Give me some Downward Dog, I'll Keep my Dollars

I started off the summer on the hunt for free (or cheap) stuff. Food, clothes, fitness, fun, you name it, I was out to find it for as few of my precious pennies as possible. 

Looking back on the summer, I've been able to score the generally pricey activity of yoga for relatively cheap in several different places. I thought I'd recap on the deals I snagged and the studios themselves, for anyone who, like me, loves yoga but is short on cash. 

If you recall, my first week here, I attended two free sessions of classic vinyasa yoga: one on the roof of a building, and one in Belmont Harbor, overlooking the lake. Since they were free, I can't complain; and the views from both unconventional locales were beautiful (though slightly distracting). 

As I settled in, I moved on to bigger and better things: namely, heated vinyasa yoga. The first studio we tried, Om on the Range, offers 75 minute Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga, which is my favorite kind. It's strenuous and energetic, and after attending 5 out of 7 days of my New Student Unlimited Week ($20) I could see and feel the difference in my body. I liked this studio because it offered a wide variety (including Bikram, hour-long Vinyasa, as well as the aforementioned Baptiste Vinyasa), the instructors were knowledgeable but not too chatty, and the atmosphere was a equal parts tranquil and exhilarating. 

Next, we moved down to the South Loop to the CorePower Yoga studio. This is a national chain, and you can tell the minute you walk in. Commercial and untraditional, this studio offers swipe cards, merchandise with its logo, and a class option that involved weights. That said, its introductory special is unbeatable--a week of unlimited yoga, FREE! Besides the drawbacks above, a couple other things kept me from taking full advantage of my seven days: first, it was far from my apartment, and second, they ALWAYS played music, and did so WAY too loud, jerking me out of my meditative yogi state and giving me a headache. 

And this brings us to my present practice at Bikram Yoga Chicago, where they offer a generous unlimited MONTH for $29. Despite my preference for the Power Vinyasa variety--Bikram is much hotter, and with its stagnant postures and repetition is more boring--the deal was really too good to pass up. I'll admit that the first class was tough to get through, but I have since gone two more times, and I have a feeling by the time my month's up I might be a convert.