Once my son went back to school I scheduled several Hot Yoga classes at Y6 Yoga to get centered on my mat, gear up for the fall and release all the toxins from my summer of wine!
For anyone that has practiced Yoga, knows there are tremendous health benefits, mentally and physically to doing Yoga. While the three main ones for your body are to increase strength, improve flexibility and ease aches and pains, an article in the Yoga Journal this summer explained that there are 38 Ways Your Practice Can Improve Your Life.
What I have found with my Yoga Practice is the mental and emotional benefits are just as important as the physical. This article reaffirmed that doing Yoga on a regular basis, relax's my system, makes me happier, allows me to focus my busy brain and provides peace of mind. Which can be hard to find in the challenges we face in our every day lives lately.
Hot Yoga grabbed me right away many years ago, before I had my son, and I became hooked on the practice. But with anything, life can take over and other exercise routines take it's place. Going out running or speed walking seemed easier to achieve, by walking out my front door, rather than trying to work in a trip to and from the gym, and not miss make a scheduled class.
At the end of last year, I was looking for a new way to stay in shape when Y6 Yoga Six opened up in New Tampa, across from Hunters Green. I decided to sign up and give it a try. During the first class I was transported back to years ago when I would do Hot Yoga in a studio in New Jersey.
I loved the way the class caused me to sweat out all the toxins in my body, and the relaxed feeling I got in my neck and back after the class. The stretching exercises helped work out the stress and tension held in those areas. When I spend my days on the phone and hunched over my laptop, kinks seem to build up and camp out.
Y6 Yoga has 6 different classes to choose from scheduled at different times throughout the week. My personal favorites are Hot Yoga and Sculpt & Flow. Both are practiced in a heated room (although Hot Yoga is really hot) but Sculpt & Flow incorporates weights to add a combination of yoga with weight training. This helps me build that muscle strength which is needed as women get older.
After signing up for the introductory offer of $20.00 for one week of unlimited classes I signed up as a founding member.
There are several Yoga Six locations around the Tampa Bay Region. The one in New Tampa, one in Odessa, Safety Harbor and St. Petersburg.
Y6 is a franchise operated by Xponential Fitness out of Irvine, California, which also owns Club Pilates, Cycle Bar, Pure Barre and Row House.
What I love about Y6 Yoga, besides the classes, is the studio itself. It is created as a boutique space, specifically for hot/warm yoga classes that is clean and upscale, and not just a yoga room inside a huge gym. That is the way they created each of their other specific brands. You go and join based on your love of a particular practice, whether it be rowing, pilates or hot yoga.
The studio strives to build a community with their members and amongst their members. I like the teachers that teach the classes and I walk out feeling so much better than when I went in. Plus, I'm not competing with anyone ~ it is just me on my mat -- listening to my body. Doing Yoga helps me shut off my brain, turn off the noise of the world around me and just be one with my practice.
In a world where every day has a new challenge cropping up, I am grateful knowing I can go to Yoga, get centered and have a brighter outlook on the world.
Y6 Yoga Six ~ Yoga for One, Yoga for All: A Place for Everyone to find their Flow.