…like every day actually 🙂 
Yet given it’s a holiday in most countries, including Switzerland, and it’s fantastic weather outside, it’s not unusual for some yoga studios to take a break as well.

I took this free day as an opportunity to relax a bit any try out Somo Yoga‘s regular evening class in Autonome Schule Zürich (ASZ). I usually can’t make it for 5:30pm and I really want to support this impressive project (read here more in English).

Momo of Somo Yoga offers classes for free or by donation or for whatever you can spare, which then goes to ASZ and to educational projects. This was also the case on today’s thankfully quieter class – the room is usually packed so it was nice to take advantage of the holiday off-peak attendance 😉

Right from the start Momo said he decided to give the class in silence, i.e. without background music, as 1st of May was a rather loud day. I never actively thought of it but it’s so true… It was indeed very nice to arrive in this yogic “oasis” after I’d been walking down busy Langstrasse listening to loud trashy music 🙂

Our 60-minute class was a hatha-vinyasa flow focused a lot on awareness of our breathing, of our movements, of our entire bodies. In this meditative flow, we started by stretching our limbs and warming up our hip joints as much as possible and comfortable. There were no classic sun salutations, but quite a few heart openers and powerful lunges.

My favourite pose (and metaphor) was when we did a variation of one of my favourite sitting poses: cow face pose – knees stacked on top of each other, bum in between – with arms stretched to the front. Momo challenged us to an “ant race”: finger tips on the mat were the ants, which were racing to the (unfortunately imaginary) cake in front of the mat 🙂 I really like it when we have some fun in yoga and don’t take ourselves too seriously.

The class really flew by, and we closed off in the same way we started: in shavasana, focusing on sounds – near, far, within us.

What a wonderful class for a noble and important cause!
On 1st of May we celebrate “the working class” and the 9-to-5 work culture – maybe it can also be an opportunity to think of and celebrate the incessant community work that some provide off-hours… ♥