If you are like me, you mean to but you still haven’t gotten your fitness plan where you’d like it to be. I have a list full of shoulds and it’s getting me nowhere. It was so much easier to stay on track when I could go see Andy, my strength coach at AW Strength and Conditioning twice a week. After nearly three years of working with him, I felt so much more in control of my body and it didn’t creak and groan so much.
But now, working from home, well, let’s just say I’ve become a slacker. It shows, especially in how I’m feeling about myself. As I get older, I know it’s critical to be as strong and as well-balanced as possible for my safety and my state of mind.
I’d say to myself, you were such a slug this week, you have to be a champion next week. Man, that sounds a lot like yo-yo dieting. What I really need is a practice that keeps me motivated and actually doing something on a regular basis.
I may have found it at Jade Integrated Health. They offer several yoga classes, and since most people are still staying at home, they’re trying to make them as accessible as possible — as are a lot of other yoga studios. But I’m going to talk about Jade because I’ve been trying out one of their online gentle yoga classes.
Me doing yoga is not always a pretty sight because I might have been agile once, but not so much anymore. I can work on that, though! However, working on it sometimes means I’ll be on my hands and knees surreptitiously peering at the instructor, Sarra Maddox, trying to understand how to do a certain pose. I felt embarrassed at first but realized I probably wasn’t the only one doing that. And, if you don’t want to be seen, Zoom lets you shut off your video, but still view the class.
Jade has a number of classes you can join in real-time, or you can access several online yoga and fitness videos whenever. There’s a cost, just as if you were attending in person, but it’s comparable and reasonable — a $15 drop-in fee and several “punch card” options, such as $70 for five classes.
Offering online classes was not something Jade had ever considered doing before, but they realized because of COVID, they had to, and it also meant they had to restructure their classes, so there was a learning curve on more than one level.
They’re now old hands at it and their yoga manager Lauren Keiser says it has paid off in ways they hadn’t even thought about.
On the zoom platform, we’re not limited geographically anymore. And so we could really be marketing to the entire state of Maine if not New England or the country. We could draw people in who are new to yoga.
Lauren Keiser, Yoga Manager, Jade Integrated Health
They offer some outdoor classes but fall is here with winter not far behind, and so things will have to change soon.
We settled into summer and the weather has been beautiful, but we’ve got to remember that this is a short window. This is going to come to a screeching halt and we’re going to be reinventing the wheel all over again. Once October comes, it gets cold. We’re going to be inside more and we’re going to be Zooming more.
Lauren Keiser
If you’ve never tried doing yoga before, think you’d like to but wish you could sample before you buy, Jade has two videos you can access at no charge on their website.
These links take you to the class schedule. Click on “Content Library” to find the two videos below.
You may feel klutzy at first, but Lauren says, “The more you practice yoga, the more intuitive it becomes in your body.”
If you decide to take an online class at Jade and out of the corner of your eye, catch a glimpse of the top of someone’s head on the bottom of the screen, it’s probably just me, making sure I’m doing the pose right. I aim to keep at it because I’ve discovered that when I take a class, not only is my body getting a workout, but I also feel calm and relaxed afterward. Something we could all use these days.
PS
Jade just added a beginners online yoga class to their schedule. It’s every Wednesday at 4 pm. Today, September 30th is the first class and it will be free. You can register for it here: Beginners Foundation Flow.
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