Yesterday evening Lindsay and I took part in a prenatal partner yoga workshop that helps connect with your partner doing partner poses while learning techniques to ease childbirth. We did this out of the St. Albert Lotus Soul Gym which is a pretty nice gym from the others I’ve been in.
Now I don’t have any Yoga experience at all, well except for one Hatha class that Lindsay took me to 4 years ago. However that doesn’t matter as no yoga experience is required for this class as the instructor (who needs to be certified in prenatal yoga) walks you though all the poses and helps out if need be. Lindsay has been doing yoga for a long time now and is also a certified Yoga Alliance instructor so anytime I get a chance to do Yoga with her in a less intimidating environment I’m all for it. I was a little bit apprehensive at first because I know how the “no experience necessary” can be. Sometimes it’s a lot harder than they lead on, however this was perfect and really a great way to spend a Saturday evening with my wife.
As I mentioned before the main focus is on connecting with your spouse and they do this through normal poses however they change the pose so that you need to balance with your partner or connect when doing say tree pose, you become one “tree” so to speak. One of the benefits with a lot of the poses is that it helps with stretching and releasing tension in a lot of areas that is brought on while being pregnant. A lot of these poses and stretches can be done in the delivery room while you are preparing to deliver and should help with easing child birth. Lindsay is quite in tune with her body after being in yoga so long and was saying how a lot of what we did she could see how that will help. I’m all for making things easier and more comfortable for her.
They also had some massage components towards the last quarter of the class to help the fathers massage in areas that will be more beneficial for the expecting mothers. Dad’s also got a quick massage as well but not as long as the mothers as to be expected. Then my favourite part of yoga, savasana, which I like to call the nap portion of yoga. Savasana is a basic relaxation pose where we integrate and assimilate what we learned in the class and return to a rejuvenated state.
Overall the whole experience was really cool even though I have no yoga experience. The best part about it all was being able to do it with my partner, my wife, the mother of my child and being able to have a deeper connection with one another through something that my wife loves, yoga.
