Yoga in Korea

I joined a yoga studio this week with my boss Heather. It's only a few blocks away from my apartment. We went early on Monday to apply and pay and talk to the teacher about joining the class. She teaches in Korean, which will be good for my language skills, but she says some stuff in English for me, too. I think she makes fun of me sometimes to the other people in the class, which is pretty funny.

Korean yoga is kind of different than American yoga. The first difference I noticed was that the mats are already set up on the floor in the studio, and they have quilts on top of them. I'm used to walking in and laying my mat down and then having to move once the class starts to get really full. Here classes aren't full, though, so I guess it's easier this way.

I also had to commit to specific days, instead of doing something like paying for a month of unlimited classes, or paying for a certain amount in advance and using them when I want. I said I'd come Monday through Thursday. Tuesday is mandatory for some reason. That's pilates day, with yoga relaxation at the end.

The practice alternates by day from doing primarily breathing and stretching to doing more active exercise. Monday and Wednesday we have to breathe through the nose using the abdomen, and Tuesday and Thursday we have to breathe in the nose and out the mouth using the chest. It's hard to concentrate on all that.

The teacher did like a check up on me on Monday to see what was wrong with me. She could see I hold my left shoulder lower than my right, which is due to my herniated cervical disc tensing up the muscles on my right side. She also checked my breathing, and was surprised that even though I've been practicing yoga for two years, my breathing isn't very deep. I do have a terrible debilitating cold, though, so I hope that's the culprit.

The actual practice is a little less organized and intense than I'm used to. In the studio I went to in LA, we would start with specific warm up stretches that would lead to more complicated postures. But here, there aren't any complicated postures so far. It's kind of like going to high school gym class. Monday we just did a bunch of stretches and breathing and the like, and Tuesday we did a bunch of pilates exercises involving twisting, stretching, backbending, and pressing on tension rings. It's still pretty brutal, though, I must say. I'm wicked sore. I didn't go today, though, because I can't breathe through my nose, and it's nose-breathing day. Too bad.

At the end of yoga, you get into a final relaxation pose, where you just like on the floor and relax and try to clear your mind. We do that in this class, but instead of being called back to the world by the teacher and then leaving together, everyone just gets up whenever they feel like it. Even the teacher leaves the room before we go.

Also, there's no Oming at the beginning or end, and there's no saying Namaste (that which is highest in me bows to that which is highest in you) at the end, either, which I think it a typical way to end a yoga class. I would have thought they'd be into that here, since they bow so much. Very strange.

Of course this could all just be the way this one lady runs her studio. Maybe other studios are different, who knows?