This week I participated in two yoga classes on Tuesday and Thursday. On Tuesday morning I did Iyengar yoga instructed by Amita Bhagat. Amita has been working full time as a yoga instructer after taking free yoga classes and even a class in becoming an instructor because she is very pationate about Iyengar yoga and enjoys teaching it to people. This particular class was very easy for me to follow along as a beginner and someone who is not very flexible. Amita broke down how we should do every move at a steady pace and even gave alternative positions if we couldn't do any specific movements or poses a certain way. She even mentioned that Iyengar yoga has an impact on not only your body but your mind and on a cellular level, even if we don't notice it. I really enjoyed the pace of this class and find to be one of my favorite type of yoga so far. Hopefully I will be able to find some more classes on Iyengar yoga during this semester. I felt very in tune with my body while doing her class and was even able do do some of the poses that I would have thought was impossible at the beginning of the semester. During this class I learned that this practice was named after its founder B.K.S Iyengar who created some of these poses to help people with their health because a lot of the people that came to him usually came to get help with their health problems. He even came up with the idea to use specific props to assist people while practicing.
On Thursday, I participated in an Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga class instructed by Andrew Eppler and demonstrated by Mila Eppler. Before we started the actual practice he played a video on Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga during a conference. We saw clips on some of the poses that could be done with this practice. One specific pose that stuck out to me was the one where a man was standing on another person's stomach while they were trying to keep themselves balanced. Although he was very clear on how we had to do the poses, I struggled to keep up with their pace and fully understanding what pose we were doing. Compared to Tuesday's class this one was more difficult and did not feel like it was something that I could do as beginner. It didn't help that when I woke up that morning my left shoulder was very stiff and caused me to be in a bit of pain when I tried to stretch with it. The poses that I found were a bit easier to follow along to were the ones that were similar to the warrior pose and to the ones that we did on Tuesday. One of the poses that awed me was the one that Mila did that involved her to move in a circle with her whole body and when she balanced herself with just her arms.
Both of these practices were very interesting to learn about and to do myself. I will say that I felt very balanced and grounded when I did Iyengar yoga but was very lagging and not as enthusiastic while doing the Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga. I will try to practice more on my own time to see if it becomes more easier with time or if it's just not the right practice for me. I look forward to looking more into Iyengar yoga.
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