fitness yoga journey + aurorae yoga mat review + GIVEAWAY

Today we are talking yoga!

When I first stared teaching group fitness classes, I never thought I would teach yoga. Ever. I’m so not the meditative calm kind of instructor. I like energy, energy, energy!  If that’s you or what you like, awesome! Enjoy it! It’s so cool that we can all enjoy the type of yoga or exercise classes that we like. Everybody has their own style which is great.

So I never though I’d be a yoga instructor. I began my group fitness career with strength/bootcamp classes, cycle and body pump. I slowly added more as I learned more (aqua, step, senior fitness and body combat but that last one has been a bit more recent). Yoga was one of those, ‘hey we need someone to teach and cover fitness yoga last minute, can you put something together?’t. So I threw together some flow sequences, probably did lots of stretching and my fitness yoga teaching began at a small club I already taught at. I’ve taken yoga on and off for years, have studies in books and videos, so I had a bit of knowledge to start with. Since I started teaching it 2 years ago I’ve gained a lot more knowledge about yoga and expanded on my classes, but also on my own yoga practice. Someday I would love to go through a formal yoga training, but for now I love my own style of yoga.  It fits what I like, and people seems to really enjoy it too.  It’s definitely become one of very favorites to teach. And now it’s actually the format I teach the most every week (5x).

Since fitness yoga isn’t a normal yoga class term, here’s how I like to explain it to people who ask about it or are coming for their first time. Fitness yoga is a yoga inspired fitness class. We typically do vinyasa flows with many yoga poses and balances poses at the end as well, but I also get the liberty to do lots of push ups, squats, lunges, ab work and yoga burpees (yes burpees in yoga 🙂 ). It’s constantly changing, challenging, evolving and so much fun!

I’d love to hear about your yoga story, so be sure to tell me about it once you get to the end of this post. But first, a yoga mat review + giveaway!

Aurorae contacted me to review one of their yoga mats. I choose the synergy yoga mat/towel because the combination of a yoga mat + yoga towel sounded really cool and unlike any yoga mats I’ve used. Gosh this mat smelled so fresh and heavenly when I got it! After a while the essential oil smell went away but I loved that the first few weeks.

From Aurorae:

“Aurorae sells the best reviewed yoga mats, yoga apparel,and yoga and meditation accessories online. You can browse their yoga mats, yoga bags, yoga apparel and other yoga accessories here.”

What I love about the mat:

• It’s super long (72 inches in length) which is great for a short person like me – I can stretch arms up and legs down and stay pretty much completely on the mat. It would also work well for tall people who normally might not lay completely on the mat.
• The microfiber towel top is soft and makes me want to cuddle up for a corpse pose nap.
• It rolls up nicely but is thick enough that when I roll it out it lays flat without any ends curling up.
• The thickness is great for laying on hard surfaces and still being comfortable.
• It smelled wonderful!

What I don’t love about the mat:

• I feel like I do slip a bit more when my mat is on a slick surface. I teach on wood and on carpet usually, and on carpet it’s great, but I have to use my toes to grip a bit more on wood.
• I’ve taken it outside for some yoga classes and dry grass is hard to get off the microfiber towel top.

GIVEAWAY

When I got my mat months back (I’m quite delayed on this review…. or maybe I was just doing LOTS of testing!) they didn’t have the impressions yoga mat. They are beautifully designed and unique. One of you will be lucky enough to win one for yourself!

Here are the deets on the giveaway and how to enter.

• One commenter will win an impressions yoga mat of their choice (pictured above). I would totally pick the wooded pine or eternity, but you can go for whichever you choose.
• Must be in the US to enter.
• The giveaway runs for 6 days and the randomly selected comment winner will be announced here on Wednesday, Nov 26, 2014.

How to enter:

Leave a comment for each entry. The more comments, the more chances to win!

1. Like Fit Mama Real Food and Aurorae on websites/social media pages – leave a comment for each follow/like for entries
   Fit Mama Real Food: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram
   Aurorae: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Instragram
2. Tweet about this giveaway tagging @fitmamarealfood and @auroraeyoga – leave a link in the comments to the tweet for an entry
3. Leave a comment answering the questions below for another entry

Good luck!

Do you enjoy yoga? What style of yoga do you enjoy? Do you have a yoga story? Please share!

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