This week I did a Vinyasa
flow class. It’s probably the most popular class at my gym back home. It’s most
similar to Ashtanga because it is very sequenced, and focused on breathing. We
started out with sun salutations they called their Vinyasa. It was a sequence
of planks, chaturanga, and upward facing dog. The instructor kind of set the pace, but then
let us preform it on our own. After the salutations we moved into more complex
sequences that the instructor took us through. She kept reiterating breathing
and being efficient. The whole class seemed like a commercialized ashtanga, but
I think I liked it just as much as our in class practices. It was challenging
but laid back at the same time. The tempo was easy to keep up with, and the
poses had beginner poses if you couldn’t do the real one.
This week we did Bikram yoga in class. This practice was a very physical and left me more exhausted than previous classes have. This style was all about the body and not so much spirituality. All the directions made by the instructor had to do with positioning and the feeling of the stretch. For example while in the T stretch he told us to push our arms out forward and then kick our leg beck and imagine someone’s pulling it with a rope. That’s how intense he wanted the stretch to feel. There were really no instructions for breathing in this class, no closing the eyes and relaxing, he wanted all your focus on your physical movements. It was great. Being someone who enjoys bodybuilding I really enjoyed the focus this form of yoga puts on the mind muscle connection. It helps you control and feel your body better than any other class I've taken.
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