means for a second. It means that something you might do on a random Tuesday, you know, taking a laptop to a coffee shop, sitting alone and people watching, was actually a hard-won radical reclamation of public real estate.
Speaker #1
Absolutely.
Speaker #0
These women didn't necessarily shout or protest in this square to make their point. They rebelled simply by walking, by sitting, by looking, and by making their presence an affirmation.
Speaker #1
They proved that the city wasn't just a place to travel through, it was a place to inhabit.
Speaker #0
And inhabiting implies a real sense of ownership and comfort. Walking alone became a way of thinking, feeling, and existing on one's own terms.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's the ideal anywhere.
Speaker #0
Well, okay, I'm with you on the romantic image of the cafe.
Speaker #1
I hope.
Speaker #0
And claiming cognitive agency. But I have to push back here for a second.
Speaker #1
Go for it.
Speaker #0
Because this feels like we're painting a picture of a total victory that hasn't actually happened. If I'm being perfectly honest. Yeah. I don't feel like a victorious mobile consciousness when I'm walking home at dusk.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
I still plot my route based on which streets have the best lighting or where there are more people around.
Speaker #1
You've hit on the exact sobering reality check that the essay highlights. It calls this history a fragile conquest.
Speaker #0
Fragile is definitely the word for it.
Speaker #1
Because the truth is, even today, walking freely in the world remains a luxury. The freedom to walk alone is not equally distributed.
Speaker #0
Not at all.
Speaker #1
It is entirely dependent on your social, cultural, political, and economic context. Depending on the city, the country, the neighborhood, or, like you said, even just the time of day, a woman still cannot walk freely without a strategy.
Speaker #0
No, I mean, think about your own daily commute, or the micro-calculations you make if you decide to go for an evening walk. It takes a massive toll on the nervous system.
Speaker #1
It really does. The sources detail the modern realities of this mental load.
Speaker #0
It's the constant need to adapt your route, modifying what clothing you wear depending on where you're going, altering your pace.
Speaker #1
Or holding your phone strategically in your hand.
Speaker #0
Yeah, or threading your keys between your knuckles just in case.
Speaker #1
The operative words in the text are calculating, anticipating, avoiding. For many, the street is still a space of exposure rather than a space of true liberty.
Speaker #0
It's tactical urban planning just to go for a stroll.
Speaker #1
Yeah. It really is.
Speaker #0
It highlights the profound unfairness that half the population has to carry this mental map of safety at all times. And it frames, plays Sans Salpis, as a double symbol.
Speaker #1
Oh, so?
Speaker #0
Well, on one hand, it's a beautiful monument to what has been conquered, the right to sit at the cafe to observe the world. But on the other hand, it is a stark reminder of the freedom that is still missing and still heavily conditional.
Speaker #1
Which leaves us with a pretty profound problem. If the physical public space of the city is still restrictive, still exhausting to navigate because of that persistent hypervigilance, where do you go to experience total uncompromised freedom?
Speaker #0
Where is the territory you can fully claim?
Speaker #1
Right. If you can't control the sidewalk, what can you control?
Speaker #0
That is the million-dollar question.
Speaker #1
You reconquer your own physical form. You go inward.
Speaker #0
Okay, wow.
Speaker #1
This is where the materials from Studio Bio Pilates Paris make an incredibly bold connection. They argue that conscious movement, specifically Pilates, is the modern continuation of the Flanos' rebellion.
Speaker #0
Wait, hold on. Let me just pause you there. You're trying to tell me that walking through a Parisian square in a trench coat... and doing leg circles on a mat in your living room are the same thing.
Speaker #1
I know, I know.
Speaker #0
Because that feels like a massive stretch. Yeah. No pun intended.
Speaker #1
It sounds completely disjointed until you look at the psychological mechanics of both activities.
Speaker #0
Okay, walk me through it.
Speaker #1
The essay describes the practice of Pilates as an interior flannery, an interior wandering. Think about how your sensory feedback works in the city.
Speaker #0
It's mostly threat-based, right?
Speaker #1
Exactly. Is someone walking too closely behind me? Is this alley too dark? Your environment completely dictates your physical responses.
Speaker #0
Right. My body is reacting to external stimuli that I can't control.
Speaker #1
Exactly. Now think about the mechanics of Pilates. The sensory feedback is entirely internal and mastered.
Speaker #0
Mastered how?
Speaker #1
Like you're asking yourself, how does the spring tension feel? Is my spine aligned? How deep is my breath? You are substituting a hostile, unpredictable external environment for a mastered internal one.
Speaker #0
Oh, that makes so much sense.
Speaker #1
Just as the Flinos inhabits the city by walking at her own chosen pace, the woman practicing Pilates inhabits her body through conscious movement. The text uses this brilliant phrase, slowness as resistance.
Speaker #0
Slowness as resistance. Let's dig into how that actually works.
Speaker #1
Exactly.
Speaker #0
Because in a world that demands we move quickly, productively and frankly defensively through physical space slowing down to focus entirely on breath alignment and internal sensation is an act of defiance it really is you are producing anything for anyone else you are just existing in your own physical space both the walk in the square and the movement on the mat are acts of full appropriation of one's own presence caroline
Speaker #1
burgess the feminist guidebook touches on this when it shows a woman practicing on a reformer being gently guided that image stood out to me too It radiates the sense of safety and intentionality. The resistance of the Reformer Springs actually mirrors the pushback of the city. But here, the practitioner is in total control of the tension.
Speaker #0
And the visual parallels they use to explain this are just stunning. There's an illustration in the materials that shows two women from behind.
Speaker #1
Oh, yes, the split image.
Speaker #0
Yes. On the left, you have the woman in the dark blue trench coat looking out a window at the cobblestone square of Saint-Sulpice.
Speaker #1
Classic Flemishness.
Speaker #0
Right. And then on the right, you have a woman in modern workout gear holding a large Pilates ball above her head. And the genius of the illustration is that the very same 19th century cityscape, the church, the buildings, the fountain, is reflected inside the Pilates ball she's holding.
Speaker #1
It visually literalizes the metaphor perfectly. The world she cannot fully control outside is perfectly contained and mastered within the sphere of her own practice.
Speaker #0
Practicing Pilates in this context isn't just about physical fitness or core strength.
Speaker #1
Not at all.
Speaker #0
It's like doing urban planning for your own anatomy.
Speaker #1
Wow, yeah.
Speaker #0
If the outside world is constantly dictating your pace, telling you which streets are safe, and forcing you to calculate your path, then conscious movement is the one neighborhood where you are the absolute architect.
Speaker #1
You set your own speed. You choose your range of motion.
Speaker #0
Exactly. You occupy your physical space fully deeply and without a single apology to anyone watching.
Speaker #1
Because there is no one watching. You have become both the city and the Flanos. You are exploring the landscape of your own muscles, your fascia, your breath, without the burden of the external gaze.
Speaker #0
That is so powerful.
Speaker #1
The woman on the mat ceases to be a body displaced by social obligations, just as the woman at the cafe ceased to be an object of observation. She becomes a body that decides.
Speaker #0
A body that decides. Wow. Let's take a breath and recap the incredible journey we've just been on.
Speaker #1
It's been a ride.
Speaker #0
We started in the male-dominated streets of 19th century Paris, where a woman walking alone needed an alibi just to avoid suspicion.
Speaker #1
Right, from needing an alibi to claiming the square.
Speaker #0
Yes. We move to the quiet, radical rebellion of the flanus, sipping matcha, and people watching a placent sulpis, completely reclaiming her cognitive agency.
Speaker #1
And then bringing it into the present.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Finally, we unpack the modern realization that when the outside world is chaotic, exhausting, and still laden with restrictions, conscious movement like Pilates becomes the ultimate way to inhabit your own presence.
Speaker #1
If we synthesize the core value of this whole deep dive, it comes down to the vital practice of existing intentionally. Taking up space is not a passive event.
Speaker #0
No, it takes work.
Speaker #1
Whether you are walking a city block, sitting at a cafe, or controlling the tension on a reformer, claiming your space is an active, ongoing practice, it is about moving from being the object of someone else's world to the subject of your own.
Speaker #0
And that brings me to a final thought I want to leave you with. something to just mull over as you go about your day.
Speaker #1
Oh, I love these.
Speaker #0
We've talked about conquering the physical city and we've talked about conquering the physical body. But what does it mean to be a flanus in our digital spaces?
Speaker #1
Oh, that is a great question.
Speaker #0
Think about it. When you are wandering the Internet, scrolling through feeds, navigating social media, are you wandering aimlessly on your own terms or are you constantly being watched, tracked and quietly told where to go by algorithms?
Speaker #1
It's a whole new type of surveillance.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Just as the women that played Sensual Peace had to reclaim the physical square from the societal gaze, how might you reclaim your digital territory with that exact same intentionality? How can you become the mobile consciousness of your own screen?
Speaker #1
Something to really think about.
Speaker #0
Definitely. So next time you find yourself sitting in a cafe taking up space, remember the quiet radical history that gave you the absolute right to just sit there and decide where you want to go next.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

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Speaker #0
Imagine right now that you are sitting at a small round table outside a Parisian cafe.
Speaker #1
Oh, yeah. That sounds amazing.
Speaker #0
Right. You've got a cup of coffee or, you know, maybe a matcha just resting on the marble tabletop. You are perfectly alone.
Speaker #1
Best feeling in the world.
Speaker #0
It really is. You have nowhere to be, no errands to run, no one waiting for you. You're just sitting there taking up space and watching the city move around you.
Speaker #1
I mean. It feels relaxing, right? Maybe even a little luxurious.
Speaker #0
Exactly. But just sitting there is actually the result of a massive, quiet, historical rebellion.
Speaker #1
Yeah, which is something we are really getting into today.
Speaker #0
We are. Today's deep dive is looking at a stack of sources that draw this completely unexpected line between 19th century urban history, the simple act of taking a walk, and, of all things, rolling out your exercise mat.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it sounds like a wild leap, but it all connects beautifully.
Speaker #0
It does. We were pulling from a really fascinating essay and some instructional materials from Studio Biopolites Paris. And those materials heavily reference Lauren Elkin's cultural history book, Flores.
Speaker #1
Right. And there's also that guidebook by Caroline Berger de Femini called My Pilates Holiday Book.
Speaker #0
Yes, exactly. So our mission today is to explore how the simple act of taking up space, whether that's, you know, occupying a public square or consciously moving your own body. is actually a profound act of claiming freedom.
Speaker #1
And to really grasp the weight of that freedom, we kind of have to rewind a bit. We need to look at the history of simply walking through a city.
Speaker #0
Okay, set the scene for us.
Speaker #1
So if you study modern urban history, particularly Paris in the 19th century, you inevitably collide with this very famous archetype, the flaneur.
Speaker #0
Oh, right. Like the ultimate urban wanderer. The guy who just strolls around the metropolis absorbing the vibe.
Speaker #1
That's the one, yeah. The fliner was the celebrated, very masculine figure of modern city life. I mean, he had the absolute unquestioned right to just walk without a destination.
Speaker #0
Which sounds so simple, but it was a huge deal.
Speaker #1
It was. He could wander aimlessly, stop to contemplate the architecture, or just completely disappear into the anonymity of the crowd. He was basically a sponge for the modern metropolis.
Speaker #0
The street completely belonged to him.
Speaker #1
Right. But for a woman during this exact same period, walking alone was never just a neutral act. It was an act heavily burdened by social norms, surveillance, and honestly, deep suspicion.
Speaker #0
Okay, let's unpack this. Yeah. Because the idea that simply walking down the street was a suspicious activity feels so foreign to how we navigate cities today.
Speaker #1
Yeah, it's hard to imagine now.
Speaker #0
Why was a woman walking alone such an affront to society back then?
Speaker #1
Well, it comes down to the concept of gratuitousness, like the pure pleasure of wandering. The right to produce absolutely nothing and just exist in the public sphere. That was exclusively a male privilege.
Speaker #0
Wow. So a woman's presence in the street historically had to be justified.
Speaker #1
Exactly. She couldn't just, you know, be there. She needed an alibi.
Speaker #0
An alibi. Like she was committing a crime just by stepping onto the pavement.
Speaker #1
Socially speaking, she kind of was without a clear, productive purpose like running a specific errand or waiting for a chaperone or heading to a known destination. She was immediately subjected to the social gaze.
Speaker #0
She was being watched.
Speaker #1
Watched, judged, categorized. She was deemed a threat to moral order. The street was essentially this theater of morality, and women were tightly constrained by its rules.
Speaker #0
So if we look at this through a modern lens, the historical male fluner basically had unrestricted main character energy.
Speaker #1
Oh, completely.
Speaker #0
He could just roam the city, observe the world, and treat the metropolis as his own personal playground. Meanwhile, women were essentially forced to act as background extras.
Speaker #1
Yeah, background extras who had to frantically signal that they had a specific destination just to avoid being targeted or criticized.
Speaker #0
Which is so exhausting to even think about.
Speaker #1
And this leads right into Lauren Elkins' central insight in her book, Flaneuse. She asks this really poignant question. Why is urban history so obsessed with the male flunner but entirely silent on the women who walked alone?
Speaker #0
Because obviously women have always traversed major cities. Paris, London, New York, Tokyo.
Speaker #1
Right. But their experiences were invisibilized. They were just written out of the narrative of the modern wandering intellectual.
Speaker #0
I'm trying to wrap my head around this invisibilized experience. Is the flaners this female wanderer? Is she just a female version of the flaner?
Speaker #1
Not at all. Or are we looking at an entirely different psychological mechanism?
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.
Speaker #1
It's a fundamentally different psychological experience. And that difference is really rooted in tension. I mean, the male wanderer didn't have to carry the psychological weight of the public gaze.
Speaker #0
His wandering was completely frictionless.
Speaker #1
Exactly. The Flaneuse, on the other hand, represents a specific experience of urban space that is permanently marked by two conflicting forces.
Speaker #0
What are they?
Speaker #1
Well, it's the deep desire for freedom on one side and the constant hyper-awareness of being watched on the other. She never really got to put that invisible backpack down.
Speaker #0
That is just an exhausting way to exist. But, you know, our materials don't just leave us in this broad, abstract historical concept.
Speaker #1
No, they get very specific.
Speaker #0
Right. They anchor this female liberation to a very specific physical geography in Paris. They take us to Place Saint-Sulpice on the left bank.
Speaker #1
Place Saint-Sulpice is so fascinating because it functioned as this discreet theater of female liberty.
Speaker #0
Paint a picture of it for us.
Speaker #1
Well, physically, it's this elegant... orderly square. It's dominated by a massive church, animated by a fountain, and surrounded by cafes and bookstores. It's kind of a crossroads leading toward the Luxembourg Gardens and the Latin Quarter.
Speaker #0
Sounds beautiful.
Speaker #1
It is. But historically, it became a crucial neighborhood where women, intellectuals, artists, and writers began to exist differently in public. They started to really claim the space.
Speaker #0
And the visual evidence provided in the studio BioPilates materials really brings this to life. There's this one illustration that completely sets the mood.
Speaker #1
Ah, I love that illustration.
Speaker #0
Right. It shows a woman sitting perfectly alone at a cafe table right by the San Jose Fountain. She's wearing a dark trench coat over a green turtleneck.
Speaker #1
Yeah, very chic.
Speaker #0
Totally. And she's got a cup of green tea or matcha and a closed notebook on the table. She isn't talking to anyone. She isn't rushing. She's just looking out at the square.
Speaker #1
That image per- perfectly encapsulates what the essay describes as the inversion of the gaze.
Speaker #0
The inversion of the gaze. That sounds important.
Speaker #1
It's huge. It's a massive shift in cognitive agency. I mean, think about the mechanics of being looked at versus doing the looking. For centuries, the female body in the public space was an object. It was exposed, observed, commented upon, and controlled by societal surveillance. To be looked at is to be defined by the observer.
Speaker #0
So you are basically the object of someone else's reality.
Speaker #1
Precisely. But the flanuz, the woman at the cafe, the woman walking the square, inverses this entirely. She sits. She reads. She chooses her own rhythm.
Speaker #0
She's calling the shots.
Speaker #1
Yeah. She observes the facades of the buildings and the people passing by. By doing this, she ceases to be an object and becomes a mobile consciousness.
Speaker #0
A mobile consciousness. I love that phrasing.
Speaker #1
Right. She is the one doing the looking. She is defining the world around her rather than letting the world define her.
Speaker #0
Think about what that means for a second. It means that something you might do on a random Tuesday, you know, taking a laptop to a coffee shop, sitting alone and people watching, was actually a hard-won radical reclamation of public real estate.
Speaker #1
Absolutely.
Speaker #0
These women didn't necessarily shout or protest in this square to make their point. They rebelled simply by walking, by sitting, by looking, and by making their presence an affirmation.
Speaker #1
They proved that the city wasn't just a place to travel through, it was a place to inhabit.
Speaker #0
And inhabiting implies a real sense of ownership and comfort. Walking alone became a way of thinking, feeling, and existing on one's own terms.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's the ideal anywhere.
Speaker #0
Well, okay, I'm with you on the romantic image of the cafe.
Speaker #1
I hope.
Speaker #0
And claiming cognitive agency. But I have to push back here for a second.
Speaker #1
Go for it.
Speaker #0
Because this feels like we're painting a picture of a total victory that hasn't actually happened. If I'm being perfectly honest. Yeah. I don't feel like a victorious mobile consciousness when I'm walking home at dusk.
Speaker #1
Right.
Speaker #0
I still plot my route based on which streets have the best lighting or where there are more people around.
Speaker #1
You've hit on the exact sobering reality check that the essay highlights. It calls this history a fragile conquest.
Speaker #0
Fragile is definitely the word for it.
Speaker #1
Because the truth is, even today, walking freely in the world remains a luxury. The freedom to walk alone is not equally distributed.
Speaker #0
Not at all.
Speaker #1
It is entirely dependent on your social, cultural, political, and economic context. Depending on the city, the country, the neighborhood, or, like you said, even just the time of day, a woman still cannot walk freely without a strategy.
Speaker #0
No, I mean, think about your own daily commute, or the micro-calculations you make if you decide to go for an evening walk. It takes a massive toll on the nervous system.
Speaker #1
It really does. The sources detail the modern realities of this mental load.
Speaker #0
It's the constant need to adapt your route, modifying what clothing you wear depending on where you're going, altering your pace.
Speaker #1
Or holding your phone strategically in your hand.
Speaker #0
Yeah, or threading your keys between your knuckles just in case.
Speaker #1
The operative words in the text are calculating, anticipating, avoiding. For many, the street is still a space of exposure rather than a space of true liberty.
Speaker #0
It's tactical urban planning just to go for a stroll.
Speaker #1
Yeah. It really is.
Speaker #0
It highlights the profound unfairness that half the population has to carry this mental map of safety at all times. And it frames, plays Sans Salpis, as a double symbol.
Speaker #1
Oh, so?
Speaker #0
Well, on one hand, it's a beautiful monument to what has been conquered, the right to sit at the cafe to observe the world. But on the other hand, it is a stark reminder of the freedom that is still missing and still heavily conditional.
Speaker #1
Which leaves us with a pretty profound problem. If the physical public space of the city is still restrictive, still exhausting to navigate because of that persistent hypervigilance, where do you go to experience total uncompromised freedom?
Speaker #0
Where is the territory you can fully claim?
Speaker #1
Right. If you can't control the sidewalk, what can you control?
Speaker #0
That is the million-dollar question.
Speaker #1
You reconquer your own physical form. You go inward.
Speaker #0
Okay, wow.
Speaker #1
This is where the materials from Studio Bio Pilates Paris make an incredibly bold connection. They argue that conscious movement, specifically Pilates, is the modern continuation of the Flanos' rebellion.
Speaker #0
Wait, hold on. Let me just pause you there. You're trying to tell me that walking through a Parisian square in a trench coat... and doing leg circles on a mat in your living room are the same thing.
Speaker #1
I know, I know.
Speaker #0
Because that feels like a massive stretch. Yeah. No pun intended.
Speaker #1
It sounds completely disjointed until you look at the psychological mechanics of both activities.
Speaker #0
Okay, walk me through it.
Speaker #1
The essay describes the practice of Pilates as an interior flannery, an interior wandering. Think about how your sensory feedback works in the city.
Speaker #0
It's mostly threat-based, right?
Speaker #1
Exactly. Is someone walking too closely behind me? Is this alley too dark? Your environment completely dictates your physical responses.
Speaker #0
Right. My body is reacting to external stimuli that I can't control.
Speaker #1
Exactly. Now think about the mechanics of Pilates. The sensory feedback is entirely internal and mastered.
Speaker #0
Mastered how?
Speaker #1
Like you're asking yourself, how does the spring tension feel? Is my spine aligned? How deep is my breath? You are substituting a hostile, unpredictable external environment for a mastered internal one.
Speaker #0
Oh, that makes so much sense.
Speaker #1
Just as the Flinos inhabits the city by walking at her own chosen pace, the woman practicing Pilates inhabits her body through conscious movement. The text uses this brilliant phrase, slowness as resistance.
Speaker #0
Slowness as resistance. Let's dig into how that actually works.
Speaker #1
Exactly.
Speaker #0
Because in a world that demands we move quickly, productively and frankly defensively through physical space slowing down to focus entirely on breath alignment and internal sensation is an act of defiance it really is you are producing anything for anyone else you are just existing in your own physical space both the walk in the square and the movement on the mat are acts of full appropriation of one's own presence caroline
Speaker #1
burgess the feminist guidebook touches on this when it shows a woman practicing on a reformer being gently guided that image stood out to me too It radiates the sense of safety and intentionality. The resistance of the Reformer Springs actually mirrors the pushback of the city. But here, the practitioner is in total control of the tension.
Speaker #0
And the visual parallels they use to explain this are just stunning. There's an illustration in the materials that shows two women from behind.
Speaker #1
Oh, yes, the split image.
Speaker #0
Yes. On the left, you have the woman in the dark blue trench coat looking out a window at the cobblestone square of Saint-Sulpice.
Speaker #1
Classic Flemishness.
Speaker #0
Right. And then on the right, you have a woman in modern workout gear holding a large Pilates ball above her head. And the genius of the illustration is that the very same 19th century cityscape, the church, the buildings, the fountain, is reflected inside the Pilates ball she's holding.
Speaker #1
It visually literalizes the metaphor perfectly. The world she cannot fully control outside is perfectly contained and mastered within the sphere of her own practice.
Speaker #0
Practicing Pilates in this context isn't just about physical fitness or core strength.
Speaker #1
Not at all.
Speaker #0
It's like doing urban planning for your own anatomy.
Speaker #1
Wow, yeah.
Speaker #0
If the outside world is constantly dictating your pace, telling you which streets are safe, and forcing you to calculate your path, then conscious movement is the one neighborhood where you are the absolute architect.
Speaker #1
You set your own speed. You choose your range of motion.
Speaker #0
Exactly. You occupy your physical space fully deeply and without a single apology to anyone watching.
Speaker #1
Because there is no one watching. You have become both the city and the Flanos. You are exploring the landscape of your own muscles, your fascia, your breath, without the burden of the external gaze.
Speaker #0
That is so powerful.
Speaker #1
The woman on the mat ceases to be a body displaced by social obligations, just as the woman at the cafe ceased to be an object of observation. She becomes a body that decides.
Speaker #0
A body that decides. Wow. Let's take a breath and recap the incredible journey we've just been on.
Speaker #1
It's been a ride.
Speaker #0
We started in the male-dominated streets of 19th century Paris, where a woman walking alone needed an alibi just to avoid suspicion.
Speaker #1
Right, from needing an alibi to claiming the square.
Speaker #0
Yes. We move to the quiet, radical rebellion of the flanus, sipping matcha, and people watching a placent sulpis, completely reclaiming her cognitive agency.
Speaker #1
And then bringing it into the present.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Finally, we unpack the modern realization that when the outside world is chaotic, exhausting, and still laden with restrictions, conscious movement like Pilates becomes the ultimate way to inhabit your own presence.
Speaker #1
If we synthesize the core value of this whole deep dive, it comes down to the vital practice of existing intentionally. Taking up space is not a passive event.
Speaker #0
No, it takes work.
Speaker #1
Whether you are walking a city block, sitting at a cafe, or controlling the tension on a reformer, claiming your space is an active, ongoing practice, it is about moving from being the object of someone else's world to the subject of your own.
Speaker #0
And that brings me to a final thought I want to leave you with. something to just mull over as you go about your day.
Speaker #1
Oh, I love these.
Speaker #0
We've talked about conquering the physical city and we've talked about conquering the physical body. But what does it mean to be a flanus in our digital spaces?
Speaker #1
Oh, that is a great question.
Speaker #0
Think about it. When you are wandering the Internet, scrolling through feeds, navigating social media, are you wandering aimlessly on your own terms or are you constantly being watched, tracked and quietly told where to go by algorithms?
Speaker #1
It's a whole new type of surveillance.
Speaker #0
Exactly. Just as the women that played Sensual Peace had to reclaim the physical square from the societal gaze, how might you reclaim your digital territory with that exact same intentionality? How can you become the mobile consciousness of your own screen?
Speaker #1
Something to really think about.
Speaker #0
Definitely. So next time you find yourself sitting in a cafe taking up space, remember the quiet radical history that gave you the absolute right to just sit there and decide where you want to go next.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About 🧘‍♀️ Biopilates Deep Dive

English : Steeve Pitt and Anabela Wilson Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

French : Sébastien Flaurent et Claire Brunel Media Manager Global Hosting Stott Pilates @ Studio Biopilates Paris

Italien : Margaux Cangini - Instructor Stott Pilates

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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