vondraye: March 2017

1st Day Yoga Warm Up Session - Sleeping pigeon pose

Rome was not built overnight.

-French proverb (also by Jeff Dan Barrientos)

When I saw their advertisement over Facebook, I got so excited and as a yoga practitioner, mix that of the childhood frustration of being a ninja, this made giddy like a kid again. I’ve been practicing yoga for a long time and patience is one of those things I learned, most specially when I learned Wheel pose and Headstand which took me years (like 5++ years I think) to learn.

After five years of dedicated practice, however, the singer now has a different attitude: “He’s more patient, he understands that it’s a process and not a means to an end.”

-Chad Dennis, Adam Levine’s yoga instructor, Men’s Health 10/28/13

I’m now ready to learn another yoga trick to add to my bucketlist and further enrich my yoga journey and with the help of Jeff and Mech and the whole staff of Asana Yoga Movement, I decided to join the Handstand 101 Workshop.

Jeff and Mech on their promo photo

Jeff is one of the prominent handstanders in Cebu, having background in yoga, calisthenics, parkour and gymnastics. *catches breath* Yes, from all of these, I guess I don’t need to add more to convince you that he has the knowledge to help you with learning handstand. I knew him from his yoga sessions from Gold’s Gym JCentre every Saturday morning at 10am and became my favorite class ever since.

Mech is Jeff’s yin; the perfect partner for this 4week workshop gracing her beauty and sharing her experience teaching Vinyasa, yoga therapy, powerflow and Ashtanga because every after session. You REALLY need that yoga therapy. I tell you…

Yin and Yang, but both adept in their fields and just like a true blue yoga teachers and masters, they're able to share their energy, wisdom, knowledge and smiles with us.

Let’s now talk about their schedule:

Week 1 – Learning the fundamentals – breathing, alignment and mental preparation

Week 2 – Safety Techniques, enter and exit from a handstand

Week 3 - Working together in finding your center of gravity, after all it’s about balance!

Week 4 – Handstand play! Applying what you’ve learned and explore handstand shapes and transition to other poses.

It doesn't end with weekend Saturday classes, I was surprised when they created a group for us in Facebook and Messenger for “assignments.” I was like stunned that these people are serious about us learning Handstand, they even check on you if you’re done or not with the daily exercise which makes it even more amazing! This is my first time to experience getting checked up on daily exercises! I really appreciate the fact that they don’t just want you to learn about the basics, but really want you to progress and improve on your handstand.

Don’t fret as they aren’t like any Miss Minchin nor any of those Military/CAT/COCC/ROTC instructors. We do get Sunday restdays too and I’m utterly amazed how during Saturday afternoon classes, they manage to teach all of us and don’t miss a bat making sure that they are there to correct all of us. They don’t have favoritism, they don’t focus on one, but they make sure everyone learns and they are there to correct. There were times, multiple times we needed help (because I’m big and heavy and can I say sorry?), but they were there to help us AND others at the same time.

Sample teaser of an Exercise Assignment

Expect a To Do List at home and don’t worry if you’re visual (like me) since they also send videos for you to follow and these aren’t downloaded videos, these are videos they shot themselves, you'd know they are serious when it comes to teaching you! Problem with your alignment? Chum and other staff helps out and they also have a bunch of pictures so you can see your alignment, progress and picture perfect shot for your Social Media as they literally shoot the WHOLE duration of the class, and after class, it's not like "Okay, goodbye..." You can stay and "play" around with the teachers with some tricks.

It’s been a week and they still don’t forget their students as they still check up on us if we’ve done the exercises EVERYDAY.

In conclusion, I recommend the Workshop with 5/5 stars (they shouldn’t be calling this a workshop but parenting!) because they don’t end the help in those 4 weeks, more than the training, they extend their hands from workshop to Facebook contacts teaching, training to friendship which I value the most.

p.s. I'm an introvert so I'm really not comfortable talking to other people but they did manage me to open up and whoala! I got instant friends!

We call ourselves 3M - Maria, Mia Michelle and Mark

Last Day Partner in Crime- Ryan

You can reserve your slot by sending an SMS at (0995-459-8235), or flex those hands on your keyboards and e-mail them at asanayogamovement@gmail.com or visiting their webpage at http://www.asanayogamovement.com/ or thru

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AsanaYogaMovement/ and check the event details at the

Facebook events page :https://www.facebook.com/events/1398975346806468/?ti=cl .