Advice for Yoga Beginners _ 5 Yoga Tips for Beginners _ Suggestions for How to Start Yoga

Hi , I'm Christina and welcome to my channel , Kris A yoga in today's video .

I will be discussing my five tips for yoga beginners .

These are things that I wish I would have known when I first started out with my yoga journey .

If you haven't checked it out already , I posted my yoga story .

But basically in that video , I share how my first experience with yoga .

I didn't really like it and I stopped for a long period of time before I started up again .

So these are things that I wish I would have known .

So maybe I would have just stuck with it and kept going instead of taking a break in between and just stopping waiting so long to start up again .

So if you're a yoga beginner , if you're new to yoga , definitely listen to these tips that I have for you before we get started .

If you are not yet subscribed to this channel , I post two free yoga classes every single week .

It is completely free to subscribe and I would love to have you as a subscriber .

So let's get into my five tips for yoga beginners .

Number one is , listen to my words , instead of looking at my body .

So you can look at my body in the pose when I'm demonstrating for an example .

But I would say listen to my instructions more carefully because I'm not perfect .

My body is not perfectly aligned and my body is still working towards more flexibility , more strength .

Um I do have some flexibility and I do have some strength , but it took me a long time to get there and it's going to take me a long time to get even better .

So I know how the body needs to be in order to stay safe and achieve the pose correctly in the right way .

And I think about what I say when I instruct you into a yoga pose , I'm saying this as a yoga teacher , when I am giving yoga instructions , yoga asa instructions , I put a lot of thought into what I'm saying and the instructions are carefully constructed so that you are able to achieve your optimal yoga pose .

Sometimes my body may not look the way your body is going to look and that's totally fine , which brings me to my next point a little bit , but just hold on for a second with that .

Another point to this is that I notice a lot of students when I'm teaching live classes , they're in their head way too much .

I can be looking straight at someone with their left arm raise and I can say right raise your right arm .

They are just so focused on what's going on in their head and I can just repeat that phrase .

Raise your right arm , raise your right arm , raise your right arm and they're still with that left arm straight up above their head .

It's just so funny how I , I do this as well .

We're just always in our head and we're focused on what's going on in our mind and we're so focused on um other things .

When we're in a yoga class , we need to listen a little bit more carefully to the instructions of the yoga teacher .

We I'll do it .

As I said , I do this as well when I am a student in class , but it is super important , especially if you're a yoga beginner , just learning the poses , keep those ears peeled and listen really carefully to the instructions of your yoga teacher .

My number two tip is don't judge a pose .

By the way , it looks , this could go two ways .

Um You could look at a pose and say that is way too hard and I'm never going to do that or you can look at a pose and say that is super easy .

Let's go for it .

I'm ready .

Looks too easy even but poses can be deceiving .

And as we all know , the phrase , don't judge a book by its cover , the same goes for yoga poses , don't judge a yoga pose .

By the way , it looks , especially by the way it looks on someone else's body who is completely different to you .

Or by the way it looks in an illustration you might see online or in a book , illustrations are not always accurate in terms of anatomy and other people's bodies will often not look like yours .

So don't judge a yoga pose .

By the way it looks , give it a try , try it out for yourself .

You can look up post tutorials online .

You can reference a book , the instructions of a book .

Um and try it out for yourself .

You can ask a yoga teacher to instruct you on how to do the pose and try it out for yourself before you make a judgment about it .

Which brings me to my next point , which is my number three tip .

So you don't like the yoga pose .

That means that you need it .

For instance , there's a post called King Arthur .

I discussed this on my Instagram a little while ago .

There's a post called King Arthur that I've done a tutorial about on this channel a few years ago .

Now , it is a very intense and deep quad stretch and sitting down all day , especially now I'm sitting down on my computer a lot .

My quads and my hip flexor are very tight .

King Arthur is really tough for me and I hate doing that pose .

It is something that I dread doing and I don't do it nearly as often as I should .

But since I know that I feel this way about this pose , I also know that this is a pose that I really need the most .

This is something that my body is in need of .

My body is in need of more flexibility and openness and ease in my hip flexors and in my quads .

So this is definitely a pose that I should be doing more often .

So this is just an example , everyone is height in different places .

Everyone is more flexible in different places .

So some poses will be a little bit easier for you and some poses will be a little bit more challenging .

I would say the ones that are more challenging are the ones generally that you need to practice the most and they may turn out to be your favorite poses .

My number four tip for yoga beginners is don't rush and be patient .

So especially when you're a yoga beginner , you might not be accustomed to holding poses for long periods of time .

That's why in my beginner's poses .

I like to add some movement a little bit , especially in the warrior poses .

I add a modification and add some dynamic movement to make it a little bit easier to hold the pose or to maintain the pose .

But when you get a little bit more advanced , maybe the strong beginner or intermediate level , you need to get a little bit more accustomed to holding the poses for longer periods of time .

So when you're a beginner , it's great to pay attention to when you want to rush out of a yoga pose .

Try to be patient and hold it for just a bit longer than you normally would want to .

Some tips to being a little bit more patient with yourself is focusing on your breath , drawing your attention away from the fact that you're uncomfortable or you're feeling more fatigued maybe and trying to focus on your breathing .

Instead .

Also another aspect of this tip is be patient with your yourself in terms of achieving certain yoga poses .

For instance , sometimes we might get frustrated , maybe , let's say if we're trying to achieve handstand or headstand or any of the inversions or deeper back bends , then we might be discouraged because they're not coming as fast as we would like them to come .

I would just say be a little bit more patient with yourself .

I know it's frustrating and everyone's body is different .

So it might take you a little bit longer to achieve this pose than you would look like to .

But I would just say be persistent , keep practicing and be patient with yourself and don't rush into anything because this could cause injury .

So you want to be safe and you want to ease yourself into a yoga pose .

Perhaps if you're trying to do handstand , you might not be quite ready to go upside down and support all of your weight with just your hands and arms .

You might need to build some more upper body strength and do some more of the preparatory poses in order to achieve that pose .

Ultimately , you just , just need to ease yourself into it and be more patient with yourself .

You , you will get there eventually , just be patient .

And my final number five tip for yoga beginners is to start out at home .

Everyone is different .

But if you're new to yoga , it is likely that you might be a bit self conscious , you might not want to jump right into a big group , yoga class if you aren't familiar with the poses yet .

So practicing yoga at home might be a great way to start .

Another way that you could do this if you're feeling self conscious is to get a yoga private lesson .

Most yoga studios , their teachers offer private lessons .

You can find tons of yoga teachers in your area that offer private lessons by just doing a simple Google search .

Private lessons are always a great way to start out if you're able to , they can be a bit pricier , which is why practicing at home with yoga videos on youtube or even yoga programs online are a great way to start out as well .

A bit more of a cost effective option .

So I hope you enjoyed those five tips and I could get into way more detail into all of the topics that I discussed .

But that would be a very , very long video .

So if you would like me to go into depth into any of those topics that I discussed in this video , let me know in the comments down below and I will do my best to make that video for you .

Thank you so much for watching .

I hope you enjoyed this video .

If you like to give it a thumbs up , leave me any questions , comment section below and don't forget to subscribe for two free yoga classes every single week on this channel for even more yoga advice , helpful tips , yoga classes , free and premium yoga .

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Thank you so much .

See you next time .

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