Yoga Alignment

The past few Saturdays have been particularly busy for me – one was for flying in for the Race Against Cancer 2010, the next was a long overdue appointment with Sharon and the past was getting the car serviced and the Fiesta Muzium Telekom Run 2010. As a result, it has been quite some time since I attended Richard’s class. For the weekends I have been around, I made up for it by joining Parveen’s yoga alignment classes at Yogshakti – thank goodness, there are still weekend evening classes! I would have loved to attend Volker’s Ashtanga Yoga class at Yoga Dynamics but this has longed been scraped.

Ivengar classes can be deceptive in the sense that while vigorous exercises are taken out of the module, holding the poses for an extended period (and correctly, I may add!) can be more challenging than a regular class. I was all achy for 2 days after my first class with Parveen! All the same, I enjoyed the classes and they do wonders in stretching many long forgotten muscles but I am missing Richard’s engaging demeanour. So I headed over to Bangsar yesterday evening for the Hatha 1 class.

There are very few Ivengar classes in Kuala Lumpur and even less qualified instructors such as Parveen. I wish I could slot in a session of Ivengar Yoga once a week but I have yet to come across any held during weekend evenings. Perhaps it is time to put Google to work since Richard mentioned that in addition to Yogshakti, Parveen leads classes in Bangsar.

Unfortunately Richard did not (and will not for the next 2 weeks) lead the class as he’s just back from a knee surgery – something about a fall from a bike a couple of weeks ago. Then again, Volker is a great teacher and I have always enjoyed his classes at Yogshakti. I woke up this morning with slightly achy hamstrings from yesterday’s asanas – seated forward bends and standing poses. A recap of the session:
a) Sun salutations
b) Triangle
c) Side angle pose
d) Wide legged forward bend
e) Seated forward bend
f) Single leg seated forward bend
g) Wide legged seated forward bend
h) Cobra
i) With stomach on mat, raised arms and legs for the lower back (I can’t remember the name of this one!!!)
j) Hip opener – lying on back with brick above pelvic bone
k) Chest opener – lying on back with brick under shoulder blades
l) Savasana

We held the poses for at least 10 – 15 counts or breaths and hence it felt very intense.