Everybody say Ommmm…

(((Note: I just added a new forum page…and I started a topic, asking for your definition of healthy. Won’t you check it out?)))

If you’d asked me a year ago what I thought about yoga — I would have told you I hated it.

I hated holding poses…breathing through my nose…quieting my mind (I’m no good at it) and not seeing a sweaty reflection that PROVED I’d worked my butt off.

Time went by, and I kept at it…finally, I begrudgingly started to like yoga. Then love it. Then big fat puffy heart I never want to let you go love it. But I was still missing that sweaty satisfaction.

No more, thanks to Caitlin and Orlando Power Yoga.

Do you see how nasty I am? That shirt is soaked, save for one small dry spot from my sports bra. The evil smile proves that I enjoyed every single second of every single pose.

What is power yoga? I’ll let OPY explain:

Orlando Power Yoga practices the Baron Baptiste style of power vinyasa yoga. As the name implies, it is a vigorous, fitness based yoga, which is practiced in a warm room. The Baron Baptiste style of yoga gives great emphasis on the principle of adaptation, meaning that each practitioner can adapt and modify each posture and make the practice his or her own. The emphasis and practice of Baptiste style of yoga is to challenge you to experience a transformation, starting from where YOU are presently. A good yoga practice will give you the overall sense of being strong and stress free. This is a moving meditation which will make you feel great after and during class.

We at Orlando Power Yoga strive to offer you a great yoga “workout”, in a casual, relaxed, and fun atmosphere. Whether you’re learning yoga at one of our yoga for beginners classes, or you’re a seasoned yogi participating in our heart thumping, sweat inducing workouts, you’ll soon feel the benefits of our power yoga. Start by learning the breath and learn to follow along.

Transformation is right. I spent the five minutes before class in DEEP conversation with Caitlin…talking about blogs and bloggers, exercise fatigue, media, travel and more. I felt my shoulders coming up and my head spinning. There’s just been so much drama in the blogging world this week, with people questioning their blogging identities, questioning others’ and getting away from the reason we all started blogging in the first place:

COMMUNITY.

80 minutes in a power yoga class took care of all those thoughts, and for the first time in a long time, I felt at peace. Clear-minded. Confident. And every word the instructor uttered seemed to resonate:

• You are enough. Don’t worry about what your neighbor is doing. Just do your best and let everything else fall away.
• Let it go. You have to lose it to find it.
• Be strong. Be powerful. Dig as deep as you can and then dig deeper.
• Whether you think you can or think you can’t…you’re right.

So, guess what? It turns out the community is only as strong as each of its members. So read those bullet points above, and even if for a second, apply them to your life. Then say “Ommmmm” and give me a nice easy tree pose.

Either one of the poses below will work:

Or, maybe a downward dog? Or if you’re really feeling flexible, a flipped dog?

While you're here...

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