Style Vinyasa Flow Yoga is a vigorous form of physical yoga, where breath is linked to movement over and over through “sequences”. When taught properly you will need a towel and a water bottle. It likely will be one of the most physically challenging things you experience. If you stick at it ( day in day out; assuming you can find an instructor you like ) it could rank among the more challenging mental and spiritual experiences you have in your lifetime.
Breathing in unison with your movements is critical and differentiates this yoga from other styles. Uujayyii breathing (breathing with noise in the back of your throat and mouth closed) is hard to master. This combined with the vigorous sequences, temperature and closed quarters can make people act weird. Including before class in anticipation. Make coming to and leaving class an exercise in patience and compassion.
The Instructor has a lot to manage; from building sequences that make sense and flow to the music, temperature and ensuring no one gets hurt. (There has been a huge increase in the number of neck related injuries seen in emergency rooms due to improper instructing of poses or asana’s like headstand). Appreciate that a good instructor is a person; with the same worldly experiences you do. Bad hair, traffic and emotional days. If she seems a bit grumpy he is trying to ensure your experience is stellar.
The people that attend Vinyasa Yoga classes come from a wide variety of life and physical experiences. Part of the class experience is working through the sequence with a group and feeding off the energy. Most good classes will ‘teach to the middle” which means if you are drastically mismatched to the center level students of the class you may find the class more or less challenging than you desire.
Vinyasa Flow yoga is NOT Power Yoga. Power yoga was developed by people aware of yogic physical techniques that used those techniques to make football players more flexible. If you have ever been in close quarters with a professional football player you understand they are very different physically than most of us mortals. (Usually, bigger, stronger and quite a bit more durable).
IF you follow a Vinyasa Flow Yoga sequence designed by a well trained teacher you will get a physcial mental and spiritual “buzz” after class that can last for a few hours.
Consistency You will find Vinyasa Flow Yoga to be extremely challenging unless you are willing to practice at least 3 times a week. It is very hard to comprehend anything only doing it once a week and this yoga stuff is complicated.
There are all kinds of claims about yoga for weight-loss. This type of yoga will tune you in with your body. The vigorous exercise will peel away physical and mental layers and the stretching element of your body will leave you wanting to eat less.
If you encounter a class where these things aren’t happening, it is a pretty good clue you are not in a Vinyasa Flow yoga class. Don’t despair. As long as you are in California you can almost inevitably find good vinyasaflowyoga!
Vinyasa flow yoga was almost exclusively invented by Yogaworks. Chuck Miller and Maty Ezraty’s Santa Monica Main Street Studio was a laboratory for what did and didn’t work in many styles of yoga and to this day some of the modern masters of yoga teach there refining californiavinyasaflowyoga.com.
