It’s no secret that I love yoga, but I haven’t talked much about it recently—mainly because I haven’t been taking many classes (the move, the injury, the lack of a studio…) Which is why I’m excited to take YogaWorks’ Fall Into Yoga 14-day Challenge starting today. The challenge is $14 for 14 days of classes in-studio (California & New York only), or free (trial) online through YogaWorks. Sign up/read more here: yogaworks.com/fallintoyoga
I’ve tried hard to keep up my stretching while I’m not taking class (I see you, Doc T, and know that stretching is different than yoga!!!), but there’s just no substitute for the hour of moving meditation a class space provides. My opinion on yoga is that it is:
a) necessary
b) a supplement to gym workouts
c) necessary
I’ve experienced what I feel is a progression most competitive athletes go through with yoga: we start with Bikram, because its challenging atmosphere most closely mimics our experience in sport. We then maybe start to explore vinyasa, maybe hot vinyasa, ashtanga, which we find too stringent, kundalini, which we find too weird, and maybe into yin or restorative. But until we’ve been taking yoga regularly for a few years, we don’t really understand yin—isn’t it really boring to lay on the floor? Shouldn’t I be working harder? What a freakin’ relief it is when we reach a level of practice where yin is a welcome refuge! And then we can appreciate the other styles, and we go back and try ashtanga again, or maybe less aggressive vinyasas.
In my new locale in HB, I’ve yet to find my home studio (still holding on to Ekam in Newport Beach)—I’ve found a few instructors I like, but have to hop around to take their classes. I didn’t like the YogaWorks in NB, but here’s hoping the HB one is better. Their classes appear to be mostly vinyasa and hatha, so we’ll see!
Lemme know by posting a comment if you wanna take this challenge, we’ll keep each other accountable! 14 classes in 14 days!