Beauty

A power yoga session with Evelyn Hurtado will put you through your paces

A power yoga session with Evelyn Hurtado

The treatment

An hour long Power Flow in the Park in Edinburgh’s Meadows with Evelyn Hurtado. Evelyn is now back in the studio, which reopened this week, but they’re still running a Calm in the Park class at Inverleith Park on Sundays, 12: 15pm- 1: 15pm with Jen Maddalena.

Why go?

Embrace the great outdoors if Zoom classes aren’t doing it for you, and you’re still nervous about visiting a studio.

Our spy says

I’ve been to one of Evelyn’s classes before, and she does not do baby easypeasy stabilisers- on yoga. The clue is in the name of her classes. Power.

My practice plateaued about ten years ago, and I don’t think I’ll ever get into head- stand territory.

When I book the class, it says “weather dependent”, and I’m secretly hoping for a spot of rain.

However, an hour or so before our 6pm sesh, I get the email;

“I’m so delighted that you’ve got such a gorgeous day for class tonight. Just a note to say that Evelyn will meet you at the Pavilion Cafe in The Meadows this evening. Feel free to bring along a mat if you have one otherwise, practising with your bare feet in the grass is perfect. A big bottle of water would be a great idea too!”

Gulp. I cycle along to meet the rest of our small four person class – all Evelyn regulars – and we socially distance our mats on the grass. On goes her excellent playlist ( Lauryn Hill and that ilk, rather than your usual yoga studio stuff ), and we begin the flow.

It’s hard, but not too onerous. I can do this. We smoothly slide through our downwards dogs, upwards dogs, doing lots of lovely stretchy and languorous moves. Everything knits together really nicely, and fascia is stretched as we slide across our mats, smelling the grass. It’s like the perfect dance routine.

I close my eyes, because the sun is on my face, and tune into the music. This is nice. It’s also weird when you’re looking upside- down through your legs at people playing frisbee and dogs trotting along Middle Meadow Walk. I wish it was still cherry blossom season.

Because of a long term injury, I’m not so good when we sit on the mats and do some stretching.

There’s lots of deep hip work, which everyone else is enjoying, but I find tricky, and a few things that I find impossible, like kneeling, then lying back onto the ground.

Once we’re done, we sit crosslegged, chant “om” and inhale all the oxygen ( with the occasional waft of barbecue).

The results

It was lovely to do group exercise again, and Evelyn was very kind – pushing me, but just enough.

If I’d known there wasn’t going to be headstands, I would never have wished for rain.