@ Flight Skool AntiGravity Yoga 8.15am - Drop in class with Iain
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| Just a couple of glass doors and a set of stairs that lead to a fabulous warehouse of yoga fun! |
Before class started, there
were 2 other teachers and an assistant teacher in the room. I think this was
unplanned and turned out to be an added bonus, especially for us noobs. (For my
Mum and the one other fan of my blog: noobs = new people). One of the
teachers approached me with a step ladder and explained how to get my
sling/hammock/cocoon at the right height, between my hip bones and groin, and
then adjusted it accordingly. It just dawned on me that I perhaps should
have attended the Sunday workshop which is specifically for people who've never
done it before so you can get used to the terminology and technique. Too late
now!
Iain, the main teacher,
then began class by introducing the origins, principals and benefits of Aerial
Yoga which I thought was excellent. He then outlined a comprehensive list
of contraindications, which included all the usual suspects relating to
inversions in "normal" yoga, but also included Glaucoma.
Interesting. I think my grandmother suffered from this. She used to have
to put drops in her eyes every night the poor thing! Irrelevant.
The class began with lovely
slow, fluid movements of various poses with cool names like eggbeater and other
things I can’t actually remember. At
this point, it dawned on me how a beginner must feel in a "normal"
yoga class with all of the English and Sanskrit names. I was just trying to
concentrate on not toppling over, let alone remember the names of stuff! Note
to self when I start to teach: use lamen’s terms.
We did pretty much all of the well-known poses in yoga like Paschimottanasana (Forward bend), Ashva Sanchalanasana (Horse rider's or high lunge pose) and Balasana (Child's pose), just standing or hanging
versions. The trickiest part I found, was finding a drishti (focus point). Particularly in Utthita Hasta Padanagustasana
(Extended hand-to-big-toe pose) because our forward, outstretched leg was
resting in the sling, it was really disorienting to find a still point to
concentrate. Our only dritshi was our knee, which comes to think of it is
very Bikram-like, but our peripherals were completely taken up with the pretty
white silk fabric. Pretty challenging
though. Anyway, for the asanas, we just sort of bent,
stretched and twisted our bodies, using the sling for leverage and the power of gravity as a natural weight. It’s
really hard to explain, so you should really just go check it out yourself!
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| I have no idea what this pose is called... |
I was really
impressed with Iain’s teaching style. He gave clear and concise instructions
accompanied by real-time demonstrations, obviously a necessity for this style
of yoga. A teacher's
sling/hammock/cocoon was at either end of the room (the red one you can see in
the picture) so that once we were hanging upside down in...er...whatever it was
called, the teacher magically morphed to the other end of the room to take us
out of the pose. I actually didn’t even make it to the end of the pose
because there was too much blood rushing to my head and the sling thingy was
cutting into my fat rolls.
Being a grammar nerd, I
also appreciated that Iain used a plethora of multisyllabic words such as haberdashery, discombobulated and
undulation. It made me smile. Especially since I have been to a few yoga
classes where the English is, well, butchered. Oops, cynical me comes out! Back
to being Sattvic…
What also made me smile was
the chill out music playing ever so quietly in the background, including the
odd bit of jazz. Considering my first
ever class post-teacher training (taught to four friends in a loungeroom) was
accompanied by ABC Jazz through the television, I am actually a huge fan of
Jazz Yoga. Is that even a thing? Surely someone has invented it and patented it
already? If not, I think I’m going to make it a thing.
Overall, a fun class, with
lots of arm hanging stuff. I am going to check out the original Aerial Yoga
when I head to New York…in 5 DAYS TIME, weeeeeeeeeeeeeee…and will definitely come back to this class
when I return to Brisvegas.
Sequence: It was all a bit of a blur to be honest, but by far,
my favourite pose was hanging Savasana (Corpse pose). It was like we were wrapped up in a
cocoon. So very relaxing!
Coffee: First Pour, Montague St, West End. This was a regular haunt of mine when I lived around the corner. It has come along in leaps and bounds! Used to be just a warehouse selling coffee out of the big sliding doors, but is now a fully fledged coffee shop, complete with an area for dogs! Love!
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| Free Pour at West End also has a section for dogs which included fake lawn, a water bowl and a pot plant! |
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