Have you been thinking about yoga for a while?
You say you want to but then you just don’t start?
Well let me tell you why starting a healthy yoga practice should be at the top of your New Year’s Resolutions list!!
Yoga is about a lot of things, but it’s mainly about learning how to stay in an uncomfortable place. Then taking that anywhere you want. To your work. To your relationships. To parenting. To finances. The concept goes wherever you need it too.
Let’s take standing in a tree pose for example. You are teetering on one foot, and you say to yourself, “Hmm…If I shift my weight slightly, I think I might be able to handle this a little bit longer. Maybe if I lift my chest more, I can be able to breathe more fully, and this will become easier.” Then later, when you are in a meeting that is hard to tolerate, you find drifting into the same principles. You begin to tweak your stance, finding a way to take a breath and then you may find the situation becomes bearable. In this way, yoga changes everything. However, this doesn’t happen overnight. We return to our mat day after day, because it takes time
to embed this type of thinking. This isn’t something you master; you just stay on the path and keep discovering new beautiful scenery.
Yoga is about linking breath and movement.
Yoga is about opening your heart.
Yoga is about being humble.
Yoga is about fixing things from the inside
Yoga is about noticing where your mind goes when you ask your body to do something unfamiliar or scary.
Yoga is the pursuit of outward clarity to help move us towards inner clarity.
So now you are saying “ok, I want to yoga..where do I start?”
Here is a quick rundown of some styles likely to be available at studios and gyms.
Vinyasa and flow is a practice that connects one movement to another with beautiful breath-work. Ashtanga is a rigorous style that connects posture and flow, however there is no variation to the class and every class consist of the same poses in the same order. Then you have Iyengar yoga, here each pose is separate, and you stay in poses for a longer time. This yoga emphasizes on the alignment, which makes this a good choice for people with limitations or injuries. Private practices
can be great for people who truly want to work on proper breath-work and alignment. Here you can have a practice customized for you and have a certified yoga professional guide you in and out of postures safety and correctly. So many injuries that happen in a yoga practice are due to people going into postures they shouldn’t. or going in and out incorrect.
No matter what your thoughts have been on yoga in the past, it is one of the most beneficial practices you can add to your routine. This one practice can change everything about how you move into a brand new year and a brand new decade.
