When you just start a yoga practice, it can be a little challenging depending on the kind of yoga you’re practicing and your level of flexibility. Your body type and the size of your arms and legs also play a role.
If you’re a beginner and you’re struggling with your practice, you’re not alone. Most beginners find even the basics challenging. For example, downward dog is supposed to be a resting asana, but many find it hard to maintain.
Regardless of how long you’ve been doing yoga, here’s how you can overcome some of the biggest challenges.
1. Make sure your form is correct.
The most important thing is to ensure your form is correct. If you’re doing yoga at home, you won’t have an instructor to make gentle corrections to your poses. A floor-length mirror is the next best thing. However, you’ll need to study proper form to know how it should look.
If you don’t have a yoga teacher and you’d like to start at home, check out the tutorials and workouts from Body by Yoga. Instead of trying to jump in on an online class full of advanced students, these tutorials will walk you through everything you need to know as a beginner, including how to use props.
2. Work on opening your hips.
Tight hips will affect your ability to squat and move into certain asanas. Many common poses require hip mobility. However, you can’t just keep doing the challenging asanas over and over and expect your hips to magically open up.
You can tell your hips are tight by sitting cross-legged on the floor. If your knees don’t go all the way down to the floor and you’re hunched over, your hips are tight.
The only way to get complete hip mobility is to work the group of 20 muscles involved. This is done by holding specific passive poses for a long period of time.
For example, these 13 yoga poses will help you open up your hips. You can also find hip-opening stretching programs that utilize non-yoga poses.
3. Use props.
Using yoga props isn’t ‘cheating’ or being ‘wussy.’ Props are essential tools that help you deepen your practice and sometimes protect your body in certain poses.
For example, if you have trouble sitting cross-legged on the floor, it helps to sit on the forward edge of a folded blanket. It’s simple but makes a world of difference.
If you have short arms, you’ll definitely want to use yoga blocks for asanas that require placing your palm flat on the ground. For example, people with short arms sometimes struggle to reach the ground in Triangle pose (Trikonasana). Using a block with this pose provides more stability even for people who can reach the ground.
Here’s a list of common props used in yoga:
- Bolster. Bolsters are used in restorative yoga to support poses that open the heart and lengthen the lower back.
- Blanket. Blankets calm the nervous system, similar to a weighted blanket. They also provide support for the head, knees, and hips.
- Blocks. Blocks provide stability for certain poses and help you support your body when you can’t reach the floor.
- Straps. Straps are mainly for stretching and to keep your legs from moving during certain poses.
- Sandbags. Sandbags are used to add weight to certain poses and can also be used to calm the nervous system, similar to a blanket.
- Eye pillows. Eye pillows help you go deeper into a restorative yoga practice by eliminating visual input.
You don’t have to use props if you don’t want to, but they are extremely helpful. As a beginner, a couple of blocks and a blanket will be extremely helpful. From there, you can decide what other props you might need.
4. Keep at your practice.
Yoga is a long-term practice. It’s not something you do to get results at the end of the next day, week, or month. Although you will experience transformation over time, that’s incidental to the practice itself, which is a lifestyle.
Make the commitment to show up to your daily practice no matter how much you don’t feel like getting on the mat. Once you sit down and get present, you’ll slide right into your practice, and you’ll feel energized when you’re done. Keep that in mind whenever you feel like skipping a day because you’re too tired.
Explore all types of yoga.
After doing one practice for a while, you’ll probably want to explore other types of yoga. Try everything at least once, and before long, you’ll find what works best for you.
—
This post is made possible by Larry Alton. It is republished on Agents of Change on Medium.
—
Photo credit: Shutterstock