Fitness & movement in Perth

The state aquatic centre on Stephenson Avenue, still widely known as HBF Stadium, running deep-water aqua classes alongside its pools and gym floor. Deep water means the feet do not touch the bottom and buoyancy equipment holds you up, which the centre notes is open to people who are not confident swimmers. Classes come with gym membership or can be paid for singly.

A City of Canning centre running three distinct aqua classes rather than one generic timetable: Aqua Fit as a cardio and conditioning session for sixteen and over, Aqua Stick using rubber bands on a bar for added resistance, and Revitalise Aqua, a low-impact class the city describes as designed for people over fifty. A second pool runs the same programme at Riverton. Bookings open twenty-two hours before each class.

A Fitzgerald Street studio that takes adults seriously as dancers rather than as an afterthought to the children's timetable — its own description is Perth's only studio teaching exclusively adults and mature-age students. Nineteen styles run across the week, from ballet and tap to flamenco, Bollywood, K-pop and heels, and the levels start at absolute beginner and go through to professional. Six-week BASICS courses run from $120.

A Wangara academy running since 1987, with Zen Do Kai, Muay Thai, Brazilian jiu jitsu, boxing and MMA on one adult timetable from sixteen years up. The studio is unusually direct about what walking in cold feels like — its own wording is that beginners find structure, patience, and a community that remembers what it felt like to start from nothing. A two-week unlimited intro pass is $29.

Brazilian jiu jitsu, capoeira and Muay Thai taught in Malaga, with a second room in Ellenbrook, by instructors the centre says are qualified at international level. Capoeira is the uncommon one here — the Brazilian art that sits between martial art, dance and music, and it runs for adults as well as children. A FIFO programme is scheduled around swings rather than weeks.

Sifu James Lui teaches Choy Lee Fut kung fu alongside Lohan qigong at three hall-and-oval venues across the river — South Perth, Brentwood and Myaree. The qigong is not a warm-up bolted onto the martial art but its own stream, which is rarer in Perth than the number of kung fu schools would suggest.

A Matlock Street studio with an unusually wide timetable for a Pilates address — reformer classes and studio sessions share the building with an infrared sauna, an Inside Flow yoga class, kinesiology and a mobility and balance class. A second location runs on Angelo Street in South Perth. Useful if you would rather book one place for several different things.

An Innaloo practice on Ellen Stirling Boulevard running reformer classes and a gym floor alongside the physiotherapy rooms, with an infrared sauna on site. A standing over-fifties strength class runs under its own name rather than being folded into the general timetable. HICAPS is on site, so health fund claims are processed at the desk.

A Hardy Street studio running barre alongside reformer and matwork, which is less common than it sounds — most Perth barre classes sit in gyms rather than Pilates studios. The studio is explicit that no dance background is expected; its own test is whether you can hold a barre. Yoga and private sessions run on the same timetable.

Two studios south of the river — Entrance Road in Coogee and Hammond Road in Cockburn Central — with the broadest Pilates timetable in the area: barre, clinical, reformer, mat, trampoline reformer, pregnancy and post-natal classes, plus TRX and boxilates. Classes run mornings, evenings and weekends. A two-week beginners' trial is $59, and a fifteen-minute phone consult is free.