Sarak Yoga

Some things about yoga and Sarak Yoga :)

We started practicing yoga 15 years ago. I had participated just one yoga class before that – it happened to be hatha yoga, veeeeeery slowmotion, most of the time just sitting or lying in different poses (aka asanas, as they are called in yoga lingo) and breathing with different techniques. Very serious. I found it very boring. Totally. If this is yoga – it’s not for me.

But when the student is ready the teacher will appear.

We had chance to meet a nice young man, Jani (nowadays as nice as then, father of three lovely children) who practiced and teached Ashtanga yoga. Saw him do Ashtanga yoga poses to beat of Madonnas ’Shanti Ashanti’ and it was ashtonigly beautiful – and so far from the ’sitting in silence’ yoga. So we went to his basic weekend course. As we both were in very good shape, we thought it would be a piece of cake (little did we know) – but in the morning after the first days practice, our bodies was screaming and aching, couldn’t even move my head properly – were had all these small muscles been hidden? It was more or less a wake up call, take care of your whole body. Astanga yoga was demanding, physical, vigorous, fun.

After having practised  Ashtanga yoga a couple of years Les Mills launched Body Balance in Finland and we both went to instructor training and started to teach it in several gyms.
Beside of that we also started to teach our own style of yoga, based on strict Ashtanga practice. As the years went by we started focusing more and more on developing our own style – and Sarak Yoga Strong was born :) We wanted to create something really fun and joyful – suitable for everybody. At the same time effective,demanding and relaxing – wanted also to hear laughter and see smiles during the classes. We also noticed that doing the same routine everytime was not familiar to western people, they needed more changes into their training.

We do use small dumpbells to make the moves a bit more effective, more functional, dynamic and of course playful. Music plays an important role on our classes.
Our aim is to mix awareness and concentration with movement, so that you will learn to control your smile, tears, body and mind.

Every class ends with relaxation & meditation – the purpose of the class is to leave you feeling strong both mentally and physically.

Yoga is not a religion. Yoga is not  sport. You don’t have to be flexible and fit to join the class – but with time, you will be ;)

Come as you are, feel the difference and learn new things about yourself and do remember, ”Your Body is your Temple and Funhouse”

Namaste! (I bow to the divine in you)

Päivi & Antsu