I'll Try Anything Once: yoga edition

Prior Lake American

I am unable to touch my toes.

I mean, I can physically touch my toes — that’s no problem. But I’m talking about the physical fitness version of “touch your toes” where you keep your knees straight and reach down to the ground until you’re able to magically touch your foot.

I know it’s not magic — it’s called “being in shape” or whatever. But the point of this is I’ve never been a yoga person because from an outside perspective, yoga seems to be about being as flexible as possible.

Which, as we’ve established, I’m not.

I have only been to one regular yoga class in my life and it was by accident. I was working out at my apartment’s gym in college when a woman came up to me on the treadmill and said she was teaching a yoga class soon and I was welcome to join.

I thought, “Sure, I don’t feel like running and an easy workout might be nice.”

It was not an easy workout. By the end of it, I was pouring sweat and my muscles were aching whereas everybody else in the class who had probably done yoga before appeared completely fine.

Which brings us to now. I have taken over the “I’ll Try Anything Once” column and unlike other 20-somethings, I’ve never tried most forms of yoga. And there were quite a few yog a suggestions for the column in my inbox.

Hot Yoga

I had actually been interested in hot yoga before the column suggestion. I am perpetually cold. I have a space heater underneath my desk and my friends joke that I’m a lizard who needs a heated rock to carry around.

So heat didn’t really seem like an issue for me. I googled “hot yoga near me” and Yoga 4 You in Savage popped up. This is the same studio where former “I’ll Try Anything Once” writer Hannah Jones took a pole fitness class.

Hot yoga is regular yoga but conducted in a room that’s about 100 degrees. The purpose for this varies depending on who you ask but it ranges from losing weight to detoxifying to increasing flexibility.

The hot air comes through a vent in the room, which studio co-owner Kelly Larson warned me not to put my mat by since that area becomes even hotter than the rest of the room.

Upon entering the dimly-lit room, I immediately forgot this information and put my mat right next to the vent and laid down. The heat was akin to lying in a car on a hot day with the windows up.

After a few minutes, instructor and co-owner Jenn Holm came in and began to lead the class through the poses. The heat was not a problem until about halfway through when I began to wonder if I was going to throw up on the floor of the yoga studio where the kind owners let a reporter try the classes.

This was also the moment when I remembered the vent.

Fortunately, Holm had told us that if the heat or the poses got to be too much, we could always stand with our palms facing forward and focus on our breathing. Which I did. Several times.

After an hour, we were instructed to get into the “corpse pose” which despite sounding quite ominous, is where you just lay on the ground with your palms facing the ceiling.

And that was that. As I left, face beet red (as it gets any time I’m remotely hot or do anything remotely physical) Larson warned me to drink plenty of water, as there’s nothing worse than a “hot yoga hangover.”

Would I do it again?

I would, if the opportunity arose. I don’t think I would seek out hot yoga if I were looking for a yoga experience, necessarily, but I’d definitely be open to doing it again.

Aerial Yoga

I was most intrigued by the aerial yoga suggestion because I have friends who post pictures of their aerial yoga adventures on Instagram and they looked graceful and relaxed.

Turns out that like most things on Instagram, that might have been faked.

I headed back to Yoga 4 You, where instructor Jenna Galarneau teaches aerial yoga. However, Galarneau was about seven months pregnant and so (understandably) unable to demonstrate the positions herself.

She called in people who had taken the class before to demonstrate for myself and my coworker Sarah Wynn, who had also never tried aerial yoga.

We started out with several normal yoga poses before moving into incorporating the fabric into what we were doing. We took blankets and draped it over the fabric that was hanging from the ceiling and bent over it until our heads were almost touching the ground, our feet were up and we were hanging.

It was very painful.

You’d think fabric would be soft but alas, it felt like my hips were pressing into a metal bar. Wynn, however, was having trouble trusting herself and fully getting into the pose so I was in this position for several more minutes than was desired.

I’m not saying I inwardly cursed Wynn, who might be the nicest person on the planet, but I’m not not saying that, either.

The next position involved flipping backward with your legs firmly wrapped around the fabric. Picture Spiderman, hanging upside down from his hand web — it looked exactly like that.

The last position was by far the best and consisted of stretching the fabric out so it supported and covered the whole body, like we were all caterpillars laying in our gelatinous liquid and ready to emerge as colorful butterflies.

When I emerged, unfortunately, I was still human.

Though I might have been internally yelling, there were some pictures where I looked graceful and relaxed. So of course, I posted them to Instagram.

Would I do it again?

Despite the pain, I would. The next day I felt very stretched out and I love climbing things and hanging upside down, which is coincidentally how I broke two bones.

Paddleboard pilates

Before anyone starts with me, I recognize that Pilates is not yoga and vice versa. While yoga is more of meditation and calming the mind, Pilates is about strengthening the body.

Local businesses Minnesota Mermaid Paddle Board Rental and Pure Joy Pilates team up to provide paddle board pilates classes throughout the summer, led by instructor Jen McCarter.

I have paddleboarded before, but I had never done Pilates and especially never done Pilates on a paddle board, so it was a twofer.

The class (to which I arrived late, because I am a trash person and I arrive late to everything) began with a brisk paddle out onto the waters of Upper Prior Lake. McCarter started us out with calf raises, which sounds easy enough, but I’ve fallen off a paddleboard before while standing completely still, so anything is possible if you believe in yourself.

After calf raises, the class moved on to squats, holding out our paddles like it was a Strongman competition. “Make waves,” McCarter yelled out and we had to rock side-to-side to disturb the water beneath our boards while still squatting.

We paddled nearer to shore where we then did planks (which felt right at the time but I found out later through photos that I was more of a triangle than a plank) and then planks with waves.

The next was sitting down and resting on your elbows while scissor kicking and then not even using your elbows and scissor kicking, like a bug that had rolled on its back and couldn’t get back up.

We all paddled back to the dock where I found it very difficult to hoist myself back up on the dock.

Would I do it again?

Paddleboard Pilates kicked my butt, but it was a great workout. My abs-underneath-the-surface were sore for multiple days. Plus, it was a nice morning out on the lake and in the sun while working out and paddling around. I would absolutely do this one again.

Tune in next time to see what zany thing I’ll try next. Until then, tell me what to try.