Yoga

So I joined a gym recently (I decided it was high time I did something to make my health and wellness more of a priority) and I've loved going and trying out the different classes. I've decided that my many years of organized sports have left me with a need for group exercise that gym classes seem to fit perfectly. Now mind you, I'm not the most coordinated, flexible, or physically fit person at the moment, so parts of them have definitely been a challenge, but it's been fun to figure out what they're all about. I decided to start with the ones that would be lower impact on my joints and strengthen core muscles first, so I've been taking a fitness pilates class, an aqua aerobics class and an intro to yoga class. The aqua class is fun, although I'm the youngest participant by probably 30 years, but I still enjoy it. The pilates class definitely shows me how weak my core muscles are, definitely something to stick with, but my favorite is probably the yoga class.

Admittedly when I went the first day, I knew fairly little about yoga and had never really tried it before but have heard rave reviews from some friends so I thought I'd give it a go. What surprised though was how mentally engaging it was. It's definitely physically challenging if you get into the right poses, but for a beginner like me, half the battle is focusing on getting the poses correct. The main instructor I've had is very good about describing everything in detail and even physically correcting our poses as needed, so I feel like I'm getting a good basis and generally feel the burn once I get the pose right, so I'm definitely looking forward to more. I just have to remember to avoid the Wed night class. I went last week because I wanted to try a new instructor, but was highly disappointed. The Wed night instructor is much more into meditative yoga, which I'm sure has it's purpose and benefits when practiced correctly, but since I'm still not very good at hitting the poses correctly, and he had a very laid-back, anything goes style, I left after an hour feeling very relaxed, but like I hadn't worked out at all. Not quite what I was looking for.  But regardless, I'll stick with it; once I feel like I'm mastering these classes a bit, I think I'll try Zumba. It always looks like fun.