JUST WANNA USE THIS SPACE TO DECLARE...

... YOU'RE THE BEST! :)

Yelp yelp!

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!

YO-YO-YO.... GAAAAAA!!!

I've recently embarked on an activity which is totally new to me. YOGA. And hot Yoga at that.

I've always warranted Yoga a lackluster mindset, believing it to be all hype and no substance. Flexibility, yep. Balancing, ditto. Flushing off body toxins, sure. BUT!!! Meditation? Chanting? Calm and inner peace? Spiritual tranquility and mental well-being? GAH! IT ALL SOUND SO FLAKY. Unimpressed and dismissive, I was.

I've always been in favour of core exercises; preferring Pilates over flexibility-focused Yoga. Yoga just seemed, well, soft. And what good is flexibility and balancing without a strong core? It's like a tree without deep roots.

And so, it was with this nonchalant-cum-haughty attitude when I purchased a Groupon deal online for Yoga a couple of months back. I figured that it would be no harm a try. After all, it is a good deal; working out to be less than SGD$6 per session (totally worth it!). And, after Pilates, what is Yoga? Or so I thought.


The first session (3 Saturdays ago), surprisingly, induced a limp jelly out of me. The seemingly innocent-and-oh-so-easy poses, surprisingly, are a bit of a challenge to hold with the passage of time. Regardless, I completed the first lesson with relative ease and a good ending note; giving myself a mental pat on the back while using the showering facility post-Yoga. THE NEXT DAY, however, my entire body was aching and crying foul. Arms. Thighs. Hamstrings. Shoulder. Upper back. Butt cheeks. You name it.

The second session (2 Saturdays ago) got relatively tougher. The poses started to get more and more demanding. I had some difficulty holding the Balancing Stick. And nearing the end of the Yoga session, I was sweating buckets and was developing a slight heavy head. The resultant muscle ache the next day made the previous one pales magnificently in comparison. Oh gosh, in fact, my muscles were protesting like rebels!

The third session (2 days ago on the 1st) nearly wiped me out. The instructor is going on to more and more advanced poses. At the end of the lesson, a collective sigh of relief was heard from all the yogis. Me? I wasted no time and grabbed my bottle and towel, retrieved the necessary items from the locker, and headed to the shower. 

 
In conclusion, Yoga is totally NOT as 'soft' as I had mistakenly anticipated it to be. It is definitely not as easy as it looks. And I'm not regretting taking up Yoga one bit! I'm enjoying it loads! Tremendously!

LONG TIME NO SEE = HONEST JUDGEMENT?

At a work dinner on Friday night at Mount Faber, an ex-colleague dropped by and commented casually, "Hey! You've lost weight."

My gosh, this is such a heavenly delight to the soul! Considering that I was just commenting casually in the previous entry hoping that I would lose some weight, and indeed, voila! Someone just had to comment on exactly that a week later! Coupled with the fact that I've not really been keeping up with exercise (read : pilates or workouts or sit-ups), this is such a pleasantly unexpected surprise. And, of course, this coming from someone whom I've not met in months (honest judgement!) is like the icing on the cake!

I'm still lightheaded with pure happiness! Gawww~

Ohhh... Let me preen. *contented sigh*