From Paris to Campan to make your dream come true, a house dedicated to Yoga

Although Laure Labadens was born in Champagne, she always knew that one day she would come and settle in her father’s native village. “Since I was little, I’ve often come here and it’s a place where I’ve always felt good. I loved coming here to recharge my batteries, I’ve always loved these mountains, the proximity to nature. I feel in my element here and my dream, since I was very young, was to settle here”, confides the now Campanoise.

To go from dream to reality, Laure Labadens had to wait a few years but, thanks to her determination, and a beautiful alignment of the stars, she can now fully savor her new life, far from the hustle and bustle of Paris and her job in a large French company.

“Give another meaning to my life”

A happiness shared by her husband, just as delighted to put down his suitcases at the foot of the Pyrenees.

“With my husband, we started thinking about it two years before the Covid. When, after the Covid, he learned that he could telecommute full time, we didn’t hesitate for a second. With my brothers and sisters, we inherited this house and the adjoining barn and they agreed to sell me their share”, explains this former executive who now devotes herself entirely to her passion, or rather an art of living, yoga.

“I have always done meditation and yoga, and even more during the Covid. At the beginning of 2020, I did a fifteen-day retreat in India. Ten days after my return, we were confined. During the confinement, I I was working a lot and to compensate, I did even more Yoga, which helped me a lot during this period. I had done a training, at the beginning just to go further in my practice. And then, I gave a course and it was a revelation”, recalls the one who now wants to transmit the benefits of this practice to others.

From a fairground barn to a yoga house

“After 25 years of working in large groups, I wanted to give another meaning to my life, to bring good to others,” she explains. Once her diploma in hand, while she still lives in Paris, Laure Labadens therefore embarks on teaching, first remotely during confinement, with free lessons to “feel legitimate”. Encouraged by the success of her first lessons, she launched her first face-to-face sessions, no longer in the capital but in Campan.

“In the meantime, we have made our move a reality and I was able to give my first lessons last year at the Campan village hall, while we were finishing the work on the Yoga house”, recalls- does it debut. Heavy work to transform the fairground barn made quite simply of a beaten earth floor, four stone walls and a roof into a warm place that brings serenity and calm as soon as you cross the front door.

Since the start of the school year, she can therefore finally receive her clients at “Maysou Yoga” without giving up her remote sessions. “Despite the return to normal, some have remained faithful to these online courses for various reasons. Who to avoid journeys, who to be able to practice with distant friends or family,…” she indicates.

But in Campan, it is the locals who attend her classes and Laure Labadens is delighted. “I am happy to be able to bring this practice to the valley and open it up to as many people as possible. Most of my clients come from the Campan valley and they are between 16 and 84 years old,” she enthuses.

In addition to her various yoga classes (mix yoga, yin yoga, special gentle yoga for seniors), Laure Labadens also offers sound relaxation sessions (which she also gives to spa guests at the Grands Thermes de Bagnères), courses and retreats. “I don’t do accommodation, there is already what it takes for that in the valley and I prefer to work with the socio-professionals in place”, she specifies.