Beauty

Improve your posture with micromovements during a session at Hot Yoga Edinburgh

Improve your posture at Hot Yoga Edinburgh

The treatment

An Express Warm Yoga for Healthy Posture session, 45 minutes for £9 (or £75 for an Express 10-Class Pass), with Rebeca Montero, at Hot Yoga Edinburgh.

Why go?

Do this gentle yoga if you’re a sloucher, a huncher, or have general back issues. If you work in an office and sit at a computer for most of the day, chances are this class is for you.

Our spy says

This is my first time at this small and friendly studio, which recently celebrated its first birthday.

I dump my stuff in the locker room, then head through to the quiet and warm space – heated by infrared panels, to a very pleasant 26-29 degrees for this session, and with diffused natural light from the frosted glass – where we all take a mat and a bolster.

“Today, we will be moving our back in six different ways,” says Rebecca, once we’re all lying prone on the floor.

I’m not sure if my back has that many hinges, I think, but here we go.

All the movements are very subtle, so I occasionally feel frustrated that I might not be targeting the right spot, but I guess confidence would come with practice.

Some of the first movements target the upper back and shoulders. We wrap our arms around ourselves, then rock side to side to open them up.

Later on, we’re targeting the thoracic, or middle part, of the spine, by doing gentle cat into cow poses, which involve flexing the spine.

We also sit on the bolster, like it’s a horse, and gently move our backs and tip the pelvis. There are also very light spinal twists, which involve kneeling on the floor and reaching one arm at a time behind us, but without twisting or tipping the hips. Rebeca comes round and corrects us, as badly ingrained habits mean that it’s sometimes hard to work out what your body is doing.

Unlike other yoga classes, it’s not about how far you can stretch. Instead we’re doing micromovements, and they do help to increase awareness of your posture.

At the end, while we’re in a prolonged and back lengthening child’s pose, Rebeca comes round the class, and gives us a little bit of Thai massage to additionally lengthen the spine.

The results

Although I didn’t feel that we were doing a lot, my spine feels limber and oiled up afterwards. My shoulders are low, and I’m walking a little taller. Result. Now back to the office. n