Ways to Prepare A Beginner for Yoga Practice
Yoga contains so many asanas that are aimed to make your body, mind, and soul work in sync with each other. Everyone is a beginner before being perfect in anything. The same applies to Yoga as well.
As a beginner, you must have good knowledge of Hatha Yoga. This helps to achieve harmony, balance, and unification of mind, body, and soul. It needs great willpower and discipline to be on the path of Yoga and have its all benefits.
For starting yoga, one of the most important aspects is to have great control of your breathing. If you learn to control it, then you have cleared the first milestone and the rest will follow. In Hatha Yoga, there are five steps of correct breathing technique: Inhale, Retain, Exhale, Suspend, and Full Deep Breathing.
What is a Beginner’s Mindset?
When a person is new to something, including Yoga, he/she is curious to learn with enthusiasm. The person does not have any pre-determined notions in his/her mind. His/her mind is just like a clean slate where the new chapter of life will be written. This is called a beginner’s mindset.
A person who is going to learn Yoga for the first time in life must start with the mindset of a beginner and keep aside all old ideas and judgments. His/her mind should be open to accepting new things and techniques, and he/she should be ready to learn and grow. With this approach, he/she will find joy and happiness in learning.
Without having a beginner’s mindset, there are chances that the practice of yoga may become monotonous and obstacles may arise in the path of learning. So, keeping a beginner’s mindset is a must to explore something new.
Ways to Prepare A Beginner for Yoga Practice:
There are various ways that can be used to prepare a beginner’s mind for Yoga practice. Once the mind is ready, the body will easily adapt. Let us discuss these ways:
- Learn How to Breathe:
Having great control over your breathing is the first step in learning Yoga. Once you cross this obstacle, the journey ahead would look easier. Mindful breathing creates a beautiful and strong link between the mind and the body. It relaxes your body and mind and saves you from injuring yourself by overdoing things.
- Listen to What Your Body Says:
Your body feels and says a lot. One must learn to listen to the body. When Yoga is practiced, the body feels loads of sensations. Most of them are good, while some can be cautious indicating that you are putting more than the necessary load on your body in the hurry of achieving results. Listen to these sensations, appreciate the good ones, and pay heed to the bad ones. If your body is not accepting the way you are practicing the Yoga asanas, then change your ways to make your body feel comfortable.
- Start from the Center:
The spine is the center and, maybe, the most important part of the body. It should be properly aligned and adjusted before any asana is started, otherwise, it may lead to injuries. The muscles surrounding the spine should be stretched and strengthened. This will help you in performing poses with great ease.
- Do not Skip Beginner Level Postures:
The beginner-level poses are simple to perform, but they are quite helpful in making your body flexible and strengthening it. Some people feel that these poses are useless and they should start with more complex poses. This mindset is completely wrong. So, one must not skip beginner-level poses.
- Keep the Details in Mind:
Before starting any asana, go into its details, like the correct way of doing it, the breathing patterns, how various body parts are involved in it, its effects on the body, etc. All minute details must be kept in mind so that the asana can be performed correctly to gain benefits.
- Keep Judgement, Expectations, and Ego Aside:
Being judgemental, having expectations, and ego, these three are obstacles in life as well as in the practice of Yoga. Moreover, they also become the reason for stress. Keeping oneself stress-free during Yoga is necessary. So, keep these three evils aside and be open to accepting new things.
- Do not Worry About the Results:
When we think about results, we can not do anything properly. The same applies to Yoga. In the hurry of getting results, we use to skip certain important things and sometimes we overdo things as well. It actually harms us. So, forget about the results and concentrate only on the process.
- Be Curious Like a Child and Open to New Possibilities:
Until you are curious like a child, you cannot learn anything new. You should also keep your mindset open and adaptable to new possibilities. This will make you a great learner.
- Be Vulnerable and Have Faith in the Process:
Being vulnerable is never easy. A lot of strength and courage are needed. When you learn Yoga from an experienced teacher, you are afraid to ask questions as you do not know the reaction of the teacher. Always remember that you tend to make mistakes and taking the teacher’s help in correcting them is not something wrong. Go for it.
These ways will help you to prepare your mindset to go for Yoga learning.
