Questions from a newbie...advice wanted

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

How can you tell if you are doing the moves correctly? I haven’t broken or strained anything as yet so I guess that’s a good sign right, lol!

I can’t afford to attend a class right now but want to continue practicing from home using my dvd’s and yoga programmes on Sky. Also as a newbie to this can you advise on…

  1. How often I should practice? Min/max time?

  2. How can I stay motivated when some poses are hard to get into?

  3. Apart from feeling great from all the stretching and breathing what other benefits will I notice?

I love Yoga but if I don’t practice some everyday I find I struggle to get back into it and need to motivate myself…uggghh!! :frowning:

Thank y’all!! :smiley:

Any advice would be awesome.

#2

Hello Riley.

It depends on what you mean by “[I]correctly[/I]” and I don’t want to base an answer on assumption. In the practice in which I study, train and teach, postures are alignment-based and that is to facilitate two things; safety and effect. So in this context it would not be possible to tell if you are doing the postures correctly unless I could see you or you were very descriptive of the poses in question.

Over time, a well taught student who has cultivated a very deep and clear inner awareness can tell many things about their practice - and yet, for me, even after ten years I still value the adjustments offered by my teacher who has been studying for 40+ years. A student who has yet to cultivate this “inner teacher” would have to rely on some other source. Unfortunately the source you are currently using can’t see you :slight_smile:

To answer your list:

  1. developing a discipline of practice is very beneficial. So I advocate a ten-minutes-per-day approach over a 90-minute session every once in a while. The nature of the practice, its style or type and subsequent friskiness also determine the duration and frequency. It is not appropriate to practice (yoga) such that you are depleted and constantly injured. However in the beginning it is likely your muscles will sing to you :slight_smile:

  2. Motivation has to come from within and it has to stem from the deep gratitude for what the practice delivers. The purpose of the practice is the getting into not the being in. The poses serve us as a method or pathway for self-exploration. That can happen moving only one inch or one foot into the plane of the pose. However students should always be moving into the plane of the pose (rather than away from it).

  3. Benefits are based on variables. Humans are unique, the practice is unique, moods are unique, styles, breath, diet…all of this comes to bear on the fruits of the practice. I would not dare to rob you of a profound discovery by telling you what you would find (in Yoga that is considered [I]asteya[/I] or stealing). Generally speaking yoga changes three things - our relationship with our self, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the planet/universe/cosmos.

I hope this is helpful and stirs the fires of thought.

gordon

#3

Riley,
IA always has wonderful, insightful answers.

I can only speak from my own experience, as you may not experience the same as I.
But I did find that in my own practice that relied only upon videos to guide me, I found that Iyengar yoga was the most beneficial in helping me to learn proper alignment in the poses to help avoid injury and help build muscle tone as well as strength and flexibility.

My source for this was yogatoday.com, and Neesha is the instructor who focuses on Iyengar yoga.

One thing that helped me to stay motivated was another video where the instructor repeated several times throughout that it is not important that you can come fully into the pose, but that just making the attempt brings you the benefit.

So I will say, be patient with yourself, and know that any pose, whether you can barely move into it or are finding it too easy, will bring you benefit and is strengthening and doing wonderful things for your body. Don’t shortchange yourself, and don’t shortchange your body which is starving for this wonderful exercise/cleansing!

Best of luck to you.

#4

Remember that asana practice and the other techniques of yoga are not the goal, but are the gateway to something beyond :slight_smile: