Baptiste Power Yoga in Jacksonville

November 29, 2011

My hot yoga practice is located at the MBody studios in Jacksonville, Florida.  I have found that the Baptiste style yoga practiced at MBody is just what I need for my health.  The calories burned in hot yoga makes Baptiste yoga the best choice for my regular workout.  I like burning calories while also having a program that changes each time I go and that keeps me busy moving and not thinking.  I find Baptiste yoga to be the perfect yoga for my attention deficit disorder personality.  The practice is designed to focus on where each person is and build from that foundation to have each practitioner experience the rewards to body and soul.  The benefits of being stronger, increased flexibility, and more relaxed to empower each practitioner with the focus to achieve strong results in all areas of the practitioner’s life.

Baptiste yoga was founded by Baron Baptiste and his father, Walt Baptiste.  It is a yoga practice that is held in 92 degrees Farenheit.  The positions are inspired by hatha yoga which Baron Baptiste learned underKrishnamacharya and his students, starting an early age.  The physical aspects of Baptiste yoga are important and enjoyable, but the true blessing is not the calories burned in hot yoga.  The true blessing is transformation that occurs inside each practitioner – the discovery of the creative nature, the authenticity in daily life, the awakening of passion and confidence and the ability to look for new possibilities.  I have felt this internal transformation as I have practiced Baptiste yoga for the past two years.  I have burned calories in my hot yoga class, but more importantly, I have seen my body and soul grow stronger.  

Yoga is accessible to everyone and that is part of the focus of Baptiste yoga.  New practitioners are able to see where they are physically and use that starting point as their base.  Each practice will improve your skill level and increase the strength to push for new goals.  Being gentle with oneself and acknowledging where each person is that day focuses on the benefits of the practice and not the guilt of not being able to get into a certain positionor hold a pose for the “required” time.  Hot yoga is not about doing all of it all the time.  It’s about doing what you can each day and reveling in each milestone that is achieved.  The calories burned in hot yoga are just the icing on a cake that changes your life.  I know that it’s changed mine.

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Daily Hot Yoga Practice

November 22, 2011

I started yoga approximately three years ago.  I started going to a free Sunday class with friends because one close friend insisted that it would enhance my life.  I was surprised to discover that it did.  I attended the weekly classes for a few months and then joined a neighborhood gym that offered yoga classes.  I realized that I enjoyed the Vinyasa Flow classes more than the other, slower classes.  The same friend who insisted that I go to my first yoga class (at least as an adult) “dragged” me to a DJ yoga party class on a Friday night.  She promised that I would enjoy it and that it wouldn’t be that awful hot yoga class like what she regularly attended.  I still to this day don’t know if she knew and was fibbing to me to get me there or if she truly didn’t know that the class would be hot.  It was set at 92 degrees and in the process of the class; I formed and busted a blister on big toe.  To this day, I don’t know happened.  This class kicked my butt, to the music of Prince, Beyonce and others, but I never felt so alive as I did after I left that class.

Within a few months, I left my neighborhood gym and started going to M Body Yoga Studio at Neptune Beach.  I realized that hot yoga was just what I needed for my physical health.  What I didn’t realize was the effect that it also had on my mental well-being.  Hot yoga causes you to lose weight.  The calories that I burn in hot yoga are wonderful and I have seen the difference in my body.  The best physical change for me is to see my arms become more sculpted and stronger.  Besides the burned calories, I also feel more calm and positive and centered and energetic after each class.  I am a happier person when I am doing yoga regularly.

Hot yoga can come in many different variations and in many different areas around the world.  I have chosen Baptiste Yoga because it fits what I want and need in a yoga workout.  Baptiste Yoga was founded by Baron Baptiste.  Baron Baptiste was raised by yoga teaching parents and yoga has been his life’s work.  He has studied classical yoga traditions, Ashtanga and Bikram styles.  He has taught everyone from Hollywood stars to NFL players to everyday people.  Based on his research and experience in Raja, Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Bikram Yoga, Baron has combined different styles of yoga to form his own unique brand.   Baptiste Yoga is practiced in a warm studio, but it is unique because it focuses on empowering the practitioner.  The students are allowed to practice from where their bodies are that day and time and the practice can be individualized to each student’s needs.  It is accessible to everyone, regardless of physical fitness, experience in yoga, background, or age.

I have been a sporadic yoga practitioner the past few months.  Between kids, starting my own business, being an assistant coach to my daughter’s Pop Warner cheerleading squad, and just life in general, yoga hasn’t been my priority.  Just the other day, I attended my first class in two weeks.  Every time I don’t go to yoga for an extended period of time, I convince myself that I don’t need to go or that it doesn’t affect me the way that I think it does.  But then I go to class again, and I realize how foolish I was for putting other things before my yoga practice.  I realize (again) that it doesn’t hurt my relationship with my kids if they don’t see me for an hour and a half 3-4 times a week while I go to yoga.  They are, after all, seventeen, fourteen and eleven.  It’s not like they are infants who still need to breast feed.  I also realize that my outlook on life is so much better when I go to yoga. 

Saying all this, M Body has challenged its members to 45 days of practice and me, the sporadic, busy working mother of three has decided to try it.  I am going to focus on 45 days of daily yoga practice.  I will dedicate going to the yoga studio as much as possible and the days where I cannot go, I will do a home practice.   I am going to document my experience in this blog and the changes that affect my life personally, spiritually and physically.  Hot yoga burns calories.  Let’s see where my body is in 45 days and let’s see how this changes my outlook on my life and where my life goes.  Power yoga is life changing on its own.  Let’s see how M Body’s Baptiste yoga burns calories in my body and in my life.

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