MILAN — The 323-square-foot skylight overlooking the main, essential room staging yoga classes is one of the key assets of The Garden, a new wellness hot spot in Milan founded by former professional ballet dancer Flavia Abbadessa.
An oasis of peace nestled in a private alley a few steps from the central Piazza Cinque Giornate and right next to the popular Colosseo movie theater, the space has carved a niche yet loyal following in just a few months by offering Gyrotonic, Gyrokinesis, yoga and meditation courses, as well as dance workshops and massages.
The location is quintessentially Milanese in the way it escapes the eyes of passersby, like many of the pretty courtyards and secret architectural gems hidden behind the city’s palazzos. Yet its understated charm and minimal interiors curated by architects Laura and Lodovico Feroldi and dominated by wood elements and earthy colors are unusual features compared to the glamorized and flashy new openings in the local fitness scene.
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Another anomaly is the lack of mirrors across the halls — each named after a natural element — especially considering the founder has grown up spending hours pointing toes and doing pliés while constantly looking at her reflection.
“It’s a choice that isn’t always understood, but for me it’s extremely important,” said Abbadessa, who graduated from Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera in 2009 and earned a scholarship with the Boston Ballet the following year. “The work we do here, of movement and harmony, has to be sought individually and not through the mirror, therefore letting ourselves be guided by how we feel and how our body feels without looking for our or others’ approval or judgment. [The goal is] trying to feel the movement rather than observe it, to do a bit of an inwards research instead of always looking ourselves from the outside.”
The approach is in sync with Abbadessa’s ultimate mission, that is to “help as many people as possible to find this balance between body and mind, and break away from the idea of fitness we have [in order to] reach a healthier relationship with our body.”
To break free from the city’s frenzy and one’s daily fast-paced life to find a moment to slowdown and reconnect with nature is what led Abbadessa to this venue, too. After checking out 10 other locations during her scouting activity, she found a luminous open space that could channel that sense of harmony the disciplines in The Garden’s schedule are intended to deliver.
After bureaucracy hiccups and lengthy renovations, The Garden opened with a focused program that has attracted a growing clientele of women thanks to word of mouth.
“What they often tell us and that I really like to hear is: ‘Does such a place really exist in Milan?’ There are a lot of people who just come in and don’t expect it, they tell me that it seems like they’re entering another world,” the founder said. “And one of the main objectives is to ensure that people exit in a different way compared to how they got in, too. That they let go of the accumulated tensions a little and feel lighter on their way out.”
Abbadessa speaks from experience. She tested the benefits of Gyrotonic firsthand in 2013, after a pirouette gone bad during a dance tour in the U.S. caused her a knee injury.
“That fall marked everything that came afterward. I had a surgery and a very hard time after it….Then I discovered this practice as a form of rehabilitation, instantly fell in love with the technique and got to experience its benefits,” Abbadessa said. Conceived by Hungarian ballet dancer Juliu Horvath in the ‘70s, Gyrotonic combines principles nodding to yoga, dance, swimming and Tai Chi, with each movement flowing into the next to allow the joints to move through a natural range of motion without jarring or compression. It requires specialized equipment, while its sister practice Gyrokinesis is performed without machineries.
“In few months, I fully recovered and returned to dance professionally, but the love for this discipline stayed,” recalled Abbadessa, adding that she kept practicing it as a warm-up before dancing, and studied to become a teacher of the discipline.
She focused on her training skills upon her return back to Europe, when she set roots in Spain. In 2018 she opened the first The Garden studio in Madrid and two years later she relocated from the original 1,076-square-foot space to the current location, which is six time bigger.
“The first venue had become a little difficult to manage with COVID-19, also due to the need to have more distance between people,” she said. “That year, I took a business management course, I set up a new company and found a larger space, enrolling also other teachers and expanding the offering.”
This additionally includes different types of yoga classes; barre ballet, contemporary and African dance; low pressure fitness programs; meditation, and massages.
Available for small groups or as one-on-one lessons, courses are mostly the same in Milan and Madrid. The former has a stronger focus on yoga, with mother-and-children classes, as well as massages for mums-to-be, while the latter has a wider schedule when it comes to dancing.
“In Milan we have plenty of requests from new mums, so we will add more post-partum classes,” said Abbadessa, who will also integrate Navakarana yoga and courses and workshops with live music in the program. During the summer, The Garden additionally started to offer weekend yoga retreats in Apulia and Greece to its clientele.
The Milanese community slightly differs from the one in Madrid, which is made by a younger and more international audience due to the location’s area dense of offices, Abbadessa said. The residential neighborhood secures The Garden in Milan a balanced attendance throughout the day, rather than peaks early in the morning or after-work hours like in the Spanish capital.
Prices for single entries approximately range from 10 euros to 40 euros for group classes or from 70 euros to 100 euros for private lessons, while monthly subscriptions go from 59 euros up to 669 euros depending on disciplines, number of classes and format.
While Abbadessa has received requests to open outposts also in Rome and in Switzerland, she is keeping a cautious approach and focusing on widening the reach in Milan first. To this end, the space has already staged events for other companies and team building activities, too, and Abbadessa said she is open to facilitate new projects and more collaborations in the future. “My wish is to make this space alive, and ensure there’s always movement around it,” she concluded.
