A wonderful discovery has been made through my journey in finding yoga throughout Chicago. As a young yogini, in my first year of discovering yoga I had been inspired by a teacher who taught hatha yoga at my community college. Hatha yoga has always been my calling, but it is difficult to find in a fitness hungry world. This teacher in particular offered something I had never experienced before. Yoga is something I believe to be a personal practice. Although you are in a classroom with other yogis, it is solely up to you and how you want to take your journey. This instructor helped my journey by showing me a more mindful meditative state. Instead of running through poses erratically and working up a sweat, our class would practice our breathe, slowly move from position to position while she informed us on each and every limb, bone and intestine the pose aided
. Hatha and vinyasa yoga are the forms I prefer because it allows one’s self to become aware of your body and mind. This instructor inspired me so much that even though I needed to attend her session for a college credit, after the semester was over I continued my journey into what it is now.
Ever since that time in my life where I figure out exactly what kind of yoga I was inspired by and sought to practice, I have been searching for classes similar to my beginning experience. Finally, years later through all the fitness driven classes I have attended that advertise themselves as hatha yoga, have I found a place that brought me back to the good ole days of my beginning practice. Urban Lotus Yoga studio is somewhere I will continue to visit because I enjoy the atmosphere and the instructor of the class incredible. I was able to speak to Tania before our class session and was pleasantly surprised to hear about her views on yoga and even on society. Although she felt she used the phrase ‘forward leaning society” excessively I felt it was fitting and completely explained why people need more yoga in their lives because regular exercise just doesn’t cut it. We talked about how people tend to follow a cycle of doing things we are essentially told we are supposed to do. The fast track pace of the city gets people sucked up into routine rather than a journey. Tania has an extensive understanding of how the body works, and I would defiantly recommend taking a first ever class with her because of the great detail she goes into for each pose. I won’t go into extreme detail of Tania’s background here because my previous entry does a wonderful job at introducing her, but what I will say is this: Tania was a breath of fresh air, not only did I enjoy the class she conducted but I enjoyed sharing a common love for yoga. If you really want to learn and understand yoga in its rawest form go to her class!
The Young Yogini 