Beginners to yoga are wonderful

Yoga can seem quite daunting to the very early beginner. If they enter a fairly advanced yoga class or even a basic yoga class with the odd advanced student, feelings of inadequacy can come up. Beginner students should not compare themselves to the advanced students, that is not kind to either of them and goes against the first of the yamas (yogic laws for life) Ahimsa. Kindness to onself and others. Really beginner yoga students are delightful and this time for a yoga student can be one of the most wonderous in their yogic path.

Stepping inside a yoga studio for the first time you can feel as though you have entered another world. I remember the first time I presented myself at my Ashtanga School. There were people flipping and bending all over the place. My mouth was open and it was hard for me to concentrate on what I was doing I was taking it all in so much. My teacher ended up putting me in the front row so I could listen to what she was saying without getting caught up in everyone else.

Your yoga teacher will make a huge difference on the way you develop and relate to yoga. Beginners should be grinners as far as I am concerned. It is a fantastic time to start to relate to the body and breath and yoga is simply one of the most easy to access styles of exercise ever. It is not really a style of exercise, it is so much more. Depending on what kind of person your teacher is, is how you will relate to yoga.

For me yoga is a spiritual endeavour and my teacher and the way she treated me as a beginner I have to thank for that. Undoubtedly my body is in far better shape than ever before thanks and due to the yoga I practice but also my mental wellbeing is greater and lighter than ever before. This is all due to yoga, yes indeed.

As a beginner starts to navigate their way through a class it can become apparent how fantastic our bodies are and what wonders of the world human beings are in general. The way our bodies fit together, foot aligns with the spine, buttocks cradle the heel, it is amazing and magical.

The early beginnings of a yoga practice can illuminate our soul and make it really quite easy to keep up attendance at class. But you must find the style of yoga that suits your soul. There are so many different styles now and we are such a many and splendoured style of people that giving a few different classes a go is a good idea. It actually took me 4 years of trying classes until I found that one that I loved. I have stayed with this style for the last 10 years now and couldn’t be happier.

Yoga is something that can develop slowly over time. I am lucky to have begun teaching yoga over the last few years. I have a beginners class that I teach 2 times a week and it is really my favourite class of the week. That comes as a surprise to me as I thought I would like the advanced students better. My beloved beginners return and return and they progress slowly but it is so obvious what they are doing is sinking in. It makes my heart happy and open to see them stretching and trying and listening to what I am saying. Their limbs are lengthening, their muscles becoming toned and supple and their hearts and happiness are growing with each class they attend with me. I can witness that some of them are beginning a life long relationship with yoga, as I have done. How lovely.

Yoga is accessible to all of us. Learning to control the breath and use your body and muscles with awareness is open to all. We can all do it and beginners are only that for a very short period of time. Once our bodies swallow the information and take it in it is stored for life. No matter how often we attend the classes we have absorbed the information and have it for life.

Yoga is for all types of students and all types of people, short, tall, fat, thin. We can all do it and everyone can open their hearts. Is that not the main achievement of practicing yoga? An open heart and healthy body. Give it a go, even if it is for the first time.