You have chosen to join the fantastic world of yoga; you've decided to prioritize yourself, stop outsourcing your healing, improve your mobility and improve your stability-
mentally and physically
But like with most things, for whatever reason there isn't a start line; where do you begin? do I start by going into a class? do I start by a video at home? start by reading a book? -The answer is to figure out what works best for you; in every situation there are many priorities that come to play.
Things you want to make sure when starting any kind of fitness body practice, as well as a mental practice, is making sure you're doing it right ,avoiding any injury, avoiding any strain, and any stress again mentally and physically.
Yoga is awareness, the practice of yoga is being aware of your body, mid and breath in that moment. unlike running on a treadmill and thinking about what you have to do for the rest of the day, what you have to handle with what happened earlier that day. In yoga you are on your mat, you are thinking about the pose you're thinking about how your body feels in the pose and you are thinking about how your breath feels throughout the pose.- So if awareness is the key to yoga running with intention and mindfulness is practicing yoga, and doing asana(yoga pose) while thinking of your grocery list is not practicing yoga.
In this sense when you are practicing yoga, you are unable to injure yourself because you are completely aware while doing the asana.
There's plenty of physical challenges in yoga but one of the most challenging part of yoga is the mental part, the ability to let the world around you go and be on an island on your mat and being completely there.
As somebody who practices yoga, and who teaches yoga, as a body worker who helps patients and clients get through injuries from any kind of physical trauma, I always recommend to clients to start with a small groups or one-on-one, in any new physical practice. I highly recommend going to a personal trainer when you still want to start working out more and I highly recommend taking private yoga lessons when you want to start practicing yoga. No different than any other physical practice, alignment posture are key to getting what you want out of a asana and mobility and stability, but as well as preventing any sort of injury, so it is key to know that your alignment is correct, not just when you're in a pose but flowing between poses. Giving a video online or that you bought at the store is a great way to practice yoga but is not a great way to start practicing. You don't have someone there that knows the proper alignments to help with any adjustments, you don't have a person there to see if you need to do a pose differently to make sure you get the most out of your post, you don't have someone there to assist you in preventing any strains for injuries. Taking a class is more beneficial, because there is a teacher who's observing, however, when you go into a class, even a beginner class, it is not as beginner as it probably should be. Realistically, if you've never practice yoga, you don't need a beginner class, you need an intro class. You need to be introduced to yoga because when you've been introduced then you can do beginner stuff but introductory is not a part of average beginner class. Problems that might arise are things might be more challenging than you expected and then become discouraging. Also, if you personally have physical limitations you don't know how to modify poses that the average person can do for you just might need to do a little bit differently; which you can't always do with a whole class. the teacher is unable to show every modification for every physical adjustment. As well, when you're dealing with a class of say 20 students the teacher is unable to give you a hundred percent of their attention. This leaves you open for the opportunity for misalignment and for learning bad habits and learning poses incorrectly.
So, what I highly recommend to everyone introducing themselves to this new practice, is to do either very small introductory classes or one-on-one sessions with a yoga instructor. The benefits of doing a one-on-one session with your yoga instructor is you get full attention to make sure your alignment is where it needs to be so you can learn how the poses feels. How the stretches are meant to feel and where the strength is supposed to be coming from. The teacher is also able to customize the class, not only to your limitations and your needs but also to your goals and what you want out of your class. The teachers able to work with imbalances you have in your body to help bring balance back into your body The teacher would be able to help you bring strength where it is needed and flexibility where it's wanted and needed to help you get the most out of your yoga practice. You are able to ask questions throughout the class. Then you can take what you've learned from your private lesson and apply that to your full class or home yoga practice .
How frequent and for how long you should be doing private yoga sessions is determined on you. Determined on what your teacher thinks and how you are feeling. What I usually recommend when you're starting, to go minimum of once a week if you can go more than that, that is fantastic, however, if you can at least go once a week, and make sure to do stretching and mobility work in between your personal sessions. I would also recommend going for a minimum of six times and then, as you get more confident and more comfortable with the asanas ,with your body, then you can go to full classes, where you don't need as much focused attention from the teacher. Where you already know how to modify things that are more challenging for you and different poses were you already know what alignment you need in each posture. Then you can always come back to private lessons if you want just a little extra focus on something, if you feel that you're not getting it right, you could always come back to private sessions if you feel you need more attention to reach a goal, maybe you want to get into a headstand, and you would like someone to work with you one-on-one on how is best to get to that goal. Maybe you need a private therapeutic session to recover from an injury or maybe you just prefer private sessions, the way some people prefer to do personal training rather than take a workout class. Whatever fits your comfort, whatever fits your needs. the goal is to get yourself into yoga to get yourself into the practice and to get yourself doing it correctly so you can feel your best and be your happiest!
