Specialized yoga workshops offered at RPAC

Madison MacEachen
Thu, 30 Mar 2017 23:08:33 +0000
Arts & Life, group fitness, inversions and arm balances, rec sports, registration, relaxation yoga, RPAC, yin yoga, yoga, yoga workshops

Students participate in a group yoga class at the RPAC. Credit: Courtesy of Ohio State Student Life Photography

For those looking to learn more about yoga beyond a typical weekly class, the RPAC is offering two yoga workshop classes during the first two weekends of April. The classes are part of a workshop series that started last month with two classes, one on the foundations of Yoga, another geared specifically towards athletes.

Alice Adams, RPAC Group Fitness Coordinator, said the workshop series came about in response to some instructors wanting to teach smaller classes targeted at specific people or yoga movements. In comparison to the weekly yoga classes, Adams said the workshops are less of a workout and structured flow, and more about learning yoga and fitting the individual’s body.

Grace George, a second-year in accounting, attended the Yoga Foundations workshop in March with the intention of learning some pose modifications, as she said her knees and wrists sometimes cause issues for her in classes.

“The instructors offered modifications for everyone who wanted to make it easier, harder, or like me, who needed the modifications to put less stress on certain parts of my body, so it really gave all the students the opportunity to do things at their own levels,” George said.

With attendance high and encouraging feedback from participants of the first two workshops, Adams said she is optimistic about the upcoming classes. The first of the April classes, called “Yin Yoga: Relax to the Max” is on Saturday 10:30 a.m. A yoga class on this topic couldn’t be at a more perfect time during the year, Adams said.

“The class is relaxation focused and less intimidating, but also still beneficial to those who have practiced yoga before or really anyone who has stress in their life, which in this point in the semester is about every single student on campus,” she said.

The following Sunday at 4 p.m., a class titled “Inversions and Arm Balances” will conclude the yoga workshop series. Focusing on movements where the hips are higher than the heart, this class will give participants an opportunity to try out some of yoga’s more challenging poses with one-on-one guidance from the class instructors. Although having done yoga before will help in this class, Adams noted that beginner yogis are encouraged to attend.

“We made the workshops classes to hold a purposefully smaller capacity than weekly yoga classes and they also have two instructors, so one can be leading the movements while the other can be walking around making adjustments or answering questions,” Adams said.

Registration for the workshops is available via the rec sports website.