Yoga Tips!

You’re con­sid­ered a begin­ner for the first 10 years of your yoga prac­tice. 

It’s a very hum­bling expe­ri­ence to say the least.

Yoga is about enjoy­ing the grad­ual unfold­ing process and being aware of how each pose affects the rela­tion­ship to your breath­ing.  We tend to hold our breath when we are in a stress­ful sit­u­a­tion.  Let­ting go your ten­sion and just main­tain­ing the flow of breath­ing helps you get deeper into the pose and quiet your mind.

Every­body is dif­fer­ent.  There’s noth­ing “messed up” about your back just because it’s more rounded than oth­ers.  It doesn’t mat­ter that your heels can’t reach the ground when you’re in Down­ward Dog.  I repeat, every–body is dif­fer­ent and we are all on our own journey.

Your pose doesn’t have to look like the per­fec­tion in the draw­ings or books.  Don’t worry about doing every­thing per­fectly.  There is no per­fect pose.  Align­ment is impor­tant but yoga isn’t about reach­ing a per­fect pose.  Be gen­tle with your­self and don’t try to make your pose pretty.

How you treat your­self dur­ing your yoga ses­sion is how you treat your­self out­side of it.

• Do you rush through your session?
• Do you imme­di­ately give up on a pose after 20 sec­onds once your feel some pain?
• Do you have trou­ble going to a yoga class but once you do, you fol­low through with strong intentions?
• Do you push your­self too hard every time?

Be aware that how you do any­thing is how you do every­thing.  Life is one big pose.

Strive to be more ambidex­trous from the get-go.  You’ll notice one side of your body is some­times stronger or more flex­i­ble than the other.  The side that is weaker is the one that needs more time and atten­tion!  Note: Prac­tic­ing ambidex­ter­ity is key to mak­ing you a bet­ter ath­lete in any sport!

Growth is infi­nite.  No mat­ter if it’s your tenth time doing downward-dog or your thou­sandth time, you will always dis­cover some­thing new about that stretch.  In other words, you could get some­thing out of each pose, no mat­ter what level you are at.  As you progress deeper into a pose, it trans­forms into a dif­fer­ent stretch and this process is infinite.

Let go your head! When you’re in down­ward dog, or stand­ing for­ward bend, sim­ply nod or shake your head to let it fall!  Shak­ing or nod­ding your head makes your neck imme­di­ately sur­ren­der to gravity.

When you’re in War­rior 1, if your left foot is in the front, your bum will tend to go out toward the left.  Move it to the right, draw the inner thighs closer together and you’ll feel a new stretch (pos­si­bly the hip flex­ors).  Con­versely, if your right foot is the front one, move your butt to the left (toward the midline).

When you’re in War­rior 2, look over your fin­gers and SMILE!  This makes any dis­tress­ful pose become ridiculous.

Lit­tle earth­quakes (tremors) when you’re get­ting pushed to the edge, espe­cially with your abs, are there to remind you that you are alive.

Be Here Now… On Vaca­tion! You may have to do things later but when you’re doing your prac­tice, don’t worry about it.  Let your thoughts roll by as you just focus on your breath and stay in the present moment.  Treat this hour or two in the stu­dio as a vacation.

Yoga Straps are a god­send for begin­ners. Yoga belts/straps (pic­tured on the right) allow you to grasp limbs that you couldn’t nor­mally reach and help you hold the pose longer. You get much deeper into a pose and stretch much more effec­tively with them. I rec­om­mend Yoga Acces­sories 8′ Cot­ton Straps because they’re long enough for nearly everyone!

 

Hope that helps! Thanks for read­ing and share this with your friends!