This week the class I followed along was titled Gentle Yoga Flow - 30 Minute All Levels Yoga Class. The instructor that taught the class introduced herself as Ashton. This video was found on the YogiApproved.com Youtube channel. The first thing that I noticed about the video was the setting that the instructor created for this video. She was seated on a light brown yoga mat in the middle of the room and behind her was a set of large windows that were providing natural lighting. I also noticed that there were flower pots in the corner of the room. My setting on the other hand was very different since I started the class in the evening and needed to find one that would help me relax after a long day. One of the first things I did was turn on some instrumental music. I laid out my mat in the middle of my room and started the class.
We began and ended class in the same position, my most comfortable sitting position. The next thing that we did was breathing and stretching exercises. These exercises were done to center ourselves. During one of them I had to move my arms over my head and then down the middle, this was to control our breathing and to stretch my arms a bit. A few examples of the positions we did afterwards included the tabletop pose, the downward facing pose, and the child's pose. During the tabletop pose I had to move my hips right to left and then do a hip circle to try to relax my hips. While I did the downward facing dog pose, I had to make my body do the upside down V shape. Out of the three the child's pose was one of the easiest because it allowed me to relax a bit more while I was stretching my arms in front of my body and faced downwards. Towards the end of the video, we did the shavasana aka the corpse pose. This pose is used in asana in hatha yoga and in more modern yoga. It is commonly used at the end of an exercise for relaxation. I however found this to be the hardest part of the class because I couldn't really clear my mind and kept thinking about work.
Something that I noticed about the instructor during the class was that she was constantly talking about the exercise that we were doing together and exactly how I should be positioned during a certain pose. Her voice was soothing and didn't sound like she was trying to hurry up and get things done. She didn't rush anything and took her time to do it with me. She knew exactly what she was doing and seemed relaxed herself. She looked completely natural while doing each exercise.
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