WATS attends first Yoga class
by Ongai

This week me - Ongai - and the rest of the gang - Ken and Galvin - attended our very first yoga class and I must say that I had a great time. I would recommend it to everyone who wants to lose weight, stretch those tight muscles and feel good. Trying it out for the first time definitely convinced me that it had lots of benefits to the mind and body. Anyway before anything, why did we choose to go to a yoga class instead of just sticking to the local gym? There are primarily two reasons: 1) for our health,  and 2) for the website.

When we attended our first session of Yoga last Tuesday, I knew it was going to be a tough since we had already visited the previous week just to take a look and we saw people really sweating. Not only because of the stretching and exercise but also because the room they were conducting their sessions in was heated. The purpose of the heater was for the muscles to loosen up a bit faster, to make us flexible during the exercise. However, the heater did more than that! Not only was I supposedly becoming more flexible but my sweat glands were working double or triple time. I mean I play basketball and go to the gym occasionally but I’ve never sweat that much in such a short time.

Being first time in that “atmospheric” condition, together with the unbelievably difficult positions, each minute just seemed like forever. Good thing though was that the instructor was cool and very helpful especially to us, beginners. She was full of energy and passion for what she was doing, exemplified whenever she would give instructions for an exercise to stretch the abdomen that lead our heads to lean back. Forcefully instructing us to: “Go back, way back, more back, way back…and more back!”. How “more back” could we really have gone?! Then again, we’d really go as far back as we could because we felt the energy from her, and because we didn’t want to get scolded at. Though it seemed that time was just toooooo slow, the instructor, nonetheless, did her job pretty well helping us enjoy the class. And oh yeah! Before I forget, the instructor’s name is Betty.

There were lots of exercises I couldn’t do especially the positions where you had to lift one leg while the other was suppose to squat as low as possible. I just couldn’t do it! Thankfully, Betty was patient and she was telling me not to force myself. Another obstacle I had to get through was the darn heated room. Though the room was good for 50 students and we were just around 40, the hot and humid atmosphere really made things difficult for me. And if there were three words to describe the whole room it would be hot, hot and hot! Good thing was that the heat plus exhaustion always gave me an excuse to sit down and rest - of which of course was permitted by Betty. In one of my rest periods, I started wondering how come Ken and Galvin were having an easier time. Hmmm… may be it’s really just because of my “weight”. 

After the entire experience, I still feel that yoga really does help the body and mind get a bit more fit as you go through it. I felt quite good even up until the the following morning, considering the little ache my body had. Yoga definitely is something I would recommend to anyone wanting to lose weight or just to get a bit more fit.

As mentioned earlier, another reason why me and my friends tried yoga out was because of the website, www.whataboutthestorey.com , which is all about looking for local cottage entrepreneurs and their products, working with them by helping them to introduce themselves to the world.  Being our first partner, Rags2Riches - a social enterprise dedicated to help a materially deprived community in the Philippines - will be featured more in the coming weeks to talk about who they are and what they do. We’ll be creating short video episodes that will be rich with in-depth and heartwarming stories that will explain what WATS’ products - specifically our intricately handmade yoga mat bags and wine gift bags - are all about. And so, watch out for it!  

So why take yoga classes again? Just to make sure that we understand what you guys need as we sell our Yoga related items. We believe in the products, not only because we feel for the community’s struggle to better their condition, but also because they simply are great finds. I’m pretty sure that when you get to use our products and then understand what it’s all about through www.whataboutthestorey.com , yoga peep or otherwise, you’d love them as well. The whole process has been really fulfilling and I am happy to share our joys and stories with you one article and video at a time.

With the excitement of something new to do - yoga -, the constant curiosity to learn something interesting everyday, and the class’ share of cute students (hehe),  I’m really looking forward to more lessons in yoga. Hopefully, yoga will not only bring me a stronger mind and body, but also a smaller belly as well. This is the start of something grand..

Related posts:

• Bikram Yoga: The Heat is On!
• WATS does it mean to Buy Handmade?
• 10 Tips to have a better Yoga session
• Why Write this Blog?
• The first people who showed us the “love”

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