I’ll be honest: the only research I did was a Google search on yoga studios around my hostel in Tel Aviv. After a brilliant class in the hostel itself, I was ready to discover something new. Filtering out all the search hits in Hebrew, I came across Studio Sol just 10 minutes’ walk away. Lucky me, it offered lots of “hot options” (very much my style :)) and some innovative classes imported straight from Los Angeles!

Yes, it sounded a lot like the place where Bar Refaeli and the Wonder Woman (what’s her name again?!) get those crazy fit bodies. Yoga Sculpt is one of these new concepts on the menu which I ventured for.

On the good side: it was not “just” yoga. Also on the less good side: it was not “just” yoga. In a nutshell, it was a literally hot (>30°C) mix of dynamic vinyasa flows, high intensity training, resistance and strengthening (optionally with weights) and flowy but fast BodyArt-like exercises!

This all went down in a medium-sized heated studio with mirrors, where I was joined by another ~15 fellow yogis. We sweat it off in a combo of powerful asanas, balance poses, core activating lateral crunches and more. There were indeed A LOT of individual poses and exercises, accompanied by nicely synchronized upbeat tracks, from mellow pop to reggaeton.

I personally regularly do BodyPump and bikram yoga, practice BodyArt weekly and occasionally go for HIIT. Yoga Sculpt takes all my routine activities, mashes them up in a blender and serves them up in a concentrated 60-minute dosis.

This is probably the point when most yoga teachers will burn me on the stake for encouraging and advertising an unconventional training which has little to do with yoga beyond half of its name… but hey, if you enjoy it then just go with it!

I must say it was a true challenge to get through the entire class, so it’s a good sign that Yoga Sculpt pushed me out of my comfort zone. Even though it was a very fast paced class, our instructor’s guidance was nonetheless very precise, careful, and engaging.

So would I do this again? Absolutely!
And would I recommend it? Of course, especially if you are into multi-sport workouts and would like to diversify your personal practice.

Alright, so now I have to figure out how to bring this to Zurich! 🙂
Until then, I’ll keep this class and the hip Studio Sol on my “always do when in Tel Aviv” list ♥