Yay4Yoga: Yoga in Prague

@YogaMe

17.30 - Vinyasa Flow with Rosie

Creepy baby statues!

Creepy baby statues (with YOGAME written vertically in between)! Eek. Creepy baby statues are everywhere here in Prague. It's just so funny. I even found a website listing "The 14 Most Unintentionally Terrifying Statues in the World" so click on this to check it out. I think like 3 of them are in Prague. I also visited the communication tower that has faceless babies crawling up it as you can see at the end of this blog. Anyway, that's the first thing I saw above the entrance. Otherwise, it was a beautiful building. I'm had to ring the buzzer, which I'm starting to get used to in all of these cities, to go upstairs to the studio. I was greeted by a lovely guy named Jaan, (spelling!?!) who said something in Czech. As I am so well-practised, I just launched into my usual: "I only speak English". He was only too happy to then respond in English and ask where I was from/engage in smalltalk about his travels in Australia. It was nice. He also informed me that it was a fill-in teacher today, who was Rosie from Spain and because she didn't speak Czech, the class would be taught in English. Phew! So yes, I have to admit, it was nice to have a class in English, because it meant I could actually relax a little more and not spend the whole time craning my neck around to watch and copy!

I was a week too early!

Whilst I was waiting, because I was UBER early, I saw a flyer saying that Manju P. Jois, the eldest son of THE Pattabhi Jois, the creator of Ashtanga Yoga, was visiting this very studio to conduct a workshop exactly a week later. Argh! Talk about timing. Alas, it was not meant to me. Also, they had this really cute flyer about (from what I can decipher) Ayurvedic cooking. I like the saying: "Eat Your Best, Leave the Rest". Genius!

The class was a lovely slow-flowing vinyasa style in which the teacher, who looked like some sort of ex-Flamenco dancer, just floated around the room elegantly and effortlessly whilst giving clear instructions in an accent that, well, you just don't wanna mess with. She was a hardcore yogi with like zero body fat, but she was clearly so experienced that she didn't even once skip a beat, miss an instruction or have to correct herself with lefts/rights. It was just incredible.

I can't remember any specific sequences because I was so worried about not doing a pose correctly when she walked past.I know. That's bad. Coupled with the fact that I'm really out of shape with this travel schedule and non-regular yoga practise, I just wanted to try and do my very best seeing as I'd claimed to be an important blog-writing travelling yogi. Well hey, they think I'm a celebrity in Leutkirch, Germany at least! Anyway, it's just amazing how quickly you can lose fitness/strength/flexibility. But (hopefully) equally amazing with how quickly it can come back right? Right?! I bloody hope so!

I could get used to all these high-ceilinged,
bay window studios.

One thing I did take mental note of for future reference and again, the entire point of this blog, was the positioning of the students in the class. The class was a fairly long rectangle shape, where the teacher's mat was in the middle and a few students on either side. It was good or a change to experience this configuration, but the only thing was when we went into Tree Pose (Vrksasana) and were trying t balance, we were often right in the line of sight of the person opposite us, so it was difficult to find that spot. Also, Rosie didn't skip a beat, but I think it would be difficult to get the left and right sides correct if you were int he middle and didn't have a reference looking straight at a student. That's just a personal thing for me to note though. I need all the help I can get if/when I ever become a yoga teacher!

Overall, a lovely class and a good experience to do a really slow flow class. I heart Prague!