I’ve attended a yoga class before and while I liked it, a 60-minute yoga class was a bit much for my wondering mind and beginner breathing and stretching skills. My husband signed us up for a gym membership at a gym that offers a variety of fitness classes. They teach a 60-minute class called Bodyflow that incorporates a blend of Tai Chi, Yoga and Pilates. I figured this would be a great class for me with a variety of the 3 different workout techniques to keep me engaged.
My first week of Bodyflow class went well. I am pretty sore, but I think it will get better each week. The class began with Tai Chi, which was the part I enjoyed the most. A lot of the Tai Chi moves we did involved pressure on the legs (particularly the thighs) and arms. Most of the moves are completed while you are in a standing squatting position (like this picture below).
I was so surprised at how much my arms were burning from the slow movements side to side with my arms at a slow pace. The instructor told us to have long deep breaths as we moved from side to side and back and forth. I could definitely feel the breathing help me go deeper into each movement.
We then moved into the Yoga portion of the class. I remember struggling with synchronizing my breathing with the different Yoga stretches when I took a Yoga class a few years back. I also struggled again with my breathing in during the Yoga part of Bodyflow class. I didn’t get a chance to ask my Bodyflow instructor for some tips on breathing better for Yoga, so I looked online and found a video tutorial on breathing for beginners in Yoga. I watched 3 of the videos and plan to finish the rest of them for better clarification on breathing techniques. I felt that I made it through most of the Yoga moves pretty well, but I could definitely learn to work into the stretches deeper over the next 7 weeks.
The Pilates portion of the class is probably the most physically exhausting. The music tracks for this portion were a bit more upbeat compared to the Yoga and Tai Chi music tracks. For this class the instructor focused the Pilates moves on the abdomen area. One of the hardest ab moves involved us laying flat on our backs with our legs together sticking straight up in the air. We had to keep our legs together and lower them about 6 inches from the floor and then raise our legs back to the straight-up position. We did several repetitions of these.
After Pilates, the instructor led us through some light Yoga moves to lower our heart rates. I found the breathing for the lighter and slower Yoga moves easier than the first set of moves we did at the beginning of class.
The last 10 minutes of class winds down with Shavasana time. The instructor asked us to lie down on our backs with our legs and arms gently out to our sides. Gentle ocean waves and peaceful music played in the background while the instructor told us to focus on our breathing and clearing our minds. I really struggled to "clear my mind" and then I found myself wondering what that even meant. The instructor told us to breath in and out and on our breath out, to push the current thought in our minds out. As my mind was so busy running from though to thought, I began to focus on my breathing, and on every out breath I had, I really focused on pushing that thought away. At the end of the Shavasana time the instructor told our class that this was one of the hardest poses because it requires an individual to completely clear their mind and be 100% thoughtless and aware of your physical body. I was glad to know that this was one of the hardest poses because I really struggled to clear my mind. However, looking back on it, I think it gave me energy. I'm hoping to get better at clearing my mind during Shavasana time in class.
