As you get a taste for doing yoga poses it can be helpful to have some guidelines for how to actually operate your body while doing yoga poses. This page ideally helps you with everything you might need to know about yoga poses so that you can do them safely and effectively.
As a beginner one of the best things you can do is to simply get started. And one way to start is with this Beginners Yoga Workout.
If you want a bit more agency in how to start a yoga practice, or perhaps the above routine is to hard (or too easy) then the ideas in Beginning a Yoga Practice might help.
For more articles on yoga for beginners, including tips on modifying yoga poses, preventing injury and more, check out the links below.
Beginners Yoga Workout
A sequence of yoga poses for beginners
Beginning a Yoga Practice
As a beginner, figuring out where to start
Feel Your Body
Noticing relationships within and without
Preventing injury when starting yoga
What causes injuries, what you can do to prevent them
Modifying Yoga Poses
for Beginners and the Less Flexible
Why Do Yoga?
Some Benefits of Doing Yoga with a focus on Muscle Control
One reason for doing yoga is to learn your body. One reason for learning your body is so that you can use it with awareness (and if you like, finesse) in anything that you do. For an overview of what can be involved (using a first principles approach) check out: Learning Your Body.
For more articles on learning your body, in particular, learning to feel it and control it, scroll sideways in the list below.
Learning Your Body
(And Noticing What is Happening Now)
Adding Bigness to Your Yoga Poses
Basic Principles for Yoga
Using Yoga Poses to Learn Your Body
Learning a yoga pose as the sum of its parts
Yoga Pose Brush Strokes
Tips for Breaking Yoga Poses down into Meaningful Elements
Improving Control and Proprioception
by Creating Space and Stability
Perhaps one of the most basic actions you can do in any yoga pose is to create stability. A related idea is that of grounding. Here's a overview of grounding: Grounding your yoga pose.
You can read about stability in stability in yoga poses.
You can use yoga poses to learn your body. This is as opposed to just doing yoga poses. Find out how in Using yoga poses to learn your body.
For more on learning your body while getting into the flow at the same time check out Yoga pose brush strokes.
For some reasons on why you should do yoga (or for some of the benefits) check out Why do yoga?.
As for getting started with a yoga practice, here are some ideas for starting one at home: yoga home practice.
If you still aren't sure why you should do yoga or what you should focus on, then check out beginning a yoga practice to help you get a clearer idea.
While stability and grounding are both important when doing yoga, in terms of feeling your body, there is one other thing that you can focus on to make feeling your body easier. It's covered in Improving proprioception and control.
You can read another take on this same idea, influenced by lessons from partner dancing, in Making your Yoga Pose Sensational.
Something that you can do in nearly any yoga poses to make it easier to connect to your body is to add bigness. The simple reason is that it creates space in your body and that in turn adds tension to connective tissue which in turn makes it easier to feel your body.
When you work at making your body big, expansive, stability can happen as a by-product.
You can read more about adding bigness in Adding bigness to your yoga poses.
Once you are used to creating bigness, you can go about adjusting the amount of bigness, or tuning it.
Creating tensegrity in yoga poses is akin to tuning the connective tissue elements of the body so that we can sense the moment there is a change in forces acting on it and so that we can respond the moment that change is detected.
For suggestions for sequencing yoga poses take a look at sequencing yoga poses and sequencing yoga poses 2.
Resting is generally included at the end of a yoga class. However, it can be a good idea to rest in between poses. This doesn't mean looking at your phone though. It means simply being still whether standing or sitting or lying prone on your belly.
In these cases resting can be a chance to observe the effects of the pose that you've just done. It can also be a chance to think about things you can change if you repeat the pose.
Resting between poses or between repetitions of a pose or stretch can also simply be a chance to realize that the pose actually wasn't that bad.
If you are designing your own yoga pose routine, something to be aware of is how to balance actions. For more details check out counterposes.
Another important idea is learning how to modify yoga poses. That can be as simple as using a wall, yoga blocks, a chair or yoga strap for support. More detailed suggestions are covered in modifying yoga poses.
Some yoga teachers like to focus on alignment. Others like to focus on breathing. Some like to focus on a little bit of both.
I think proper yoga alignment isn't so much about aligning one part of your body with another, though that can be a good starting point. Instead, it is learning to feel when you are aligned. That means tuning in to tension and muscle activation sensation.
Put another way, alignment is like tuning into a radio station. You turn the dial to whatever station you want. However, if the reception is staticky, then you have to turn the knob a little left or right, sometimes repeatedly till you get clear reception.
So while alignment is a good starting point, I'd suggest that tuning your positioning (or "adjusting it") is even more important.
How do you prevent injury while doing your yoga practice? There are a few simple reasons that people injure themselves while doing yoga, particularly when just beginning. Those reasons and what you can do to lessen the chance of injury are covered in preventing injury when starting yoga.
Preventing injury can be more difficult in a class setting. And so one of the ways that you can prevent injury is to get a better feel for your body outside of class.
Perhaps one of the more important things you can do for long term joint health is learn how to control your muscles to keep your joints lubricated. For more on that check out the joints and muscles page.
One problem that can come up with difficult yoga poses, particularly those where there is the real (or imaginary) possibility of falling is dealing with fear. One way that yoga can be useful is that it can provide the opportunity for practicing dealing with situations where we might be fearful. Another approach is to figure out how we've dealt with fear in other situations and apply it do doing the yoga poses that scare us. For myself, I've done a bit of both. You can read how in dealing with fear and also in overcoming fear in yoga.
If you are just beginning a yoga practice, a good place to start would be with Beginners Yoga Routine.
For a beginners routine that is a little more challenging, take a look at Beginners Yoga.
I first learned a bit about the bandhas when practicing Ashtanga yoga.
One way to look at the three bandhas is as philosophical constructs. Mula bandha or the root bandha corresponds to the idea of foundation. Uddayana bandha, flying up, corresponds to the idea of creating space, even that of expressing whatever it is that you are doing. Meanwhile, jalandhara bandha is a way of tying the previous two together. You could think of it as the bandha that unifies. (I talk about similiar ideas in my ebook Know to flow which is also linked to at the bottom of this page!)
In more physical terms, mula bandha can correspond to engaging the pelvic floor muscles, and that's how I talk about it in Mula bandha.
Meanwhile, uddiyana bandha can correspond to the activation of the transverse abdominis (at least that's one way of looking at it). Read more in Uddiyana bandha.
You can also read an overview of the three bandhas in Bandhas
For some simple video routines on youtube to help you connect to your body check out Yoga routine and mini-routine videos. For more focused yoga videos check out this page: yoga videos.
These videos are all presented by me (i.e. I do and teach all of the exercises) and they are all designed to help you better feel and control your body while doing yoga.
Related: Beginners
Preventing injury when starting yoga
Yoga Exercises to Improve Stability
Mental models are created or modified whenever we learn. They drive habits, intuition and muscle memory.
This understanding can be the basis for reducing frustration and making learning, problem solving and doing easier.
Find out more about Learning how to learn-Mental models
Sensational Yoga Poses
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