Why Studio Rituel Is Paris’s Best-Kept Wellness Secret

Amid the clamour of high-volume fitness classes and performance-driven routines, Verena Tremel’s exercise philosophy stands apart: slower, more attuned to the individual and built for longevity. Through Studio Rituel, the Paris-based studio she founded in 2010, Tremel hopes to instill a love of movement, stripping back her classes to focus on the core values of the practices she offers.

A former professional dancer, she draws on decades of experience, integrating pilates, gyrokinesis, gyrotonic exercise and yoga into a methodology that resists the impulse to isolate muscles or overcorrect technique. Her approach is less about pushing harder and more about tuning in: to the breath, body and the connection that lies between. 

‘Rituel,’ as regulars affectionately call it, has become a kind of well-kept secret among Parisians seeking an alternative to the intensity of today’s workout landscape.

You often mention that you try to stay ‘client oriented’ when you teach. What do you mean? 

VT You guide your student until they can do it on their own. In a way that’s my dream, that every client becomes their own ‘guru.’ That’s how we used to do it with dance. We didn’t take private [lessons] all day long, we took classes until we could train on our own. You don’t have to, but it’s important that the client understands what they’re doing and not just blindly follows. 

And understands why they’re doing it as well… 

VT Exactly, I want them to understand why we’re doing it. If you want to burn your muscles, okay that’s fine, but where do you want to feel it? And do you realize now you’re not in alignment with your knees so you might burn these muscles? Are you aware of your misalignment? 

I think nowadays it’s so much in fashion to do 20 people in the same room, you have so many teachers out there who have a certification in a month or two weeks and it’s dangerous. On one hand, it’s great that people get to do stuff that’s more accessible, but on the other, you need to make the distinction of what is good for you. Is it just to move and follow blindly, or do you want to know what you’re doing? 

I can imagine that the awareness of understanding which part of the body you’re using can help with the mind body connection. Do you notice that it has this benefit? 

VT Absolutely. The client themselves will notice. Another principle of all these methods is breath. When you’re aware, you’re concentrated, you breathe and your nervous system is responding. So the nervous system goes into the parasympathetic system instead of being all the time in the sympathetic nervous system of stress. The stress level goes down, you can function better and your muscles can function better. There’s an overall wellbeing that’s always body and mind. 

Each discipline has a bit of a different approach, but in the end it uses the body as a whole. Even if I have a client who really wants to work on their arms, there will be no way I will do just an hour on the arms. It’s counterproductive. We respect the whole body and move it, and ideally you don’t even have sore muscles at the end. I think now there is a misunderstanding of people wanting to feel the burning. At some point my clients don’t feel that anymore because they’re in shape. If you work your body correctly, you’re not going to have that. You stretch, you breathe; this is all to prevent that thing that some people are looking for, that burn. 

How did you move from dance into this work? 

VT Actually I never moved, it just happened. Because those disciplines helped my dancing to stay in shape. Because dance is never really symmetrical, so our training is to make sure the whole body stays in shape, otherwise the career will be very short. Gyrotonics, I discovered in New York when I was 18; pilates, a little bit later; and yoga at the same time. So that kind of came naturally. 

I did the certifications not even to teach, but just for myself so I could train, and then it came naturally at some point. I was freelancing the last few years that I was living in New York and I did some projects and between these to make money I started teaching. In 2007 I had open heart surgery and after that I was more and more into teaching. It just happened. I love it. 

Still I feel like we’re dancing, especially gyrotonics, which is such a beautiful way to move. Even people who have never done any movement but start with that discipline, they have such a nice development of how they move that they almost become dancers. You don’t have to do dance classes to move better in your daily life. I’m not dancing anymore but it kind of feels like I am. It’s our continuation of the dance. 

How did you navigate opening the space in Paris? 

VT One of the things I wanted to create was a mini New York in one space. Because even in New York there wasn’t one place that did that: I went uptown for yoga, downtown for pilates, midtown for gyrotonics, so I wanted to have it all in one place. My dream, and now it’s happening, was that all my teachers would be able to not just teach pilates, or just yoga. They can adapt for what the client needs. At the beginning, 20 years ago, even pilates wasn’t really known yet – so that has evolved, and I think gyrotonic will be the next big thing because it’s much newer but still around long enough to be accepted. But since Juliu [Horvath, founder of gyrotonic] himself is still alive he really manages it well. You know what you get, which you don’t have in pilates or reformer. 

What does the word ‘ritual’ mean to you personally? 

VT It could be anything, but a ritual is kind of like a routine, but a routine is something ordinary whereas a ritual is something extraordinary. It’s something precious or sacred that has a place in your day. For each person, it might be something different, but it should be something special. Something that puts you into your place. I have one client who is elderly and she comes in because she is alone. She works out and she’s in great shape, but she comes in early, she stays late after just to hang out on the couch. That’s her ritual, something communal. Most people know each other [here] because it’s the same people coming in, it’s more family oriented than something chic and anonymous. There’s no competition here, I want people to feel at home. 

Who is your Mastermind? 

VT I have so many. [Yoga therapist] Joanne Avison she’s a beautiful person and she taught me a lot about anatomy. I met her during a human body dissection in Dublin and she was teaching. She’s a very holistic, spiritual person. There’s something in how she teaches anatomy, it’s called ‘Anatomy for the 21st Century.’ I invited her to Paris and she did a whole course. She’s one of my inspirations.