46 | BOROMAG.COM | NOVEMBER 2014 BODY & SOUL Flipping For The Changes at The By Hayley Bridgewater Anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting The Yoga Room’s Zhana Galjasevic will tell you that she is a graceful powerhouse and the driving force behind the success of the Astoria and Long Island City studios. Exciting, expressive, and creative, with an incredibly grounded energy, she is the type of person you cannot help but want to champion. I was thrilled to spend time with her recently to catch up on some thrilling changes coming to The Yoga Room family. Regulars to The Yoga Room already know that the studio schedules are jam packed with various different types of Yoga, Pilates, Toning, and Stretching classes. Private, Duet, and Group Apparatus classes are also available. And starting Mid-November, the schedules are expanding even more with the additions of Barre Method and Aerial Silks classes. Both fitness formats are enjoying a surge in popularity currently in New York City, and I have had numerous people inquire about the availability of such classes in our area. Not only will you be able to attend these classes in Western Queens, you will also be able to do so for far less than Manhattan prices. Barre Method Classes Coming back strong onto the fitness scene, Barre based classes trace their origin to The Lottie Berk Method. Barre method combines components of ballet, Pilates, isometrics, yoga, and isolated strength movements. Form and alignment are key, and the small, focused repetitions are intense. The core-centric patterns can be taught with or without props and are known to produce the long, lean, stature of a dancer. The Yoga Room Barre team will be comprised of top notch certified instructors from the major schools of Barre3, Figure4 Barre, and Core Fusion. They will pick the best components from each method Yoga Roo m to create a program unique to the studio. Each class will be capped at sixteen students to provide for instructor attention and correction. Both The Yoga Room Astoria and The Yoga Room LIC will be getting an expanded Barre program. My Barre demo was led by the beautiful Jaime Frola. A former Radio City Rockette. She has been teaching Pilates Mat, Sculpt&Tone, and Barre classes at numerous studios in New York City. Jaime obtained her certification in Pilates through Pilates Academy International, and her Barre certification through Pure Yoga (Figure 4). Though my background is in dance, my recent training has been in quite a different direction, but Jaime was patient, specific, and encouraging with me. She had me feeling every bit of that movement within a few minutes. I can imagine that students flock to her classes. Aerial Yoga/Silks Ahhhh! Aerial Silks! I will admit that this really peaked my interest. I have always been a climber, and the gymnast in me loves to be upside down. So I was particularly anxious to try this out. And Zhana, herself, was kind enough to indulge me with a personal walk through of various poses. Yes, it is true that Aerial Silk work is physically demanding and lots of fun. It is a perfect mix of strength and artistic grace. But did you know that Aerial assisted yoga—especially inversions—can be incredibly therapeutic for that compressed feeling so many of us experience? As soon as I flipped upside down to hang from my hips, I felt a freeing spinal decompression that made me audibly giggle. I will definitely be carving out some time to come back for these classes.
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