Yoga in a park in Vienna

@Kula Yoga at Stadtpark, Wien

9.00am - Vinyasa flow with Carola Fassl

Is there such thing as Duck pose?

I have learnt so many things from this ONE class alone! This yoga trip just paid for itself! Well, not really. Especially seeing as I have officially run out of money and need to try and stretch it all the way to Croatia over the next couple of weeks.  Anyhoo, for anyone who sturggles with nerves/anxiety about teaching, of which I have for many years, take note of someone who is bilingual.  This lovely yoga teacher woke up this morning, ready to teach her lovely park yoga in her native tongue, German, well, technically Austrian, but apparently it's a sort of dialect of German. Turned out that there were 9 students. Myself and one other girl were the only English speakers.  I insisted that she teach in German because I understand bits and pieces. She then systematically asked every single student if they spoke English and decided on the spot to teach the class in English instead!  I was floored. I apologised to everyone, but profusely thanked them too.  I couldn't believe it. To be able to slip so easily into a second language is just incredible. I am definitely taking language classes when I get home!

The class was in the Johann Strauss Meadow. Delightful!

We began with a type of breathing that I've never done in my life. It starts with 'b'. Hang on, I'll just Google it...yeah, no idea. I totally forgot to ask her, but basically we sat cross-legged, put our hands in fists with thumbs tucked in and on the inhale, our arms would stay bent but swing up and over our head and on the exhale they would swing back and this would continue like a pendulum. It was cool. (If anyone still reads my blog and if those people know what this breathing is called, please email me. I've discovered that my comments don't work for some reason. Any suggestions about that too?!)

We then started off with a kind of warm up that I've never done before in a yoga class. Imagine one of those old school warm-ups you did for sport at school.  Like remmeber when the teacher picked someone for warm up and you did like the standard arm circles, lunges, star jumps, stuff like that? Well, we didn't do any star jumps, but we did do arm circles. So like circle your arms backwards and then forwards. Put your hands on your hips and circle them one way and then the other.  Stretch your neck either side, look up, down, links, recht etc etc (Look at me speaking German!) So yeah, it was actually really cool. Kinda got us all warmed up. Then we went into Cat/Cow and did the following series which I think I am actually going to use!

Kind of like this red cat. Thank you Asian man.

Bidalasana with leg variations:

• Inhale, leg outstretched to the back,
• Exhale, curl knee towards chest
• Inhale, leg outstretched
• Exhale, curl knee towards inside of opposite elbow
• Inhale, leg outstretched
• Exhale take knee to outside of same elbow
• Inhale, leg oustretched
• Exhale, leg straight out to side, leg perpedicular to the body, foot flexed.

She then repeated this sequence on the left hand side. Then we did some other stuff in between which I can't remember. Then we repeated this sequence once we were  in Down Dog (Adho Muka Svanasana) and modified it by coming into plank on all of the exhales. It was just brilliant. It reminded me of my Guerilla Yoga in Paris class where we built on each pose to lead to a culminating pose at the end. I find this technique really effective. I believe the style is Anusara from memory?  Really useful, especially for beginners. It's just like dance choreography really.

Sneaky pic I took during Paschimottanasana. 

One of the most difficult things, particularly at the beginning of the class, was to block out all of the noises. Carola explained that that's why we do yoga outside, because it's more realistic. We are constantly surrounded by noise, sounds, smells, so it's important to learn to deal with these whilst practising.  At first, the silence, or lack thereof was deafening. It was just so interesting to listen to every single sound.  Children playing in the trees, a big tractor thing cutting the grass, sirens from a fire engine, the bells of St Charles Church which I took a photo of yesterday, clicking from the cameras of Japanese tourists, drunk people walking home through the park from a big night out, the pitter patter of a jogger running past, a lady on her mobile phone, the wind in the leaves and even the creaking of the trunk of the big tree near me. It was just incredible.  I don't think I've ever in my life, just sat in a park and listened to the sounds around me. As a result of the yoga class this morning, I decided to go for a walk, JUST a walk around the park this afternoon. Again, something I've never done. I didn't even put on my sneakers so I'd be tempted to run. I just walked. I walked slowly and listened. Really made me appreciate life. Wah! Don't wanna get too deep! But this trip really has opened my eyes and made me appreciate the smaller things in life...then I went back to my 5 star hotel and ordered room service...

Tree pose of course!

We finished with Nardi Shodhana (alternate nostril) breathing and about 5 minutes of Savasana, in which I actually let go of all the distractions and relaxed. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Cue photo shoot. What a great class. I felt invigorated and calm at the same time.  Best combo EVER!

Then we all did a photo shoot. Yay for photo shoots! Thanks Carola. One of the most memorable classes of my whole trip!

We could hear the bells from this, St Charles Church. So pretty!