Yoga Challenge – Day 8 | Living Fit [Columbus]

Day #8

Today we headed to BALANCED YOGA for a Vinyasa class!

Friends have done and suggested several classes here, especially the Baby+Me and Mini+Me yoga. We’ve heard good things, so we wanted to check it out ourselves. Balanced is in Clintonville, and offers a wide variety of classes for all levels of yogis. Their website states, “Not only is yoga good for the mind, bones, muscles, spirit and soul, yoga’s all about the you time.” Everybody deserves a little you time!

Described as a Vinyasa Class, it was much slower than we are used to at our local spot, Harbor. I’ve never done meditative yoga or practiced my ‘OMs’ before, but I think this is the type of yoga that would incorporate it. The instructor spoke a lot during the practice, positive thoughts, quotes, had us envision things, etc. There was no music for a good chunk of the first part of class and then low-key background music for the remainder of it, allowing for you to focus on your breathing and to be present.

At the conclusion of the class, we did some wall stretches that were similar to these post-run recovery poses/stretches…

poses above from lulu’s blog via jasyoga

Overall, the class was a bit too slow for me, but we got our yoga practice in for the day and left feeling very relaxed. And its always fun trying somewhere new! Great for those wanting to chill and just get in a nice, slower-paced practice… maybe escaping from your faster-paced life.

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The #IndependenceArmy challenge pose of the day is L-sit or hasta dandasana. That is a mouth full!

We actually thought headstand was the pose of the day when we were at Balanced [oops!], so we had practiced that a bit when the instructor gave us ‘time to play.’

Upon returning home and realizing it was actually L-sit, we attempted it. Using blocks is helpful for [us] beginners… and that would be helpful if we had blocks! We found this video from Kino – the first one minute shows how to do the L-sit, although she makes it look easy-peasy. As with anything, practice makes perfect [see today’s quote below]!