Zara M. | Writer Portfolio

Yoga 4 Tango was a weekly yoga class that was tailored to suit dancers in the London Tango community. Over the space of about 6 months, I was hired to attend, take part in, and write about the yoga classes from the perspective of a complete yoga beginner.

Goal

The main aim of these blog posts was to provide engaging weekly content to publish on the Yoga 4 Tango blog and Facebook page.

In taking part in the classes I was able to communicate through the blog to my fellow classmates about my personal experience of taking the classes as a complete yoga beginner, which brought us all together and provided us with something to form a conversation around.

The story on the blog could then be used to promote the classes to other complete beginners and give them a picture of what to expect if they signed up.

As the Tango community is a tight-knit one in London there would be the added bonus of the blog providing a way to help people spread the word about the classes to other Tango dancers.

My Angle

Being a social Tango dancer myself, and having attended many of the weekly Milongas, I was a familiar face on the Tango scene at the time, and so I decided that the best way to approach the blog posts was to sound like myself. I was encouraged to be honest and offer my subjective perspective, and I embraced this fully with the witty and conversational tone of voice that comes naturally to me.

I also took extensive notes throughout the classes, as a wealth of information was shared and I felt it was important to show that this was part of the experience.

In the classes we were always encouraged to take what we had learned in the class and apply it not only to the dance floor, but also to different aspects of our everyday lives. I had a lot of fun writing about how I was doing this, and my intention was to provide inspiration to readers and show the potential overall benefits of the lessons learnt in the classes.

Project Highlights

Best thing I learnt

People respond well to real-life experiences. Writing in my own voice made my content feel genuine and readers trusted what they read. I would always encourage any business with a blog to write in the voice of a real person that readers can relate to. It is far more personal and will stand out in a world of online content that is all beginning to sound the same.

What I did differently

The intention of the blog posts were to mimic a diary or journal, and so I chose not to include subheadings or divide the content up, as I didn’t want it to sound too structured or formal. Most of my clients prefer article-style, detailed, and informative content, but this blog needed to flow more naturally. I attempted to keep posts fairly short, but long enough to do each class justice and express my points.

My contribution to the project

It was my idea to integrate the knowledge and information that was being provided by the instructors into my blog posts.

I felt that this added more value to the content and created some balance so that the posts were not solely about me and my experience – they were also very much about yoga, tango and the life-lessons being explored.

I also felt that this would give a taste of who our instructors were and the value that they were offering.

What I enjoyed most

My favourite thing about being part of this project was the freedom to be myself when writing. It's a rare opportunity to write in your own voice when a client has hired you to write for their blog, but I think it was important and in line with the goals of this project.

I also enjoyed attending the actual classes and having the opportunity to “live” the experience I was writing about. It made the writing all the more rich and engaging, and provided people with an incentive to follow the blog so that they could follow my story.

My First Yoga 4 Tango Class

Last weekend I attended my first Yoga4Tango class. Yoga for Tango - What's that? I thought. Balancing acts and Boleos? I had no idea what to expect, but what I came away with from the class I can only describe as an inspiring, and sweaty yet refreshing experience.

Feeling The Pose

I have to say that I found this week's Yoga4Tango class to be somewhat more challenging than the first week. The experience of the class is so focused and intense, not to mention strenuous and fast-paced, that it is essential to bring your mind and your body to the class at their optimum levels of alertness.

Yoga classes for tango dances - a beginner's guide

Strong Foundations And The Soft Embrace

When I heard that the class would be focussing on Yoga techniques for the “snuggly” Tango embrace, my ears pricked. This “snuggly” embrace is something I’ve heard a lot about recently, but apparently it isn’t something you get an awful lot of on the dance floor, at least not in London Milongas. The class description for last week stated that we would be working on achieving a strong foundation, and exploring how this helps with a soft embrace, while still keeping a steady posture.

Back To Basics Yoga 4 Tango Beginner’s Class

This weekend we were stretching, balancing and staying grounded for charity at The Ultimate Danceathon for Save the Children. It was wonderful to see and welcome new faces, and to enjoy our Yoga4Tango practice in a new venue, at the Negracha London Tango club. I do enjoy practicing yoga in new environments, and I love that the Yoga4Tango sessions travel about to different Tango venues.

Fluid Movements & Restorative Yoga 4 Tang

This was an exciting weekend for me. Not only did I attend the weekly Sunday class, but I also attended the new Saturday Restorative Yoga4Tango Session with Franzi after the Tango classes and practica at Tango Garden, in order to get the full Tango/Yoga experience.

Creating An Inner Glow

I have just come back home from a Yoga4Tango early morning mid-week practice session and I am feeling refreshed, focussed, and ready to embrace the day. It is my first experience of practicing yoga first thing in the morning, mainly because I am not normally a morning person; but would you mind if I said that the experience has quite literally opened my eyes?

Contra Muscles Working In Opposition

I love how these yoga classes open up my awareness of how the anatomy of my body works, and make suggestions for subtle changes and shifts in muscle tension and release that allows me to expand the movement of my body even further. It is a wonderful feeling to allow certain muscles to relax and expand by focussing on one muscle’s tension and on your breathing, and then feel yourself able to stretch even further into a pose. It is a constant reminder that you are always capable of more, and that only your own mind is hindering your body’s freedom.

The Transition To Organic Energy

The ‘Downward Dog’ pose in yoga is referred to as one of our ‘resting poses’, but to me it feels like jolly hard work! Our instructor describes his feelings whenever he is asked to go into ‘Downward Dog’ as relieved, happy and ready to ‘let go’. When I prepare to go into the ‘Downward Dog’, I am pretty much focussed on the fact that my body never does what I want it to do. Grrrr!

Reflecting On “The Resting Pose”

I was sad to have missed the Yoga4Tango class last week. Unfortunately I haven’t been well and so I have pretty much locked myself away, partly not wanting to spread my germs, but mostly because I was feeling sorry for myself. The result though, was that I was quite disappointed in myself for not pushing past barriers that I knew didn’t really have to be an issue. I spoke to one or two Yoga practitioners last week who encouraged me to go to the class and the practice sessions even if I wasn’t feeling very well, because the sessions would in fact be healing and have a positive effect on my body and health. I was encouraged to give it a chance, but I ignored the advice and instead I have felt more rubbish than I needed to feel this week. Cue violins. I tend to have high expectations of myself and constantly beat myself up mentally over any perceived personal failure.

Pratyahara: Withdrawing The Senses

I may have mentioned in a previous blog about a kind of calm and meditative state that I happened to enter during a yoga class, which was similar to the kind of feeling that many of us also have the pleasure of experiencing when dancing Tango? Well, apparently in yoga there is a word for this – it is called the practice of Pratyahara. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Yoga4Tango class last weekend in which the practice of Pratyahara was to be the theme, so I decided instead to do some practice at home by myself to explore the subject a little deeper. I didn’t have much luck with it though, and I will tell you why…

3 Minute Sun Salute Yoga Sequence

I was very excited about the yoga class this week because I have recently acquired my own yoga mat (it’s bright pink), and so I was looking forward to learning an effective sequence of yoga poses to incorporate into my individual daily practice at home. Up until now I had clumsily been throwing together what I remembered from classes, in no specific order, as an alternative to just lying on my belly and inhaling the glorious new rubber smell of my pink mat! Now that I know the 3-minute sun salute, it is time to get serious.

Yoga Is Self Study, Self Discipline, And Self Devotion

Have you ever gone into that calm, meditative state while you are dancing Tango; and though your eyes may be open, you’re simultaneously present and in a complete realm of your own at the same time? This is what I experienced during the Yoga4Tango class last weekend. Perhaps I was looking to escape the chaos in my head, and the yoga class helped me to switch off and let it all go. Sometimes I think of yoga as quite a self-absorbed activity, but never in a bad way; we all need to focus inwards once in a while, preferably on a more regular basis!