Thursday, 6 September 2012

HATHA-ED

One of the terms and conditions of the online Yoga deal which I got off from the internet is that the 5 Yoga sessions have to be completed within 3 weeks. In view of the looming deadline (this coming Saturday!), I had to squeeze in two sessions of Yoga this week. As such, I had my first taste of Hatha Yoga yesterday!

The instructor started off focusing on easy breathing exercises, starting us off with deep and slow breathings. While doing the deep-breathing warming up, I was beginning to have my doubts about Hatha. Compared to Hot Yoga, Hatha seemed harmlessly gentle. Breathe in, breathe out. Lungs expand, lungs relax. This nostril, that nostril. Stretch here, stretch there. 

Oh, boy, as usual, how mistaken I was! The beginning of the lesson was treacherously deceptive! 

Mid-way into the lesson, the workouts got more and more ridiculous (not all, though). I thought my spine was going to break into half! If you listened hard enough, you would have heard me cursing particularly venomously under my breath at Shoulder-stand pose, Locust pose, and Full Locust pose. To make things funnier, the instructor went around pressing down on our back to challenge our limits. It was a little hilarious, hearing poor innocent moans of "ahhhhh~~ ahhhhhhhh~~ ooooowwww~ AHHHWWW OUCHHH~~" when Instructor pushed the poor fella down during the Sit-Up pose.
 
The real killer turned out to be this pose called the Scorpion. 

Source : http://www.yogaclassesonline.net/hatha-yoga/


You need not listen hard at all to hear me swearing and whining this time round. None of us could execute this pose, and poor Instructor only had enough time to aid one person in this pose, while the rest of us tried to "smoke" our way through. Again, when lesson ended, everyone let out a collective sigh, and the fellow yogi who was on the mat next to mine exchanged glances with me and rolled her eyes tiredly.


Anyway, my last session of Yoga will be on Friday (tomorrow!). And I'm still deciding on whether to take up a 'per-session' package with them (too busy for unlimited packages). Anyone with any good Yoga places to recommend? I'm keeping my options open!

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