Yoga for Beginners: Start with Gentle, Achievable Yoga, Please!

You see this pose?!  I decided to browse for some photos of impossibly difficult yoga poses that real people, like me, and perhaps you, cannot hope to achieve - at least in this lifetime!  Such photos anger me, truth be told.

In a way, I think it's a crime that too many of these intimidating photos seep out into the media. Luckily, when I began yoga at age 15, I saw few photos of pretzel poses like this one.  If I had, I would have not even attempted to learn yoga.  This is acrobatic yoga.  No doubt, hundreds of years ago, probably quite a few Indian yogis could master such poses.  However, I believe that the essence and spirit of current yoga practice includes presenting poses that are accessible to most, if not all people.

Had I thought yoga was limited to such acrobatic yoga, I would have never started a yoga practice.  And, I would have not reaped the benefits of energy, flexibility, and serenity that I have enjoyed for years!  I strongly suspect that the preponderance of these types of photos versus those of the simpler, less visually dramatic poses that I do, have discouraged many people from considering yoga at all.  They just tell themselves, "whoa, I am too inflexible to do that!" 

Consequently, I strongly believe if you are a yoga newbie, begin with gentle, restorative yoga, period! Once you master gentle yoga poses, then the light is green to move on to more intense poses and yoga practices and maybe even seemingly impossible yoga feats as shown above.  But, your mantra should always be to learn and progress in gentle, baby steps.  If you follow this guidelines, you will advance much farther in the long run with your practice and gain tremendous results.

Yours for starting with gentle yoga,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the beginner's yoga at home coach

 

Comments

[Tina]

Well, that—plus the prices of most classes, kept me from studio classes for years!

Still does, and I've advanced since my 10 minutes a day stretch-yoga practice in 1998. The aspect of all this which is most unsettling, is that many teachers never heard of Paul Grilley and vaguely heard of Yin Yoga. Paul Grilley has stated that certain people's bodies have limitations in flexibility due to the placement of the bones in their sockets.

My first experience with any kind of yoga—and it was Yin Yoga—was in 1971 at the hands of a New York City public high school P.E. teacher who'd returned from Esalen (and it had changed her life) ... she'd taught yoga (it was not in the curriculum then) to her gym classes, hygiene classes and in an after-school club ...

[Sam]

The thing that every search who wants to be the yoga teacher is that what are the offerings or what we get from training when we join. So here is the list of the best facilities we are offering in our yoga teacher training:
1) One month accommodation (shared rooms)
2) All course materials needed for your teaching certificate
3) 3 organic meals per day
4) Daily Yoga Classes (Beginners-Intermediate)
5) Beach Excursions
6) Waterfall Hikes
7) Dance Party and/or Circus Performance
8) Includes everything but your travel!
 

[Laura Rodriguez]

??? This is not a comment.

[siryoz0]

Yoga exercise positions can take some getting used to. Don't forget that when you first start trying out the various yoga positions, your body will be relatively inflexible and so vulnerable to injury if you attempt too much, too soon.

http://lab5fitness.com/aerial-conditioning