Yoga Tips

Tips For Getting Started With Yoga

There are a few essential principles to keep in mind to maximize the benefits of yoga. Follow them to get better at your practice and stick longer with yoga.   

1. Keep The Commitment

Being Committed to Regular Practice Will Help you Get Better Results
It takes a lot of discipline to stick to yoga practice. A good way to be consistent is to choose a designated place and time for your practice – preferably a quiet area where there is solitude and peace. Once you commence your daily practice of yoga, give yourself some time to get used to it. Don't be too harsh on yourself. It may take more than a month for you to get used to a regular practice. Remember, it’s important that you feel good and enjoy your yoga session.

2. Focus On Your Breath

Focusing on Your Breath will Help Ensure Unity of Body and Mind
Remember to synchronize your body's movements with the breath at all times. There are four ways that your body can bend: forwards, backwards, side bends, and twists. Make it a point to move gracefully between poses and pay attention to your breath. Align your breath with the movement so that your body functions as a single whole. Inhale when the yoga asana opens up your body and exhale when you fold. For example, if you are doing a regular forward bend toe-touch asana, you must inhale as you lift your arms upwards, and exhale as you bend forward.

3. Function Tops Form

Concentrating on Your Own Limitations Will Help You Improve Your Practice
You may have seen hundreds of pictures and videos of yoga practice that is perfect in every detail and form. Truth is, there’s no such thing as a perfect yoga pose. The most important thing to remember is function and not form. Never try to force yourself into an “ideal” posture that you have seen others in your class performing or one you might have seen in pictures and in videos. Your form will gradually improve over time.

4. Dynamic and Static

Both Movement and Stationary Poses Are Advisable
Moving postures are called dynamic postures; the ones where you are holding a pose are static. Yoga routine should involve both dynamic and static postures. Usually you will move in and out of yoga postures before you hold them. Dynamic movements increase blood circulation and prepare your muscles and joints for the holding phase, also allowing for a deeper stretch. For many yoga asanas, it is common to create dynamic movement at least three times before doing a static pose.

5. Focus on The Spine

Remember to Remain Focused on Your Posture and Your Spine
Ever heard the saying – you are as old as your spine? Well, that is 100 % true. You can see the truth behind this maxim when you observe people who have aged beyond their years due to the inflexibility of their spine. The World Health Organization reports studies that estimate about 70% of adult population worldwide suffering from severe or mild backache. It is crucial to ensure that your spine is the focus of your yoga practice. The longer you are on this planet, the more the gravity affects your body, and your spine is often the first to suffer. Yogic postures create a way to decompress the spine and enhance the postural alignment. This, in turn, reduces stress on the musculoskeletal, digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems.

6. Slow and Steady

Take it Easy and Relax at All Times
Yoga should never be done in haste – no matter how little time you have on any particular day. When you hurry through your sequence of asanas, you are going against the very core of the idea of yoga, which is to slow down! Most parts of our lives are governed, ruled, and indeed rewarded by the idea of speed. Yoga takes that rule and flips it around. The slower and the more mindful your practice of Yoga is, the bigger the benefits. Do not try to rush through postures. Also remember that resting poses are as crucial as the active ones, and warming up is also as important as cooling down.

7. Yoga is Not Competition

Do Not Push Yourself Beyond Your Limits
Yoga is not meant to be a competition - even with yourself! Yoga is meant to help you move with the flow and rhythm of your body, and not hold your body to ransom. Even if you are an advanced practitioner of yoga, there may be times when you’re recovering from an illness or injury, or you may be just plain tired. In those times, there is absolutely no harm if you simply go back to practicing like a newcomer. Your body may also be affected by many factors such as hormones, hydration, moods, stress, levels of activity, and emotions. Ancient Indian yoga tradition always stresses the fact that where your mind goes, your circulation goes.

8. Use Correct Sequencing

Always Practice Your Poses in Sequential Order
There is logic in the way that postures are sequenced in Yoga. The art of sequencing involves placing the postures in a specific order to maximize the benefits. A proper yoga therapy program takes into account your final goal and the most effective and safest way to reach it. If you are new to yoga or pressed on time to practice yoga, it is best to stick to a sequence in a group class, or as advised by personal yoga teacher.
Whether you are planning to start doing Yoga or whether you are already practicing, it helps to keep the above points in mind. If you make an effort to integrate them into your yoga practice, you will find yourself progressing steadily towards the ultimate goal - being at one with yourself.


Tips to Improve Your Flexibility

Although being about to stretch and contort like a pretzel doesn’t make you a better yogi, feeling like you’re making progress in your practice is important in all areas of life! So, whether you’re trying to master Kurmasana, or simply want to be able to reach past your knees in a forward bend, here are 7 tips to get you there!   
When I first started practicing yoga, I was shocked at the gains in flexibility I experienced. I had to strain to reach past my knees in my first class, so it was a huge shock when a few months later my fingers brushed my toes during a forward bend.

However, after about a year of practice, my flexibility plateaued, and I started to wonder if my body had reached the limits of its flexibility. I tried pushing myself, and practiced with teachers who would give me strong, forceful, adjustments. But I never saw any real changes in how far I could go in the postures. If anything my attempts to force it only made me tighter. My body appeared to be ‘stuck.’

One day, I just decided to stop trying. If my flexibility had reached its fullest extent—so be it. Surprisingly, it was only when I stopped worrying about how flexible I was that I started seeing real gains in flexibility again. It was through relaxation, practicing for practice’s sake and without the goal of becoming more flexible, and letting go (so simple!), that my body slowly began to start opening up again.

Here are 7 things I’ve since learned about flexibility from researching, speaking to other yogis, and simply by observing and staying in tune with my body.

1. Don’t Force It

Traditional ideas about stretching and flexibility assume that stretching should be forceful and perhaps even painful. While it’s true that some force is required to stretch the muscles (Hatha Yoga is actually sometimes translated as ‘forceful’ or ‘willful’), flexibility is as much mental as it is physical.
One of the reasons for tight muscles is that the mind thinks it needs to protect you from pain and injury, so it instructs your muscles to tense up when you try to go deeper into stretches and postures. This is actually good—we want our bodies to protect us from injury! But for most of us, especially if we’ve only been practicing yoga for a few years, we still have plenty of flexibility to gain, we just need to teach our body and mind that it’s safe to do so.
That’s why it’s important NOT to be tense or forceful in your practice. If you stretch in a way that’s too forceful and uncomfortable, your body/mind complex will never learn that it’s safe to go deeper into postures. Instead of forcing, stay calm and relaxed. Your body will remember this feeling of comfort and relaxation, and in the future you’ll be able to find the same degree of flexibility more easily. 

2. Focus on Specific Areas

Everyone has at least one of them, those naturally tight areas on the body that feel like they will never open up. Common ones are the hips, shoulders, and hamstrings. When we feel super tight in certain areas, we tend to want to avoid the poses that require flexibility in these areas and focus instead on the poses we can do with ease. The result is that our fears and insecurities about our lack of flexibility is actually what keep our stiffest areas stiff!  
Instead of avoiding these areas, focus on them. If you’re already flexible in your hamstrings, but not your hips, spend twice as long practicing postures that open your hips like Rajakapotasana (Pigeon) or Baddha Kohasana (Butterfly). If backbends are no problem for you but you tend to avoid forward bends, then spend more time on postures like Paschimottanasana and Janu-sirsasana.

3. Balance the Body

Likewise, many people find that one side of the body is more flexible than the other, and then spend more time in poses on that side because they’re easier or more comfortable. The next time you practice, pay attention to your body and see which side is more flexible. Then, modify your practice so that you’re spending longer in poses targeting the less flexible side. Do this until the flexibility in your body becomes balanced.

4. Use the Breath

This ties into the idea of ‘not forcing it’ we talked about earlier. Breathing slowly and deeply—yet naturally, relaxes the body, which allows your body to feel more comfortable and safe going into deeper stretches and postures.
At the same time, pairing your inhalations and exhalations with your movements will aid in how deeply you can enter yoga postures. You may find that inhalations allow you to more easily enter into backbends like Urdhva Danurasana or Ustrasana, which require wide, open chest and shoulders, while exhalations allow you to move further into forward bends like Upavista Konasana.

5. Try Yin Yoga

If you’ve been practicing a yoga style like Power Yoga or Vinyasa Yoga that emphasize holding poses for a short time, you might want to consider incorporating a slower style of yoga, like Yin Yoga, into your practice.
Unlike yoga styles that mainly develop muscular flexibility, Yin Yoga, with its long (5-20 minute) holds of static postures, allows you to slowly release tension in your fascia and connective tissue—your ‘yin tissue.’ This kind of practice is not only important for flexibility, but also for healthy joints. You can have the most flexible muscles in the world, but if the there’s too much tension in the connective tissue surrounding your joints, you still won’t be able to do certain yoga poses.

6. Change Your Diet

Many people find that switching to a more ‘alkaline diet’ increases their flexibility without even making any other changes. For a more flexible (and healthy) body, increase your intake of vegetables, especially dark, leafy and wild greens, fruits, herbal teas, nuts and seeds, and spices like turmeric and ginger. Reduce or eliminate: caffeine, alcohol, sugar and processed foods, and animal-based products.

7. Be Patient

Even if you practice all of these methods, don’t expect your flexibility to improve overnight! It took time for our bodies to become stiff, and it will take time for them to open up again. Remember that in the end, yoga’s not about flexibility! It’s about being in the moment, practicing for practice’s sake, and accepting yourself as you are.