Jeff Fisher: Yoga East Meets West

 For this weeks yoga class, I participated in a Vinyasa yoga instruction taught by Ally Maz. Right off the bat I was able to tell that this class was going to do a really good job at loosening my muscles up and would give me a really solid stretch; I was right. I was extremely pleased with the pace of this class, I was able to keep up with no problem. the instructor did a really good job at keeping the class engaged and maintained a positive calm tone throughout the class. Not all teachers are capable of teaching well while performing the posses at the same time, so this was greatly appreciated by me.     I thoroughly enjoyed how well Ally flowed through the positioned. I felt very fluent and natural progressing from one position to the next. The difficulty of the poses were very moderate in my opinion and I didn't have any trouble performing any of them. This was the first class I have taken where I was able to perform every single pose and actually feel like I did them correctly.

 The second class that we took this week was led by Andrew Eppler and was Ashtanga yoga! This class was really enjoyable for me and by far my favorite I have taken so far. My first impression of this practice was that it was definitely more fast paced than Iyengar was which I enjoyed. The poses were quite dynamic and I felt it was a good challenge for the body.     I noticed that Andrew put a large emphasis on warming up before getting into the grunt of the class. I felt this was very beneficial and allowed my muscles to loosen up before getting into the more difficult poses that came later in the practice. I am not sure if this is just something that Andrew promotes or if all Ashtanga pracice's allow for a good solid warmup, but either way I found it very helpful. As the class progressed and eventually came to an end I noticed a lot of lower back relief and I felt very good and nimble. This feeling carried with me throughout the remainder of the day and I just felt good overall. I

 This week during class, we all took an Iyengar instruction lead by Amita Bhagat. This was my first time participating in an Iyengar class. I personally enjoyed this class a lot more than previous classes that I have taken. Amita was very engaging and did a good job of not only showing but also explaining each movement. This allowed me to have a better understanding of what I was doing and also understand what part of my body would be benefitting from each movement.     With that being said there was one thing mentioned by Amita that I did not agree with. She stated at one point that one particular movement would trim fat off of the side of the waist. Me being an exercise science major and having a good understanding of the anatomy of the human body and the physiological functions that take place in order  to gain and lose fat, This caught my attention because it is physiologically impossible to target fat in one specific area of the body. Aerobic exercise is the best way to lose fat a

 On Thursday this week in class we participated in a Bikram style yoga instruction. The class was led by Diane Polli and lasted around 90 minutes. This was my first time not only participating in a Bikram class but also hearing of it, this patented style of yoga was one I was unfamiliar with. from what I understand, the practice consists of the same 26 movements for each class and has very devoted followers who practice this type of yoga.      I personally felt the difficulty of the intended movements were above what I am currently  capable of. I quickly found myself getting sore and unable to properly perform the movements. the muscle stretch and constant tension was enjoyable and beneficial for my overall physical benefit but again felt myself unable to be able to keep up and properly perform the movements. I also found it to be quite difficult to understand exactly what it was we were supposed to be doing just by listening to Diane without her performing the movements herself as an