New here!, begginers question!

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Hello everyone!,

I am new here. I have been wanting to get into yoga for a really long time now, mainly in the past 2 years since I have been battling my anxiety (and winning) naturally!.

I am very anal, and like to do things right and I think the only thing from stopping me is that I want to know the history behind yoga, so I can understand it better, and what I am doing better. I have not taken a class yet but plan on doing so in the next week. I have been doing home practice with videos.

Has anyone here started yoga simply by studying what yoga is all about first? and then beginning the physical practice? I guess I just dont feel into it and connected because I jumped into doing videos without really researching.

Any suggestions on books to read?

Thanks,

Sarah

#2

I started taking Hatha Yoga classes. It got me in great shape. I loved it because the instructor was passionate about yoga, even though I wasn’t great at it, she made me feel wonderful about my progress. A great instructor helps you get in a routine.

Then I got into the spiritual aspects, which deepened my practice. Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi is a great book about yoga’s spiritual lineage & purpose. It’s yoga through the eyes of a swami, not a westerner! Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga is excellent also. If you’re battling an incessant anxiety, I recommend Dr. Levine’s Waking the Tiger. It’s about trauma & how it gets buried in our unconscious & physiology.If you suspect your anxiety is a result of early childhood trauma, it’s a must read!

#3

Hi, Sarah! What an enthusiastic beginning. Welcome to the forums!

In my estimation, “studying what yoga is all about” is most successfully accomplished in the context of asanas practice. Your own life and body will be your best laboratory. As such, I think your start will turn out to be a fair one as long as you continue to follow what your heart is telling you that you need for connection (and, of course, as long as you haven’t done yourself a physical mischief yet.)

There are tons of suggestions on books to read – I like pointing people to this thread:

http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f13...book-1747.html

You might also use the “search” function on words like “Rishis”, “history”, . . .

#4

Hi Sarah,

I’m a bit like you. My experience discovering yoga is that it was part of the agenda on a retreat I took a few years back. Prior to that I had all the misconceptions regarding yoga, but after the retreat (4 - 6 am classes) I felt “WOW. I loved that.” Then I delved into studying the crap out of it, along with finding a good studio and practicing at the same time.

I would say do both.

#5

Hello Sara,

You raise a very important point here.

Classically, students DID NOT learn asana until they had learned the ten yamas and niyamas outlined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. So in this regard your inner voice serves you well. Asana is not at all the foundational element of Yoga.

However let me clarify that by saying many people, myself included, begin the practice with asana. And some move along and some remain only there. Why begin at the physical? For many the thing they can most readily identify with is their physical body - it feels good, it hurts, it’s hot, it’s cool, etcetera. And so that way of starting can be “the road most traveled” since it has been cleared away so well by previous travelers.

You bring up another point and that is the nature of you as a person/student. That nature (currently) is to do things “right”. Fortunately, yoga teaches us otherwise. Without going too deep into the pond, when there is something done right, someone who is right, then there also is something wrong. From this comes two waring factions. And of course no peace at all. Peace can only be possible when we do not put ourselves on one side of a thing and others on the other side of it.

To students I would say effort with intention and power, but not to BE right. Practice safely and understand there are many things we do not know at all and so today’s “right” is tomorrow’s ooops.

gordon