As we are coming to the end of February I have been trying to figure out when I was going to be able to squeeze yoga in! I chose Janna Barkin Yoga because she is one of my best friends moms and she’s so cool that she has even done yoga with us while visiting! Janna Barkin Yoga does a class on Mondays and Fridays at 12:30 PST and I couldn’t wait for a my Friday afternoon relaxation session!
Where did Yoga even come from?
I know, I feel like yoga was all I heard about in 2014. Everyone and their mom did yoga. There was regular yoga and then bikram yoga blew up too. Yoga has been around for over 5,000 years with its origin tracing back to northern India. Swami Vivekananda brought Yoga to the US in 1893. Fast forward to the past decade, between 20212 and 2016 the number of Americans doing yoga rose by 50%! Even I jumped on the yoga bandwagon!
Janna started doing yoga back in 1988 and fell in love with connection to herself and nature. She teaches Hatha yoga postures in creative sequences. Hatha yoga is a practice involving breath body, and mind. Hatha yoga is slower paced than Vinyasa yoga, allowing for more stretching with each pose. Janna also offers one-on-one class, public classes, workshops, and yoga retreats.
How was the class?
We start every class with Namaste which means “greetings to you”. What I love about yoga is that the pace of the class is slow and calm. It is a high contrast from my typical HIIT workouts. We started the class by just loosening up the body and relaxing the mind. We moved into a few different flows.
One thing I loved about this class is that Jana, makes it easy and encouraging for people of all levels to do her class confidently. I wouldn’t call them modifications where an instructor would typically downgrade the exercise to help people of all levels participate. She started with a basic exercise and allowed progression on top of it for those who were more advanced in their practice. Through my month of working out, I found it empowering to encourage people to push themselves a little further as opposed to adapting the exercise to match their level.
Would you do it again?
Overall Rating: Absolutely! I always have a hard time paying attention in yoga because I get so antsy. I have always struggled to quiet my mind and be present during yoga. Janna shows all of the moves so clearly and even encourages you to freestyle a bit and really enjoy your own practice.
If you want to catch her yogas classes, check out her website here to register or find her on Facebook at Janna Barkin Yoga.
Let me know if you try this one and love it as much as I do!
xoxo
Krysta
