Anima sana in corpore sano

Last week I had made myself a promise to start proper yoga practice this week. Out of several studio alternatives I picked out Flow Yoga on West Pender, mainly because it had been recommended and it was within walking distance (well, twenty minutes walk). I picked my class, flow yoga - ashtanga vinyasa based yoga - and just when I was stepping out of the door J-Ko skyped me... I was tempted to stay and chat, but he ushered me to go. Weather was nice and warm, and twenty minute brisk walk was enjoyable.

When I got to the studio, I was greeted warmly, and after hearing different options of payment, I decided to go with an introductory offer of one months limited classes - apparently it pays itself back if I take two classes a week, and I'm hoping to get back to three so it made sense. The studio is small, but quite spacious, with large windows opening to the street - but practice was done towards the mountains, lovely. Tempterature was very warm and comfortable, I love practising in an already heated room, something that my previous studio was lacking. Unfortunately they didn't have any changing rooms as such, so I changed in the bathroom - most students seemed to come in with their yoga gear on. Our teacher was called Kelly, and she explained the basic principle of flow yoga - emphasis on getting the the vinyasas (movement) right and letting on the asanas (postures) follow.

We started with meditation and omm (which after Red Dwarf I'm incabable of taking seriously) which was slower than I prefer - in ashtanga you'd just jump right in. This might be just a matter of getting used to though, I was expecting something else so maybe that's why I didn't like it. Class used quite a lot of ashtanga vinyasas, starting with both Surya Namaskars, then moving into different triangle asanas, all done on one side first, then another - in fact it was lot harder work than what I was expecting. Flow yoga by description kind of sounds like toy version of ashtanga but it was hard work on it's own - partly probably because I'm slightly out of shape. We did a full hour of standing asanas before getting to the mat, then maybe ten minutes of sitting postures before moving to relaxation.

In the end my muscles were trembling, and even now, typing tires my arms. Oh, I'm going to be sore tomorrow. Alltogether a good experience, and I'm going to try to do my three classes a week this month before deciding if this is the studio I want to go with.

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