Yoga For Beginners – What to Expect When Beginning Yoga

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Are you interested in trying in yoga? Here is a general overview of what you can expect in yoga for beginners. Yoga is an exercise where a person performs a series of poses that improve flexibility and strength. There are many different types of yoga each with their own style and emphasis on different poses, but the basic premise is the same across the board.

You should wear loose or form fitting clothing. The main emphasis of yoga is improving flexibility and building strength. Form fitting and loose clothing will help to facilitate your yoga needs perfectly.

As a beginner, you will want to find a studio or gym to start practicing yoga. Almost all major gyms offer classes in power yoga. Power yoga is a style that focuses on cardiovascular training. Do not be afraid to take the first step. Enroll in a class of yoga for beginners

If you cannot afford or find the time to travel to a gym, you may want to look into attending a yoga ashram. Ashrams are retreats where you can learn the basic skills and philosophy of yoga. After attending an ashram, you will be able to properly practice yoga from the comfort of your home.

You will also need a mat and possibly a bag for carrying your mat. When purchasing a mat, you will want to make sure the mat is thick enough for to suit your comfort level. It is also important to make sure the mat is long enough for your height. Each mat is different, so you should do some shopping around and find the one that is best for you.

Yoga is often a great way to ease back into working out. It is by no means an easy exercise, but it is a great starting point to begin getting back into shape. It is not just about exercise and working out. It is about relieving stress and syncing the body and the mind.

Many classes simultaneously teach yoga and lead meditation. Often yoga is only viewed as an exercise and a means of getting into shape. Meditation and yoga go hand in hand, and it is much more fulfilling when practiced along with meditation. Meditation puts the mind at ease and prepares the body for yoga. When the body and mind coincide it is a beautiful thing.

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Yoga DVD For Beginners

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A thoughtful, insightful, honest, and well-written beginners yoga DVD review will help you make up your mind about your practice of yoga before it guides your choice of the best yoga DVD for beginners for you.

Are you absolutely sure you want a yoga DVD for beginners?

Are you absolutely sure you want to begin the practice of yoga? Yoga does wonderful things for your body, mind, and spirit, but it will not shred and striate your muscles in the next month. Yoga will stretch, strengthen, and tone all your major muscles, but the practice of yoga may never burn enough calories for you to shed a single pound. Yoga will develop your self-control, body awareness, and grace, teaching you to move languidly and fluidly. Yoga never will increase your vertical leap, help you throw a ball faster, or fire-up your bat speed. Because yoga leads to union with the divine and eternal life in all things, it will contribute to your sense of calm contentment. Frankly, if you want to become a tougher, more intense competitor, yoga probably lives at the antipodes of what you want. So, are you sure you really want a beginner’s DVD?

Yoga numbers among the world’s very few zero-impact exercises. Practicing yoga, you always move, touch, flex, stretch, expand and contract gently, breathing into your motions and feeling each movement practically down to the fire of each tiny synapse. Practice of yoga packs no punch. It does, however, hold tremendous power. So, are you sure you really and truly want a yoga DVD for beginners?

What to do with a beginners yoga DVD review…

If zero-impact, slow and deliberate stretching and strengthening sounds good to you, let a proper beginners yoga video review guide you to the video that will fire your enthusiasm for yoga, making you eager to continue your practice day by day and pose by pose. A good beginner yoga video review, naturally, will summarize the video’s contents-how many workouts for how long with what kind of emphasis, and all the usual stuff you absolutely need to know. A good review, however, will focus on both the video’s continuity and its evolution; because, as you get stronger and evolve from practice to practice, you want to feel as though you resume where you left-off. You also want to feel as though you end each practice a little more powerful and proficient than where you began. Your reviewer will assess that stuff.

A good yoga DVD for beginners review also will evaluate the video’s mood and tone. Some beginner yoga DVDs have exactly the right content developed in exactly the right sequence, yet they seem so shrill and annoying no one can survive even the first twenty minutes of the two-hour disc. Some beginner yoga DVDs have all the best visuals and none of the right audio. Hip-hop music and proper yoga practice really do not mix. A good DVD review will look for harmony among all the workouts elements.

When you finish a good beginners yoga review, you should feel confident you want to pursue your practice of yoga, and you should feel equally confident you know which beginners yoga DVD will guide you.

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Yoga for Beginners: The Second Step of Yoga Practice

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What is more important – the Yoga teacher or the style of Yoga being taught? Firstly, you should research the nine major styles of Yoga: Bhakti, Hatha, Jnana, Karma, Kundalini, Mantra, Raja, Tantra, and Yantra Yoga. Then, make a choice as to which path of Yoga you would like to pursue.

Seek out a Yoga teacher or Guru, in your preferred style, for guidance. If this is not possible, due to distance or time, you should do a lot more Yoga reading. When visiting a bookstore or library, browse through the Yoga books for the one that “draws you in.”

If you choose to study Hatha Yoga, or a Hatha Yoga sub-style, the first book I would personally recommend is, “The Heart of Yoga, Developing a Personal Practice,” by T.K.V. Desikachar. T.K.V. Desikachar trained many of today’s modern Yoga masters, and this one book will help anyone develop their own routine.

Notice that I have not recommended a DVD. Why is that? Although Yoga DVD’s are very informative, some people get hurt practicing Hatha Yoga, while watching a DVD at the same time. It is not uncommon to hear that a beginning Yoga student was injured at home while practicing Yoga with a DVD.

The truth is – DVD’s are great learning tools for Yoga teachers, Yoga teacher interns, and Yoga teacher training sessions. Until a “holographic Yoga teacher” is developed to guide and assist you, in your own home, reading is much safer.

If you have been reading and practicing for six months, a beginner or gentle Yoga DVD should be fine, but please watch it, at least once, before attempting to do any Yoga technique. There is nothing wrong with watching a Yoga DVD a few times and taking notes before attempting any Yoga technique.

When you read, envision, and understand a Yoga technique, it will be much safer on your first attempt. Many of us are impatient and want to learn everything at once. In Yoga, this will never happen. In fact, one life is just not enough time to learn everything there is to know about Yoga.

Let’s look at options for learning Yoga from a Yoga teacher in your area. How do you choose a local Yoga teacher that is right for you? If you have done your research, you know what style of Yoga that you are interested in; but what should you be looking for in a Yoga teacher?

A Yoga teacher should be ethical, compassionate, understanding, and have time for your questions. Your religious ideas should not be challenged in a Yoga class. You should not be required to make drastic lifestyle changes.

However, as you continue to study Yoga, you will naturally improve your health.

© Copyright 2006 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

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