Back to the Mat

I went to my first yoga session at this gym inside a mall in central BKK (about 30 minutes by bus from my building). I started yoga about four years ago when I was still living in Davao. And since then I've practiced it on and off, depending on my mood. Yoga is by far the most rewarding exercise I've tried. It improved my posture in a major way, my concentration is more focused, and I'm more in touch with my breathing (thus, helping me to calm down in stressful situations). Too bad though I did not bring yoga any further than just being the dilettante that I am right now, therefore, truly diminishing what effects it has on me.

Anyhoot, last night I signed up for Static Yoga, a style that I'm clueless about but the schedule suited mine. The room was heated and there were about 60 mats on the exercise floor. I chose the mat beside a cute, tall, Chinese-looking guy, for obvious reasons. Then came in the instructor who was pregnant (she did not do any pose). She conducted the class in both Thai and English, the latter being hardly comprehensible to me, so I ended up copying cutie Chinese-looking guy's poses (I love that excuse so I can glance at him every two seconds).

As I mentioned, I had no idea what bleeding Static Yoga is all about. We were doing the Darth Vader breathing (how do you call that again, Sarah? Vicel would kill me for this... was it Uyaji? Whatevs.), which I learned four years ago, but thanks to smoking I have completely lost touch how it's done. Instead, I found my self constantly choking on my saliva (icky!). The poses were quite fluid as well, compared with Ashtanga, the yoga I learned, which holds the poses for minutes on end. I didn't like that aspect of the session coz I'm more used to holding the poses longer and thus challenging more the muscles and allowing you to listen to your breathing and going deeper into the pose.

The heat of the room killed me of course. Water is allowed inside the room, thank god. The poses were doubly difficult coz I had to catch my breath all the time and I was dripping. While I was familiar with most of the poses, I was quite aghast with some unfamiliar ones (I don't even know what they're called). Just as I expected, I did well on the standing poses, especially the ones that require lots of balance (like the Eagle Pose and Tree Pose). But damn, my hamstrings were tight as hell. I could not reach my feet without bending my knees. I was totally embarrassed coz some of the students looked like pros. And there, my competitive side kicked in and I think I stretched my self too far.

I'm definitely going back for more classes; I'd probably go there three times a week. I'm just challenged with the possibility of getting back my flexibility and hopefully I can stand in front of the class in a month's time. Ambisyoso! Hahahaha. And oh, I have to comment about the number of hot guys in the class, which obviously keeps me motivated to come back for more.

Photo Credit: Imports Yoga