Hip Hop Yoga

@Yoga213

9.00am - Chill
10.30am - Hip Hop

Can't. Move. Arms. Too. Much. Yoga.

Well, after doing back-to-back classes, I guess I deserve to not be able to move my arms. But, it's good pain, not bad pain! So since I've become a yoga teacher, I've always had a couple of hip hop, r'n'b, reggae, funk and even jazz on my playlists. Having started hip hop dance with the amazing Jasmine Meakin (um, over 200 million views on YouTube anyone?!) in the mid 90s in Brisbane, I guess I have always had a love for hip hop and everything ghetto. When I discovered Hip Hop Yoga about a year ago, the fusion of two of my favourite things, I knew that eventually I wanted to teach this style. 

The studio. Yay for fake grass and potted palms!

Now that there are two official Hip Hop Yoga studios in Australia, I decided to visit the one in Sydney (the other is in Melbourne) and see what it was like for real!  I bundled a couple of my students, Olivia and Mary, into my X-Trail at the horrid time of 6.30am on a Saturday morning. Isn't it funny how your body always seems to know it's a weekend and makes it that much more difficult for you to get out of bed? We arrived in Bondi, the land of beautiful, skinny people (think mini-LA), with enough time to have a coffee and talk about yoga. Seeing as I'm still relatively new in the country town of Mittagong, in the beautiful Southern Highlands of New South Wales, about an hour out of Sydney, it's nice to automatically have friends in the form of yoga students. It is still so funny that my non-yoga friends thought that I woke up one morning and decided to be a yoga teacher, which, in their defence, is a legitimate opinion seeing as most of my 63 job that I've had have come about in that exact fashion! But, the majority didn't know that I'd already been practising for 15 years, mostly in my lounge room to the same Geri Yoga DVD!  I believe it's such a personal, sacred practise that you can just do by yourself, for yourself, with no judgement or competition. 

Anyway, off we trotted to the studio to do our back-to-back classes! The studio itself had a lovely beachy feel with semi-vintage pieces of furniture, bunting (I LOVE BUNTING!) and a common theme of pineapples! Our instructor, Tarsha, is also the studio manager and is totally laid back and cool. Man, I wish I was cool.  I've just never been one of those cool people who carry myself with ease and wear trendy, hipster things. I've just always been a bit awkward, frequently tripping over my own size 10 feet, and usually offending at least one person a day with my no social filter.  Anyway, yeah, she was cool.  My friends and I introduced ourselves and she was so excited that we'd driven all the way from the "country",  just to come to her classes!  It was pretty cool…just like her…not me. We put our stuff on a shelf and then went into the studio and chose our mats, at the back of course! The outlook was a balcony overlooking the building next door and a bit of sky, with fake grass, I LOVE fake grass!  I always think that if you have fake grass, it should be compulsory to accessorise with a plastic flamingo and some sort of palm tree. Needless to say, there were real palms. Happy days. 

Chill:

Thank you Side Crow lady. This is not me. 

Both classes were amazing! I don't think I've ever done so many arm balances in one class before. The chill class was a slower Vinyasa class, but my friends and I agreed that it was actually harder than the Hip Hop one afterwards! One of the highlights for me was ss we were in Chair or Firece Pose (Utkatasana), we then twisted to the side and were given the option to do Side Crow (Parsva Bakasana). I gave it a red hot go and for the first time, I actually got both of my legs extended with a one arm balance!  I was so excited that I toppled forward and fell onto my head. Onwards and upwards. Unfortunately, I am still balancing on both arms, so I was so stoked to randomly balance on one.  We then did normal Crow (Bakasana) and did the jump back into plank, which I can totally do now too yay! Tarsha demonstrated it perfectly of course and then continued her teaching, just cruising around the class seemingly floating on a cloud of coolness.

Olivia and Mary with fancy tea. 

Tea break:
After the Chill class was over, Olivia, Mary and I all hung out in the foyer area and Tarsh gave us a delicious Macqi, Acai and Cacao Luvju Raw Organic Superfood Energy Bar from LovingEarth. Now, I don't know what any of those ingredients are, but seeing as I can't pronounce them properly, I'm sure they are all really good for me.  We definitely felt healthier afterwards!  We washed them down with a T2 Tea as Tarsh introduced us to the incoming students for the 10.30 class.  Everyone was so friendly and also looked as us like we were aliens, driving all the way from the "country" to do yoga in the big smoke! Off we trotted, newly energised after our hard-to-pronounce food and embarked on our second class.

Hip Hop: 
The main difference between the Chill and Hip Hop was that the music was much LOUDER and we flowed through the Vinyasa between almost every pose. It was just exhausting. I think we were probably already fatigued from the Chill class so it did make it a little harder. It included more advanced poses including Bird of Paradise Pose (Svarga Dvidasana) and Reverse Bird of Paradise (Parivrtta Svarga Dvidasana) which I didn't actually know was a thing until today! Then finishing off with Headstands (Sirsasana). Tarsh demonstrated a really effective step-by-step method to get into Headstand, giving Dolphin (Makarasana) as the low option, and immediately making me decide that I need to do my Level 2 Teacher Training ASAP. I am not qualified at all to teach inversions like Headstands and a few students have asked me to do them, but I just have to say no.  It makes me sad that I can't offer my students the full gamut of yoga because I'm still such a newbie!  The relaxation (Savasana) at the end was lovely and accompanied by more relaxed hip hop music. Oh, I totes forgot, the music itself had a mix of old school and modern day stuff, from Kriss Kross, Will Smith and Beyonce to well, more modern day stuff that I don't know the names of. I really liked that she kept the music going for Savasana rather than complete silence. I think I will definitely roll like this when I start teaching my Power Yoga with funk/hip hop fusion (I can't call it Hip Hop Yoga unfortunately because it's now officially trademarked) back in the country.

Teaching:

My students in Savasana…soooooo relaxing :-s

Tarsha had a really relaxed vibe in her teaching style. Her voice was nice and just loud enough to hear over the crazy beats! She rarely did the sequences and taught almost completely verbally. One day I hope to get there. I am still teaching on my mat and occasionally leaving to do adjustments, but with each class I get more and more confident in my verbal cues. It is a little trickier teaching in gyms because I almost always get beginners who invariably rely on the visual.  On a side note, I've put in a picture of one of the gyms I teach at. I explained to Tarsh that it actually has no walls and we often listen to the grunting of guys doing weights or the sound of people running on the treadmill. If it wasn't so funny, it would be tragic.  Gyms are never conducive to teaching yoga, let alone in a "studio" with no walls, but you gotta start somewhere right?  One day I will teach at a proper yoga studio! Finally, Tarsh did a fabulous adjustment/stretch when I was in Lord of the Fish Pose (Ardha Matyendrasana) enabling me to almost look to the wall next to me from the other side! Crazy town!  Oh and in Savasana, she extended my legs and did the push down thing on my shoulder and pelvis which I've only ever done on students sporadically myself, but have never really experienced the benefits. DEF adding this to my repertoire.

View from Tamarama Beach.

Overall, it was everything I dreamed of and more. On the way home, we headed to the Tamarama Beach to do a bit of a coastal walk and it was just the perfect end to the morning. 

Click here for an article from the Sydney Morning Herald about Yoga213. 

Coffee: We went to a trendy place called About Life which had great coffee, a sunny aspect and lots of trendy people with even trendier dogs. The food selection was amazing and had everything from pale to macro to vego. Definitely recommend.

Me, Tarsh, Mary and Olivia.