Yoga Diaries: Y7 Yoga Silver Lake

Back with some more yoga diaries!

I spent last weekend back in California, and obviously I had to get some yoga in there. The entire time I was in LA this fall, my friend Melissa and I kept missing each other, so we vowed to get together this time. She’s also a yoga teacher, so yoga was the natural choice.

To be honest…I’m not crazy about Y7. I consider it more of a workout than a yoga class, personally. I go to yoga, yes, partially to move, but also to connect with my spiritual side. While the fast pace can definitely lend itself to a meditative-type state, it’s not usually my preferred way of getting there. I prefer a slightly slower class.

The format of most Y7 classes is roughly this: a warm-up/class opening, slowly teaching a flow, repeating it at the speed of your breath and then repeating it on your own. (This pattern is repeated with three different flows.)

I hadn’t taken a Y7 class since before my own yoga teacher training. Pre-YTT, I DESPISED the flow-on-your-own with the fire of a thousand suns. I hated having to try to remember what the flow was. But this time, I kind of liked it. I had the muscle memory of knowing what typically followed a given pose, even if I couldn’t consciously remember the whole flow, and I felt much more confident and comfortable.

We took class from Ari, whom I loved because she was much more soulful and grounded than the typical Y7 instructor in my experience. She had a really calming presence, and we spent a long time in the opening on our backs and getting grounded in our breath before getting into the flow. Melissa and I chatted with her afterwards and found out that she had done her YTT at Laughing Lotus, my favorite studio ever. So it made sense that her class resonated with me.

I’d just flown in the night before, so I was a little nervous about my own practice. Well, I was tight AF when I stepped onto the mat and my balance was off, but I flowed into my own by the end of class.

Also, only in LA can you have lockers outside. My NYC was so bemused by this.

tl;dr: I was so pleasantly surprised by this class.