Saturday morning with Dr Kajal

Despite all the obstacles, I managed to wake up bright and early enough to make it to Dr Kajal’s yoga class at Capital Tower in the morning. I was a little late and when I stepped into the classroom, everybody was sitting on the floor facing an Indian man who had his eyes closed and was breathing into his microphone.

I should have known then that his yoga class was going to be different from the others’. Serena, one of my favourite instructors at Fitness First, emphasizes a lot on asanas. Her idea of a workout is to put together a combination of asanas with about three repetitions on each leg. She does focus on posture and breathing but barely.

Dr Kajal, on the other hand, never fails to remind us to “breathe normally” – with our mouths closed and directing the air deliberately past our throats with each breath to produce an odd humming noise. In fact, he spent a good ten minutes teaching us to breathe and going to each individual to listen to their breathing. And the man is good. His control of his breath is amazing and as he said, “My one breath is probably three to five of yours.” Woah!

And as we move into the different asanas, he would use visualization instead of the usual instructions to get us into the right posture. At the tree pose, he would say: “You are a tree growing tall and straight into the sky. Now, imagine your arms are branches that are sheltering the world, bend them at 90 degrees at the elbows with the palms facing up.”

He makes an interesting picture, with his mop of jet black hair and white muscle tee tucked into his white track pants. As A says, he looks genuinely retro, almost as if he bought all his apparel back in the 1980s. Hilarious.

I’m sticking with his class. Somehow, I didn’t feel as if I was going through a torture chamber as some of my yoga classes are wont to go, and I practically skipped out of the room feeling light and refreshed despite the lack of sleep.

It was a nice way to start the Saturday. Now to buy that gorgeous purple yoga mat from Nike to match my gym tote.

[Let’s play tag! yoga, drkajal, fitnessfirst]