Today's yoga class

Ouch! This is what I call a yoga boot camp! I finally went to my first yoga class since arriving in Taiwan. It was, shall I say, painful and of course extremely sweaty, but I think I liked it. A comparison among my Arlington studio, Palo Alto studio, and Hsinchu studio is summarized in the table below. (For purpose of illustration, points may be characterized in somewhat exaggerated or stereotypical manner, but you get the general point.)

(Sorry about the huge gap. Blogger doesn't handle tables well.)

	Arlington	Palo Alto	Hsinchu
Classroom	comfortable, spacious	Zen-like, beautiful, airy	small, noisy, crowded
Class goals	to relax and rejuvenate	to get a vigorous workout and stretch	to become better and more limber
Teacher stresses	"listen to your body and don't overdo it"	"listen to your body and don't overdo it"	"No pain, no gain, go deeper"
Duration of an Om chant	10 sec.	12 sec.	30 sec.
Level of sweat	mild	moderate	dripping wet
Teacher's most frequent words	"relax, breathe"	"breathe"	"listen to my orders and do more"
When you can't get a pose, teacher says	"your hamstrings are tight"	"you have strong hamstrings"	"are you cheating there?"
End chant	Namaste	Namaste	Thank you , teacher