First Yoga Class

I participated in my first ever Yoga class at Root Yoga in Manalapan, NJ.  Upon entering the building, I was immediately overcome by a sense of peace and relaxation, simply because of the quiet environment and feng shui of the entire room. However, although I did feel very relaxed when entering the room, I was very nervous because I never really practiced yoga before and was a little embarrassed.Class was surprisingly difficult for me. I was the only one in the room who lacked experience in Yoga and that was a bit intimidating at first. However, the instructor was fantastic and really made it easy for me to adapt to such a new environment. He spoke in a very calming manner and described how each pose or stretch was to be done from start to finish, which was very beneficial to me as a newcomer. I found particular poses to be much more challenging than others, particularly the ones involving folding in half to touch your toes.Despite being an athlete my whole life and participating in gymnastics, dance, and cheerleading when I was a kid, I am not very flexible at all. I felt very tight and didn’t like the bending, but as the class went on the teacher helped me and didn’t push me too hard.  I was a little worried at first as to why there was such a shooting pain in my lower back, but when we moved forward with a pose to stretch the sacrum, I felt much better. Although the pain was a little scary at first, I believe Yoga can really help strengthen my back in ways that I would never be capable of doing myself.

           The most liberating and replenishing part of the entire session for me had to be the last 5-10 minutes where the class lay on their back and focused on their breathing for a brief meditation. Before entering the class, I was very stressed and had a lot going on in my personal life so I was excited to be able to lay down and relax without having to worry about anything except for my breathing for a while.