For many of us (myself included), travelling takes us out of our usual rhythm and routine. As I was contemplating my short weekend trip to Berlin, after a busy work week with business trips, I longed for my weekend “yoga rituals”, i.e. practicing at home and in a studio (old or new), sometimes with friends.
And then I thought: why not hold on to that, and get a feel of the yoga studio environment in Berlin?!

Ten minutes later, I had booked the Saturday morning class in Spirit Yoga Berlin Mitte.

It was a 90-minute intermediate class, which in hindsight I’d define as a hatha-vinyasa style practice. I arrived 15 minutes ahead to check in and was warmly welcomed by Franzi, who also upgraded my single pass to a 3x-trial pass valid for 3 years – ah well, I guess I’ll have to come back to Berlin for those yoga classes 🙂

(As a side note: I can definitely dispel the harsh Google reviews concerning staff and service – I had a great experience!)

I found the studio really pretty: we practiced in a medium-sized room with wooden floor, poles and ceiling, bright and sunny with full-length windows left and right. By the entrance to the practice room there was a swing and a table with tea and fruit for after the class – see impressions below.

Class was led by Nadja, who I perceived as a very experienced and highly professional teacher. She used the word “intuitive” a lot throughout our 90 minutes, and that says a lot. Her focus was on each yogi’s individual demands from a pose, stretch, move, and she encouraged us many times to listen to our bodies. For instance, warm-up was a lot about us loosening up our joints in circular, multi-dimensional movements of our choice. Whatever our bodies needed at that time…

The most popular poses of the class were plank and downward facing dog, in which we were encouraged to find stillness, stability, release. We practiced a series of mini-flows which included lunges, forward folds, twists, boat and chair poses and more. The flows were interrupted by balance poses, such as the tree pose which we also repeated standing on a block (that was new to me!). The overall pace was rather on the slower end, with focus on precision, self-awareness, and again: intuition.

We progressed towards the peak pose of the class which was the frog pose – mandukasana, and used blankets as props to help us deepen the stretch in the inner thighs. A few relaxing poses later, we were ready for shavasana and I made use of an eye pillow to sink in the totally relaxed state (love studios that have these awesome pillows!)

How nice it felt to start the day in that beautiful studio! I wish I could’ve taken more time to stay on for a cup of tea. The atmosphere was indeed very enticing to linger and enjoy the “post Spirit Yoga glow” 😉

Well done, Berlin – will be back! ♥