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Hatha Yoga
Practice for Beginners
Creating a Yoga
Practice for Beginners |
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by
Marianne Woods Cirone, M.S.,
R.Y.T., Certified Yoga Teacher |
Hatha
yoga yields benefits that are geometric to the number of days
practiced weekly. For example, while doing yoga once a week is great,
doing it twice a week
 yields more than double the benefits, three days
is more than triple, etc. Yes, practicing yoga three times a week may
give nine times the benefits of once a week. Don't take my word for it
-- try it and see! Consistency is the key, whether
you are doing five minutes a day, or more than that. It is always
recommended to do the practice at the same time and place each day,
but for those of us who are not at the same place at the same time
each day, you have to create your own schedule and develop a
discipline about it. As Katherine Hepburn stated, "Without
discipline, there's no life at all." This applies directly to
yoga practice -- it is an act of discipline until it becomes a part of
your life, just like brushing your teeth. Practice can be adapted to
varying amounts of time, different energy levels and miscellaneous
factors such as whether you are menstruating, or if it is morning or
evening.
Yoga
Practice
for Beginners
The
best place to learn hatha yoga is from a really great teacher who you
can find through the Yellow Pages, local hospitals, friends, your park
district, websites, yoga and holistic health publications, health
food stores and other avenues. Usually a combination of
word-of-mouth and trial-and-error will get you to the best end point.
Now,
when you don't have access to a really great teacher, (who you
will know when you meet) or don't have consistent access due to your
schedule, location, or other obstacles, there are other options,
as follows:
-
A
class with an "okay" teacher, which can sometimes turn out
to be better than you first think.
-
A
home practice with a video or audio tape, CD, DVD, or TV show.
-
Home
practice with a book as a guide, and now the card decks of yoga
poses.
-
A
self-guided home practice based on your knowledge of poses from
previous classes.
People
have happily and successfully used all of these methods throughout the
last decades. In my opinion, these are all better options than no
yoga at all as long as you are aware of the limitations and precautions
that you should take and listen to your own judgment. One warning
is that if you did a certain pose incorrectly over a certain length of
time it could be harmful. If you find yoga interesting and
valuable to you, and haven't had personal access to a good teacher, then
it would be worthwhile to travel to a workshop or other setting where
you could get some feedback on the basics. Also, remember it is
important to meet with a healthcare practitioner before you begin a
practice so that you are aware of any limitations and precautions you
need to consider.
To
find out more information on specific books and tapes to use in starting
a practice, click on Book
Reviews and Video
Reviews. If
you are starting with a video, I suggest first using one such as Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss, with Suzanne
Deason. This is a
good resource for beginners who are in good physical health as few
precautions are provided. While this tape is not specifically doing
anything different from any other yoga tape to induce weight loss, yoga
can be useful in efforts to lose weight. Notwithstanding the weight loss
issues, this is a good basic tape which shows four models doing
modifications of each pose in a beautiful desert setting. It is
inexpensive, and is available on DVD also. This video does not go
into a lot of depth on the specific actions within a pose, and you may
want to supplement with a book such as Yoga The Iyengar Way
by
Silva, Mira and Shyam Mehta which gives more detail about the poses.
 Another
good beginner's video is Basic
Yoga Workout (for Dummies). This workout is available on VHS or
DVD and is worth the small investment to see if you like yoga. The
lovely instructor Sara Ivanhoe takes the viewer through a sequence of
twelve poses which serve as a very nice introduction for a person new to
yoga. There is quite a bit of explanation involved, which is
important for the first few viewings, but can get old for the more
experienced yoga practitioner. Sara has a more recent video which
gets into a little more advanced poses as well.
Two
television shows that offer yoga instruction include Inhale on
the Oxygen cable channel and Wai Lana Yoga on public television. Inhale is more of a flow or vinyasa class for students who are at least
advanced beginners, and has a background of light rock or similar music
and lots of young people practicing to the amusing and inspirational
words of Steve Ross. To my knowledge, Steve Ross has not created a video
yet, although I have heard that some people do tape his show and do it
at their own convenience. The advantage there would be not having
to do it at the dawn hours during which it broadcasts (twice), or having
to hold the poses during the various commercial breaks.
Some
people really enjoy Steve Ross's sense of humor, while others seem to be
offended by it-- namely a reporter who recently did a piece on his show
for MSN-- but some of the most outstanding yoga masters today are known
not as much for their "spiritual personalities" as for their
acerbic wits. Steve provides a wide variety of poses with limited explanation of the work within
poses, so some outside reference could be helpful to a beginner.
Steve Ross now has a new book out, called Happy Yoga that showcases his
upbeat attitude.
Wai
Lana Yoga typically presents more advanced poses in a
beautiful Hawaiian setting. Wai Lana may appeal especially
to those who have had a bit of experience with yoga
postures, especially when more challenging poses are presented.
Because of the limited length of the show, it may be useful for the
viewer to be aware of some warm-up postures with which they can
prepare for this practice, especially when they are practicing the more
advanced postures. There are no
commercials during this half-hour show, and it seems to have a loyal
following of dedicated practitioners.
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