Two for One: Acro Yoga and Flywheel

Riding Real Dirty 

Main Lobby of Calmness

Hey guys, we know we've skipped a couple of weeks of contents, so we decided to hit you with a two-for-one special this weekend. We'll be discussing our experiences with practicing Across Yoga for the first time and Flywheel class. This will be one of our longer posts and we hope you enjoy it.

To kick it off, we'll start with Acro Yoga and let's just talk about the premise of the practice briefly. Despite a popular belief of Acro Yoga is a new format or recent development of yoga, Acro Yoga has been around for decades; one of the oldest videos of someone doing Acro Yoga is with the famous Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya himself, practicing the role of the base, while a child being the flyer in 1938. Acro Yoga may provide physical and mental health benefits, in addition to the exercise and strength building aspects of Acro Yoga the partner balancing can improve concentration and the massage elements can provide stress relief. However Acro Yoga is more vigorous than many traditional yoga practices and this may lead to more injuries. Unlike typical yoga that an be practiced individually, Acro Yoga consists of the following roles: Base - the individual who has the most points of contact with the ground, Flyer - the individual who is elevated off the ground by the Base and Spotter - whose entire focus is on making sure that the Flyer lands safely in case of any slips.

With all the fuzz around Acro Yoga and recent popularity, we decided to give it a shot and we took the introductory class at OM Factory with Maisah Hargett, below is how we felt about the class:

Motivation (3.3) - We felt that the class emphasizes more on collaboration, which is another way to motivate each other to perform the different positions in Acro Yoga. The overall structure class is as follow: introduction of each class participants because this is a relatively intimate class and it's helpful to develop some familiarity with your partners (i.e. their previous injuries), flow yoga to warm up your body, then onward with the main content of Acro Yoga.

Amenities (3.2) - The amenities at OM Factory is relatively basic, nothing fancy for good reasons as you probably won't need them. We did not see lockers around to place our personal belongings, but there is a shoe rack to place your shoes before enter into the main class room and the class room has plenty of rooms for you to store your other belongings (if needed).

Intensity (3.5) - Again, this is a yoga class, so we didn't feel that the class was particularly intense. The class is aim to be more constructive and informative vs. high intensity. We thought the instructor, Maisah was very supportive and helpful when it comes to her teaching style; she made sure everyone had the chance to practice different positions and roles (i.e. being Base, Flyer and Spotter).

Overall (3.8) - In addition to classic yoga, which for a lot of beginners (i..e Ron) may be hard to grasp the right tempo and precision around the forms, Acro Yoga provides immediate feedback mechanism, meaning that if you'll know if you're hitting the right posture based on your partner's body language. The little gem of this class that we really appreciated was towards the end of the class, Maisah taught us how to perform basic Thai massage on each other. The massage techniques can easily be replicated and performed at home. Overall we did enjoy the class and Acro Yoga, we thought it was very refreshing and not to mention you'll bring home some cool moves.

Suggested Occasion - This is a yoga class after all and therefore, if you're looking for a ass whooping, cardio centric or high intensity class, this will not be the best class to take. That said, this is a great class if you want to stretch out your body after a long day of sitting at your cubical.

No time for break, time to ride that Flywheel, let's hit it!

Many of you may have already heard or participated in a Flywheel class. Similar to most cycling classes,  the instructors will lead you through climbs, descents, races, rhythm riding and sprints to supercharge your day. Additionally, you can choose between 45-, 60- and 90-minute classes. Now before you jump into the conclusion that this is just like SoulCycle, well it's not. In our view, Flywheel emphasizes on more of a precision riding. Flywheel bike has a "TorqBoard" equipped to the it, so the rider knows exactly how much torq and RPM that he or her will need to hit. Based on the TorqBoard, each riders will also earn points and if the riders volunteer at the beginning of the class (at the front desk when signing in), they can compete with their fellow riders.

Today we're rocking with Megan Arnoldy and without further ado, here comes the ratings for Flywheel:

Motivation (3.8) - We took a Tuesday class and as you know, after a long day of working, it's definitely difficult to get your lazy ass into the gym or to take a workout class. We thought Megan was great at motivating the crowd and her playlist was on point and we felt that Tuesday night felt like the new weekend.

Amenities (4.5) - Similar to SoulCycle and other established boutique group fitness class, Flywheel most of the amenities you'll needed. While we did not use the lockerroom to take a shower post class, the locker area was well organized and not too crowded. There were free towers for riders to use during the class, but here's the game changer for us, Flywheel provides free water bottles (I know, right!).

Intensity (3.8) - The class was well structured in terms of the tempo. Warm up, hill climb (with high torq / resistant) mixed with some downhill sprints, bar weights and final wrap-up or what we call it - Gut Check Moment. Since the TV monitor is on with most people's performance points (bifurcated based on men / women), we were competing and going above and beyond till the very end.

Overall (4.2) - Great cycling class for us. We enjoyed utilizing the TorqBoard to monitor our progression of the class. One thing we would like to note is that if you're finding the recommended torq too easy, you should gage your level of resistance based on your RPM as the instructor would typically tells you what RPM you should be hitting.

Suggested Occasion - Great for cardio burning session, in which you just want to break in some serious sweat. Also, the competition element of the class should make it extra interesting for your competitive nature.

OM Factory Locations:

OM Factory Fashion District
265 West 37th Street (37th Street and 8th Avenue), 17th Floor
New York, NY 10018

OM Factory Union Square
873 Broadway (18th Street and Broadway), Suite 202 (buzz 058 for access)
New York, NY 10003

Flywheel Locations:

Astor Place
51 Astor Place
New York, NY 10003

Gansevoort Park 
420 Park Ave S
New York, NY 10016

Williamsburg
173 North 3rd Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Flatiron
39 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10010

Upper West Side
470 Columbus Avenue, 2nd Floor
New York, 10024

Upper East Side
201 East 67th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, 10064

Lincoln Square
150 Amsterdam Ave
New York, 10023

Tribeca 
415 Greenwich Street
New York, 10013

Chelsea
245 West 17th Street
New York, NY 10011

East 60th Street
203 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022

- L&L