yoga class 2018

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 I tried a class at lifetime fitness called Surrender and it kicked my butt. I took it because I was told it would really get deep into my hips, and lower back to open them up from years of not stretching. The class left me about as sore as Bikram did. My hips and back are sore but I do feel like this class would help them if I kept going. I think the pain is from working on all the tension built up within those muscle groups. The class itself consisted of more repetition of the same poses that some other classes and we held the stretch much longer and deeper than I usually do. I feel like the two classes I’ve done at lifetime are much more commercialized. They do still use Sanskrit but only on occasion. Usually it’s Americanized (i.e. calling movements downward dog and stuff). I don’t really mind them not using Sanskrit but a true yogi might.

I tried another wake up class this week. I went in with no coffee or caffeine of any sort in order to see if it would truly wake me up. We started with some breathing and meditation to “wake up our mind”. We were supposed to visualize our day. What we were going to do, what we have to get done, stuff like that. We then moved into our sun salutations, which was a great way to work out all the stiffness and achiness from our nights sleep. I for one always wake up with a stiff back cause I sleep on my stomach and this was an excellent way to quickly loosen that up. After the sun salutations we moved on to other poses that apparently help your body get ready for the day. This class really does energize you and prepare you for the day, but I don’t think I can do without my coffee. If I incorporate both I might have the best wake up routine ever! I’m not really sure why type of yoga this was or what it was based after because it doesn’t seem to have a particular style like ...

This week I practiced Ashtanga yoga and it kicked my butt. An instructor came into our class and took us partway through the first series of Ashtanga yoga to help us get a feel for that form of practice. I enjoyed it. The practice was very physically demanding and the position our instructor has mastered was down right impressive. I can’t even imagine being able to contort myself into the shapes she could get into. With that being said, not only were the poses different from many yoga classes but the way she ran it and the things she emphasized and said were a little different too. She was big on doing the positions and doing them correctly. She didn’t want anyone to do them kind of how she said; she wanted them to do it exactly how she said. She also focused heavily on stretching for five whole breaths every time you did a pose. You breathe in for five seconds, exhale for five seconds, and repeat that five times. She also talked a lot about strengthening. This class wasn’t just abo...

This week I tried a class at my gym Lifetime fitness called “Root”. It’s a beginner class that’s super laid back and helps new yogis really learn the typical movements they’ll be doing. This class was way easier than the Bikram I did last week. I wasn’t sore after but I did feel much more knowledgeable about the positions I knew already as well as a few new ones.             This class showed me how to do cat cow poses, high lunges, and gate poses properly. I learned to like them so much because they open my hips and back which are constantly tight. I’ve since been doing these poses to start my day and to warm up my body before weight training. There wasn’t too much coaching on breathing or meditating because this class was more about getting reps in and practicing the poses. This was good for me since I’m new to this and it will help me get better and feel more prepared for other classes.

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.