I need some help to get started

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Hi
I’m a 20 years old boy from Denmark (so excuse my bad spelling and grammar). I’ve decided to try to start to practise some yoga. After hours and hours surfing on the internet, I’ve finally found this board, among millions and millions of very commercial yoga sites. I’m studying at the university and living by my self and therefore I don’t have that much money. I don’t want to buy tons of DVDs, books, special yoga music, or expensive lessons - I just want to get started now (or soon). So my first question would be:

  1. Is it possible to get started with yoga with out having to buy anything?

I want to say that I deeply respect the yoga culture and history, but the thing is that I’m most interested in the physical benefits of yoga. I consider my self to have a good personal life-philosophy, and I have no problems relaxing! Still I consider myself to bee a very openminded person, and will take any nice ?side effects? with a smile. I’m strength training and running a lot and I’m in good physical form and the primary reasons why I want to do yoga is to enhance my physical shape and my flexibility ? like a supplement to my other excercises. On one of the many websites that I’ve visited, in my search for some yoga related information, I read about some different kinds of yoga. My next questions would be:

  1. At first I think that the Ashtanga, Power or Iyengar Yoga seems to suit me the best ? does that seem right in my situation?

  2. I have nothing against spending some time reading and researching on my own - so does anyone knows where to find a good online ?beginners guide? with some exercises that could cover a full yoga program, that I could do in my room with some simple equipment?

I’ve no problems reading in English but writing takes some time for me - so my last question would be:

  1. Is there by chance some other scandinavian people in here that know of a scandinavian board similar to this?

I hope some of you can answer some of my questions :smiley:

  • Baske
#2

Namaste Baske,

thanks for coming to yoga forums! In my opinion, it is wise to have an instructor. Like using a road map to drive to a city - without one you will likely take some detours. That being said, there are many valuable books and videos which can help get you started. You don’t need to invest in many, but a good one or two will help point you in the right direction.

It is good that you know what interests you, and yoga can help to keep you fit, strong and flexible. My first certification as an instructor was from the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara - their flow series is derived from the Ashtanga series, and I can recommend their video Yoga: The Flow Series. A second video I would recommend is by David Swenson. He is an excellent instructor and leads you through the the First Series of the Ashtanga practice. A book I would recommend is Power Yoga : The Total Strength and Flexibility Workout by Beryl Bender Birch.

There have been some other posts about online resources. You can try doing a search of this site to see what others have recommended.

Chandra