It's yoga, but not as you know it... Photo / Getty
It's yoga, but not as you know it... Photo / Getty
Forget the gym bag. Sack off the treadmill and say sayonara to swimming laps at the pool.
Exercise just got interesting.
In a little yoga studio in a central Melbourne suburb, I found myself with a curious group of strangers. Looking around coyly from one to the next, we were all here for the same reason - a session of sensual yoga - or as I like to call it, sexy lady time yoga.
But this was no one-off. Yoga came as part of a Pleasure Weekend workshop, the brainchild of Vanessa Muradian - sexologist, yoga teacher and yoni massage raconteur.
The idea is for women to explore their sensual side, reconnect with what they need sexually, and feel empowered to ask for what they want - and have fun with it (caveat, without actually getting naked at the workshop, people! Get your filthy minds out of the gutter).
So we whizzed through some anatomy and the pleasure-trove that is the vulva (or the much cooler-sounding "yoni"- the Sanskrit word for it, meaning sacred cave).
And then we covered the kinds of things all of us have wondered about, from female ejaculation ("it's like you've wet the bed!" we're told) to the complex matter of low libidos and our changing sex lives. It was cathartic really to share how we feel with other women - it didn't matter that they were strangers.
And then after all the talking, there was just one thing left. Sexy lady time yoga.
Actually, even though I was half hoping for a burst of Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing, the soothing African folk music that was played was just as good - the drums setting the pace for the flow of the class.
Unlike your standard fitness class, sensual yoga aims to let women "reconnect with what they need sexually." Photo / Getty
We sat up on our shins, letting our hands caress our thighs and wander up over the rest of our bodies - moving faster or slower depending on what felt good to each of us individually.
Then on all fours, we got into "cat-cow", arching our backs and then reversing the pose inward, letting out sighs of release with each breath.
As we repeated the pose, we were encouraged to listen intuitively to our bodies and freestyle, moving in whichever way felt right. Everyone had their own interpretation - rolling their hips forward, back and around, pressing their bodies hard into the floor and sliding up slowly.
The breathing got deeper, the exhales louder. Actually, that's an understatement. Remember that scene in When Harry Met Sally? Meg Ryan in the cafe, you know the one. It was a little bit like that. Just multiplied by 23 women.
Although it took a bit of getting used to, the vibe in the class had totally changed - from each of us having one eye on the girl next to us to see what she was doing to totally focusing on ourselves. And with every audible exhale, we harnessed what Vanessa called our orgasmic energy.
From there we flowed through a sequence of poses from "eagle", where Vanessa encouraged us to feel the heat fire up from our pelvis as we pressed our thighs together and balanced - through to "bridge" where on our backs, we arched our torsos up and then on the way back down, pounded the floor with our lower backs which, weirdly, was way sexier-feeling than it sounds.
And then we rested. That energy surging through us, totally focusing on our own pleasure.
Not thinking about that job we've got to get done at work tomorrow.
Not thinking about what we need to buy from the shops.
Not thinking about our partners, friends or kids - none of that.
Just focusing on those lovely tingly feelings. And why shouldn't we be, ladies? I mean, come on - who wouldn't want a little more pleasure in their lives?
