Teacher Training
Tonight was my best Hot Power Fusion class yet. First of all, I snagged a sweet spot in class. I walked into the studio and set up my mat in the front row, in the right hand corner. I didn’t even consider setting up in the back row. Class tonight wasn’t super crowded either so there was plenty of room to spread out.
Secondly, I made sure to set an intention for tonight’s class. I chose balance. I feel like I’m always working on improving my balance because it’s something I’ve always struggled with, which is one of the reasons why I do so much yoga. Having good balance is important when it comes to the sports I love like wakeboarding, snowboarding, hiking and of course yoga. The better my balance is, the better I perform in the sports I love and the more fun I have.
In the HPF sequence, I have an incredibly hard time transitioning from the Eagle posture to Balancing Stick. Even though I’ve done both of these postures a bunch of times in Bikram Yoga, I’ve never done them back-to-back before like they’re done in a HPF class at CorePower Yoga. In the Eagle to Balancing Stick transition in a HPF class, I’m literally balancing on one foot and then move my body forward with my arms extended forward. Every time I do this transition in class, I’m super shaky and fall out on both sides. Instead of getting frustrated with myself like I did in my first couple of HPF classes, I now look at the transition as a work in process. When I fall out, I quickly get myself back into the posture and quickly quiet the negative self-talk that may come up in my head. After all it’s the practice room, not the perfect room.
Another reason why I felt like this was my best HPF class yet is because I flowed into the postures throughout most of class. I’m finally starting to get a hang of the sequence! The more HPF classes I take, the more familiar and comfortable I become with the sequence. I still have to look around at the other yogis in the room every now and then, but tonight I relied more on listening to the cues from Jill than by looking at everyone else in the room to see what they were doing. When I did look around the room, it was more of a reassurance thing to double-check to make sure I was doing the posture correctly. It felt so good both during and after class to know that finally I’m starting to get the hang of HPF at CorePower Yoga and now that I’m not worrying so much about what comes next, I’m starting to have more fun.
Class #6, Hot Power Fusion at CorePower Yoga Ballard with Jill (HPF-4)