Yoga/Pilates fusion class

Bravo · Feb 20, 2008

so last night i went to the gym a little later than normal and saw people shuffling into one of the studios.

i checked around to see who was the cutest girl there, and then asked her what the class was for. she told me she was the teacher for a yoga/pilates fusion class.

so seeing that she was pretty attractive and i have always prided myself on my balancing skills (it helps being as symmetrical as i am), i told her i'll try it out.

things started out just fine, i've done yoga many times before and i thought i looked fairly impressive.

but then i discovered that the girl was a pretzel.

and i was a wimp.

she actually came over and told me i didn't have to do one of the moves the full way, i could rest on my elbows until my arms get stronger.

a very embarrassing moment for me.

dpaterso · Feb 20, 2008

But somehow, in a way you can't quite explain yet because you still have the tingles, it also excited you. I understand.

I just hope she doesn't have cause to say the same thing to you again, should you advance to a social dialogue.

-Derek

Sarita · Feb 20, 2008

I do yoga/pilates almost every day. Last year, a few guy friends came along to a class with me. They were bragging like it wouldn't be a problem. They were pretty strong guys. LOL. They were sweating like crazy about 6 minutes into the class and they were terrible. The instructor actually told them to leave within 15 minutes because they needed a beginners class, or to just do cardio.

I think women are just naturally more flexible. Don't feel bad, Bravo. How terrible could it be to have a hot instructor?

Bravo · Feb 20, 2008

Saritams8 said:
I think women are just naturally more flexible. ...How terrible could it be to have a hot instructor?

yeah.

i've now decided that it might not be a bad idea to be married to a yoga instructor.

Bravo · Feb 20, 2008

yoga and pilates deserve better.

JLCwrites · Feb 20, 2008

Love them both.

RLB · Feb 20, 2008

Saritams8 said:
I do yoga/pilates almost every day. Last year, a few guy friends came along to a class with me. They were bragging like it wouldn't be a problem. They were pretty strong guys. LOL. They were sweating like crazy about 6 minutes into the class and they were terrible. The instructor actually told them to leave within 15 minutes because they needed a beginners class, or to just do cardio.

I do Bikram (the hot yoga) regularly, and I brought my husband with me last weekend. He's pretty athletic and training for a half marathon right now. It kicked his butt. (but he didn't fall over like I did the first time)

Sarita · Feb 20, 2008

Hot yoga is HARD! I do Vinyasa, I love saluting the sun, and occasionally Iyengar, when I feel out of whack. Today, Iyengar. Didn't fix the whack.

Bravo · Feb 20, 2008

RLB said:
I do Bikram (the hot yoga)

go on...

tell me more about this hot yoga.

WendyNYC · Feb 20, 2008

I do a yoga/pilates/dance based class called core fusion and the few guys who do show up for it have a very hard time. It's ok you couldn't do it. Expected, even. It amuses the women to see men struggle.

aruna · Feb 21, 2008

Yoga is not a competition. It doesn't matter at all if you can't do the advanced postures; that is not what matters. It is about focussing and steadying the mind, and you can do that as much with a beginner posture as with an advanced one, and nobody can see that but you yourself. It doesn't matter at all who can do it or who can't.

Any Yoga instructor worth her salt will look to your inner qualities of devotion and absolute focus on her.

(OK, that last was meant as a joke but the first sentences aren't. It always bugs me when people show off publicly how "advanced" they are. that is decidedly NOT Yoga. Not saying that your lady was showing off, but many do, including Madonna. It's a total sabotage of what Yoga really is.)

I don't know anything about Pilates. Perhaps that's where the competition element comes in? Dunno. Whatever.

RLB · Feb 21, 2008

Bravo said:
go on...

tell me more about this hot yoga.

A room about 106 degrees. Everyone dripping with sweat. Scantily-clad bodies contorting into all sorts of strange positions. Though before you get too excited, I should warn you about the speedo-wearing, hairy-backed man with gas I inevitably wind up standing behind.

Saritams8 said:
Hot yoga is HARD! I do Vinyasa, I love saluting the sun, and occasionally Iyengar, when I feel out of whack. Today, Iyengar. Didn't fix the whack.

I haven't tried any other yogas yet; Bikram was my first yoga experience, and I loved it right off (well, ok, maybe by about the third class). I've been meaning to try others though.

Sarita · Feb 21, 2008

Vinyasa is all about heating your body up by movement. It's pretty deliberate, but it's a series of sun salutations. I really love them. And Iyengar holds single poses longer, so as to realign the body, flush out toxins, bring on positive thinking. Yesterday, I was so far out of whack. Did an hour of Iyengar last night and today, no whack despite my 3 hours of sleep last night. I prefer Vinyasa, but Iyengar usually does work for me. And talk about a de-stresser!

I do it on my own, now. The instructor started throwing in more and more pilates and I prefer yoga. Every now and then I watch an episode of Aire Yoga (from V-Me channel) just to be sure I'm still holding the poses right.

Bmwhtly · Feb 21, 2008

Yoga? Is that a cult?

Shadow_Ferret · Feb 21, 2008

So bravo, how many hours before you get your pilates license?

I like airplanes.

aruna · Feb 22, 2008

I first learned Yoga in 1971. It turned my life around big time. Within a month I had dropped about 30 pounds of excess weight, stopped drinking and smoking, and found solid ground under my insecure teenage feet. I was 19.

I became an Iyengar Yoga instructor in 1981; I was living in Cambridge, Mass. at the time and it was the obvious option, as that was the only schooling available. Personally I MUCH prefer Selvarajan Yesudian's method, who was the first to bring Yoga to the West eons ago. It was his book Sport and Yoga that had transformed me (written with his partner, Elizabeth Haich). Yesudian is more classic, more true to the original concepts of Yoga, less Wetsernized. But he was based in Switzerland and is not known at all in the US. He is long dead of course but his school is still going strong in Switzerland. I have a close friend, 99 years old, who studied with him personally.

Another teacher I greatly like is Andre Van Lysebeth, based in Belgium. He has a very good book,Yoga Self taught, which I used to recommend widely. I taught Yoga for a couple of years in Germany.

The difference between Yoga and athletic training is that Yoga stretches the muscles instead of developing them. In a normal workout, you push yourself; in Yoga, you let go. If you "can't" do a particular posture, you relax even further, and presto. The deeper you learn to consciously relax muscles, the more you can stretch them. The result is the ease and fluidity of a cat, thus those pretzel people; but the best part is the mental effect. here's an explanation from an article I found:

Yoga views a person’s posture as a physical manifestation of one's inner state. One's view of the world and one's mental, emotional and spiritual state reflects in one's general deportment, including how one postures oneself. Deficiency in posture often begins in childhood with lack of awareness which becomes habitual and self-sustaining. This pattern becomes further reinforced and perpetuated by the stress in our lives and chronic neuromuscular tension. Yoga can change this.

Conscious static stretching, (the various original postures of classical yoga, about 20 in number) is the first step. This is how you begin to penetrate and disintegrate the old status quo, that is, the chronic patterns of neuromuscular tension which have been sustaining less than optimal posture. Important to note: yoga poses should always be adapted to the specific individual doing them; in classical yoga, stretching is always done gently, in a natural manner biomechanically, and with a feeling of relaxation. If it hurts or makes you sore afterwards, or if it feels wrong, it means something is wrong. "Not strong, not complicated" is the adage in classical yoga.

To increase your benefit it's important to understand that the stretch is just the beginning of a process which needs to be completed. The stretch creates a magic moment: by releasing tension, the stretch makes the neuromuscular system receptive to positive change. You want to take full advantage of this. Right after your major stretches i.e. several times each class, you simply recline on your back and, with eyes closed, you completely "let go". You drop off into a sort of "half-sleep, half-awake" state where the relaxation feels so good you just don't want to move. It's known as "deep alpha" in biofeedback, referring to slowed brain-wave activity occurring during deep meditative states. This is the secret. Yoga stretching combined with such deep relaxation enables a natural re-organization of the tension holding patterns within the neuromuscular system, one benefit being better posture. This is the key which awakens yoga's legendary benefit to the fullest.

Devil Ledbetter · Feb 23, 2008

aruna said:
(OK, that last was meant as a joke but the first sentences aren't. It always bugs me when people show off publicly how "advanced" they are. that is decidedly NOT Yoga. Not saying that your lady was showing off, but many do, including Madonna. It's a total sabotage of what Yoga really is.)

Aruna, you are so right. I do Hatha yoga. It's not about achievement. It's about trying to the best of your ability, and gradual improvement.

Yoga/Pilates fusion class

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