Yoga for Beginners

Yoga is one of the best activities for someone who is concerned about both physical fitness and mental clarity. If you’re taking your first step to understand this varied and rewarding discipline, there’s a couple things you should ask yourself when choosing how to practice.

Just like any other fitness discipline, yoga builds upon its own principles, and there are several different types of yoga to choose from. Once you’ve found a style and venue that you like, there are a couple pointers that will allow you to make the most of your time.

What to Bring
Make sure you wear form-fitting but flexible clothing. Anything too tight could rip during certain positions, but anything too loose could cause slips or trips during some of the movements. Make sure you have a water bottle handy – just like any other physical activity, it’s important to stay hydrated. Finally, you’ll probably want to practice yoga barefoot. While you’ll likely have a yoga mat, socks can still slip if your feet are being supported by other parts of your body, and shoes are too bulky to allow you to reach some of the poses easily.

Be Comfortable
Many of the poses your instructor does may not be attainable by the average beginner. Never try to force your body to do anything that causes pain or high level of discomfort. However, the point of yoga, like any discipline, is to train your body to become stronger and more flexible. So during any hold times during a position, try to hold your body on the brink of comfort and discomfort. Sometimes an instructor will prompt you to “push” for the next couple of seconds, or you can prompt yourself – during the last 5 seconds of a position, push your body so that a level of slight discomfort is reached. Nothing should ever cause pain, but you should feel yourself stretching muscles you may have never paid any attention to in the past.

Remember to Breath
Many beginners are so concerned about trying to achieve the given position that they forget that one of the tenants of yoga is mental clarity. You are working out, but you’re also focusing your mind. Listen to your instructor when they explain how to breath during the class. While the breathing may seem arbitrary at first, practicing the correct time to inhale and exhale can help you perform the position better in the future as the movement of the lungs corresponds to the movements of the body.