My Week in Yoga: Hatha + Acro

This week I tried two new forms of yoga: hatha and acro. I have dabbled in both, but never had proper instruction, and what a difference that makes! 

Monday:  

Rest day. 

Tuesday: 

Did a new double tonight: supporting my new friend Alec as he taught his very first London classes. An hour of expert Hatha and an hour of Yin. The latter I am very much a pass on, even though Alec taught it beautifully of course. But the hatha was spot-blooming-on. Lots of echos of Iyengar for me: long holds, focus on alignment and detail and props. Burning muscles and shaking limbs, all intensity but very little movement. Any one that says you need cardio to “workout” has never been to a class like this!

Wednesday: 

Out and about tonight so I popped down to the work gym for a little over an hour of self-practice. Sun sals, standing sequence, inversions, backbends, and hip openers to finish off. A pretty rounded practice all around.

Thursday: 

Out again but with clients tonight so squeezed in 35min at the work gym. Lots of sun sals. And some more sun sals. And a few more to finish off!

Friday: 

Tonight was a yoga date with my bestie and we checked out a new studio and a new teacher for us both. It was billed as a power class, so I was expecting something pretty dynamic…

Er, no.

She explained how ‘power yoga’ for her came from Kundalini. And from that moment on I was trapped in one of the worst classes I’ve been to in a long time. Which is nothing to do with Kundalini – I would have loved it if it had been a Kundalini class! Instead she spoke more words in an hour than I probably manage in a week (and my job involves A LOT of talking!), while saying absolutely n o t h i n g.  Which went on alongside her inventing stranger and stranger cues (move your arm through the keyhole?!) and odd ways to use props that seemed to bear zero relation to what she was trying to get the pose to do for us. Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all can you?!

Saturday:

75min Rocket with one of my favourite teachers. Practicing my drop-backs was the highlight, but I really just love every minute of this class. 

Sunday:

When I first started dabbling in Instagram yoga, people would rabbit on about the ‘yoga community’ and I would kind of roll of eyes. What community?! 

But now I know. Now I know.

Today the wonderful Pip from AcroYogaDance came over to my house and we spent an amazing 2.5 hours jamming and flowing and posing. Pip and I were introduced over the summer by another yoga friend (Mr Handstand Coach himself, Mark Das) and after months of chatting about how I wanted to try acro, but was afraid, Pip talked in to giving in a go.

And I had the BEST time! Trust, communication, real human connection. That is what acro is all about, as well as feeling absolutely scrummy in your body as you get to experience familiar shapes with or without some extra gravity. 

I don’t think I’m ever going to be a serious acro-yogi, not least of all because I can barely coordinate my diary to see enough of my husband, forget about having to schedule my yoga practice with someone else, but still, I hope it gets sprinkled through my life with a little more regularity. 

• Self-Practice: 4hrs 10min
• Classes: 4hrs 25min  
• TOTAL: 8hrs 10min