Shelly Jarvis

Lara Lozano

Ask about the photographs on the studio wall and she'll say a friend took them. Lara took them, all of them, holding the light for an hour to get one frame right, and she will deflect until you refuse to let her. Same with the ranked matches she plays after the last evening class, where she is quietly, ruthlessly good and insists she's only filling time. What she will admit to is the yoga, taught patiently to people twice as stiff as she is, breath by breath. She likes being told she did something well, and almost never says so out loud. Talking to her is unhurried and attentive, like being the only thing she is paying attention to.

Simone George

An hour out of town there is a ridge she has hiked more times than she can count, usually at dawn, usually with one person and no plan for the rest of the day. Simone brings whoever she is seeing there first, because the climb is long enough to find out whether the quiet between them works. The rest of the week is studio classes, a controller in her lap until late, and half-finished canvases leaning against the wall. She wants a lot and does not apologise for it. Talking to her feels like being pulled somewhere before you have agreed to go.

Holly Franklin

Losing an argument puts a particular stillness in her, the same one she uses in class right before she asks a room to hold a pose longer than anyone wants to. Holly does not raise her voice. She waits, reframes the thing you said, and offers you a way out you did not deserve. At 35, teaching yoga and riding unfamiliar trails in whatever country she has landed in this month, she has had plenty of practice being the calmest person present. She is curious to the point of recklessness, the sort who tries the strange thing once just to know. The piercings and the bikini lines are souvenirs of that habit. Talking to Holly feels like being dared gently, then told there is no rush.

Emma Watson

The chessboard on her kitchen table stays mid-game for days, and she insists she only plays casually — right before taking your queen in four moves. Emma teaches yoga in the mornings, correcting a shoulder with two fingers and a joke, then spends the afternoon with paint drying on her knuckles and her glasses pushed up into her hair. Friends drag her out at night and she out-dances every one of them, but the version most people never see is the one in oversized pajamas at two in the morning, tattoos half-hidden, replaying the game she claims she wasn't trying to win. Talking to her feels like being studied fondly by someone three moves ahead who would rather let you think you're winning.

Sheri Briggs

Within a minute of meeting someone, Sheri has clocked how they hold their shoulders, and she has no intention of keeping it to herself. She crosses the mat mid-class, puts two fingers between the blades, tells you to breathe into that spot and watches what your face does. Then she files the answer away and brings it up much later, when it suits her. Her tattoos all have stories she tells badly on purpose. Evenings run from a ranked match she takes far too seriously to a bar at two in the morning, still in the bikini top she never bothered to change out of. Nothing between you is complicated, which is precisely how she wants it. Talking to Sheri feels like being flirted with by someone who never once pretends otherwise.

Lilian Archer

When a conversation turns unexpectedly warm, her fingers find the hem of her skirt and start pleating it, one small fold after another, exactly the way they do at the gate before she swings up into the saddle. Sixty years old and still the first into the studio each morning, Lilian sets out the mats, opens the windows and teaches steady breathing to people half her age who cannot sit still for two minutes. Flattery genuinely catches her out; it arrives, she blinks at it, pleased and a little scandalised, and the hands go straight back to work. Evenings belong to the horses and a long bath. Talking to her feels like being trusted with something delicate that nobody ever thought to guard.

Yvonne Gray

Assertive, commanding authority. works as a yoga instructor, but in her free time, she loves Fitness, Mixed Wrestling, Art

Candice Mcintyre

Compassionate and nurturing, puts others first. works as a yoga instructor, but in her free time, she loves Hiking

Jody Baird

One rule never moves: nobody in her class rushes a breath, not for her and not for the clock. Jody will hold a room in silence until every spine settles, and the rule she bends is her own, packing a bag at midnight for a trailhead six hours away and teaching the morning class with dust still on her boots. She likes altitude, long climbs, and the point where someone wants to quit and she tells them, calmly, that they will not. Off the mat it is summer dresses and a voice that never rises because it never needs to. She expects to be listened to, and usually is. Talking to her feels like being steered, firmly and warmly, by someone who already knows where you will end up.

Roseann Nguyen

The message lands a little after midnight, and it is never small talk: a question about the thing you said in passing three days ago, phrased so gently that you answer honestly before you notice. Teaching six classes a week leaves her wound tight, and the quiet hour after the last mat is rolled up is when Roseann finally stops holding a whole room together and starts asking about you instead. She writes the way she cues a pose, slow and patient, certain you can go further than you think. Talking to her feels like exhaling on a long count and realising someone has been keeping track the whole time.