Ashtanga Practice 2/22/18

This week I had the pleasure of doing my first Ashtanga yoga practice. To my surprise I have done a lot of the Ashtanga poses in my vinyasa flow class however the poses felt different comepared to my flow class. For starters the sun salutation poses which I have done week after week were one of the elements that felt different in this practice. In vinyasa flow we do not hold the poses as long as we did in the ashtanaga session. This particular sequence is a great work out typically, but in the ashtanga practice it seemed like the poses required a little more effort. The poses in the sun salutations are meant to stretch all the muscles in the body, while strengthening them. In vinyasa I feel like we treat the poses as stretches and not a strengthening technique. I know ashtanaga took a little more effort because my entire body is sore! After the practice I felt strong which is definitely something I haven’t felt from a yoga class in a long time. I am a sucker for meditation so I liked how the class ended in a relaxation period. What I did not like about the ashtanga session were all the poses in the seated and finishing sequences that I couldn’t do. The instructor showed some variations for the poses but not all of them so I felt like I didn’t do too much towards the end of class. I know with time and practice I will eventually be able to do them, but I really liked the momentum and sweat I was working up.