Med­i­ta­tion, chants and breath­ing ex­er­cis­es were what I ex­pect­ed. What I got was a gru­elling work­out where I was made to do hand­stands, asked to de­fy my body's lim­it to stretch and giv­en a pose that felt sus­pi­cious­ly like a push-up. All this in a 75-minute yo­ga class with in­struc­tor Jacque­line Ques­nel at Akasha Stu­dio, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, Mar­aval. My yo­ga ed­u­ca­tion pri­or to the class was de­cid­ed­ly lim­it­ed, I'd on­ly tried the ac­tiv­i­ty once be­fore, in a yo­ga for be­gin­ners class, which didn't pre­pare me for the in­ten­si­ty of Jacque­line's work­out. What I did know was that yo­ga was the type of ex­er­cise that fo­cused not just on the body, but on the mind as well. Jacque­line prac­tices an Anusara-based yo­ga, a type of yo­ga she said was known for hand stands and promised we would make an at­tempt be­fore the class was over.

I wasn't over­ly ex­cit­ed. I had nev­er at­tempt­ed or even want­ed to at­tempt a hand stand be­fore. "The very first prin­ci­pal is to open to grace," said Jacque­line, be­fore let­ting me know she would be­gin with a San­skrit chant. I in­ter­rupt­ed be­fore she could be­gin, want­i­ng to know the re­li­gious con­no­ta­tions here. In my re­search I had learnt of yo­ga's con­nec­tion with Hin­du phi­los­o­phy and that it was prac­ticed by Hin­dus and Bud­dhists. "You don't have to be a Hin­du to prac­tice yo­ga," she an­swered. "I en­cour­age my stu­dents to chant with me af­ter I trans­late for them but I al­so give them the op­tion of say­ing a prayer or even be­ing silent be­fore the class starts." The pur­pose of the prayer, she ex­plained was to give thanks and pre­pare your­self both spir­i­tu­al­ly and men­tal­ly for the class. She ad­mit­ted, there was a spir­i­tu­al as­pect to Yo­ga but added that it wasn't re­li­gious. "I am Catholic and I have nev­er strayed from be­ing a Catholic. I use Hin­du sto­ries as guide some­times in my class but I don't prac­tice Hin­duism or teach it," she said.

While she did a chant, I closed my eyes re­spect­ful­ly and said a quick prayer, thank­ing God for life. What, I should have done, was asked him for strength, en­er­gy and en­durance as we stepped on­to our yo­ga mats. The mats, Jacque­line re­vealed could cost up­wards of $300, de­pend­ing on the ma­te­r­i­al. Eco-friend­ly ma­te­ri­als cost more. Jacque­line's first in­struc­tion was for me to hug my mus­cles to my body. I took this to mean I need­ed to make my mus­cles tense and pro­ceed­ed to do so. With Jacque­line's as­sis­tance I man­aged to align my body in a prop­er stand­ing pos­ture, a marked dif­fer­ence from my usu­al slouch.

She in­struct­ed me in my first pose, the ta­ble pose, which felt very much like the pose one starts a pushup with, but in­stead of ac­tu­al­ly push­ing up I had to hold my body in place, all the while with tensed mus­cles. "Yo­ga is a com­bi­na­tion of fit­ness and stress man­age­ment and is some­thing you take at your own pace." While speak­ing, Jacque­line di­rect­ed me to lift one hand to­wards the sky and turn my body side­ways so that on­ly one of my hands was sup­port­ing my body. As my arm wob­bled and I felt my­self sweat, I re­alised that this was a lot hard­er than Jacque­line's soft voice and vi­brant smiles, as well as sev­er­al on­line pic­tures of pret­ty pos­es had led me to be­lieve. We tried the co­bra pose. Jacque­line said I did a great job on most of the pos­es but look­ing at her flu­id mo­ments and the ever-present joy­ful smile com­pared to my aching mus­cles and frowns of con­cen­tra­tion I wasn't so sure.

Sev­er­al pos­es lat­er, I fell to the floor, my mus­cles and brain scream­ing at me for not be­ing pre­pared. With a smile, Jacque­line sug­gest­ed that we take a respite and drink some wa­ter. Five min­utes lat­er I was bent over on the floor at­tempt­ing a hand stand. "Most peo­ple think they can't do a hand stand but what stops them is the fear," said Jacque­line. "Just trust that I'll hold you and kick your legs up­ward." I made two half-heart­ed at­tempts, be­fore she again told me I needn't be fear­ful. I de­cid­ed one gen­uine at­tempt would be enough and if I failed, well at least I had tried. I didn't fail and al­though I couldn't hold my weight for very long, it helped when she re­mind­ed me to tight­en my mus­cles. Yo­ga is def­i­nite­ly one of the pret­ti­er forms of ex­er­cise, but don't let the grace­ful pos­es fool you, yo­ga with Jacque­line was hard work, hours lat­er my mus­cles still had not for­giv­en me. The yo­ga class turned out to be more than I ex­pect­ed and maybe a lit­tle more than I could han­dle but I'll ad­mit, I en­joyed every mo­ment of it. There was no shout­ing gym in­struc­tor or judge­men­tal eyes not­ing my fit­ness fail­ures. De­spite be­ing a bit tough on my un­fit body it was ac­tu­al­ly a pleas­ant ex­pe­ri­ence. Jacque­line's class­es cost be­tween $55 to $65 and she sug­gests two class­es per week