Alliance Francaise
810 N. Dearborn
312-337-1070
I’ve been taking yoga classes for about a dozen years now and have only been able to completely quiet my mind and block out the world once—and that was during yoga en francais at the Alliance Francaise. The class is tiny, and the Hatha style of yoga is taught by native French speaker Zineb Chraibi, who expertly guides and remonstrates me to slow down and deepen my inspiration and expiration, or to keep my epaules from hiking up around my oreilles. All of this instruction is incredibly relaxing—and for some reason when I’m doing le chien tete en bas, I feel a lot more graceful than I do when I’m in downward-facing dog. —S.L. Wisenberg