Beginner's Guide to Yoga, anyone?

[sshih 18]

I started doing yoga pretty consistently a few months ago, and I really love it. I will say very bluntly though... classes are flippin' expensive! My Groupon to a local yoga studio is set to expire in about a month, so I'd really like to try doing yoga on my own.

I'm a little anxious about it though, as I know that you can do some poses terribly, terribly wrong if you're not experienced enough. Is anyone out there a wise yogi who might be able to provide a few tips, workout plans, resources, shared notebooks, or even.. fair warnings against me practicing yoga on my own?

As always, I'm eager to integrate Evernote into my daily yoga regimen. I was thinking of putting together a "beginner's guide to yoga" notebook for myself and possibly others (if anyone else is interested, I'd be happy to set one up!) Is anyone already doing something similar? What might be the best way to keep track of different poses/workout plans?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi. This is a great topic. Thanks for starting it!

I don't know how things will go if you do it on your own from the start. For the first few years I always had instructors at least once a week. It was a little expensive, but worth it. A mix of individual and group practice is ideal, in my opinion.

For a couple of years I ran a yoga club with about 100 members. We received funding from the university to establish classes for the graduate students, and we would invite excellent teachers from New York and the local area to teach. If you can find a space and if you figure out the money, it might work to get together with a few people on a smaller scale and do something similar.

Unfortunately, I moved away from that area, and I am on my own now. The schedules and locations of classes where we live now make it very difficult to get instruction. It's OK, because I like to do yoga on my own, but I think I would benefit from having a teacher once in a while. I subscribe to Yoga journal (I think their target reader is female, but it still has relevant content), follow a couple of DVD videos (I have two yogis in particular that I like), and I read the blogs. I am hoping that the next place I move will have yoga studios nearby!

I'd be very interested in seeing a shared notebook for this. Please go forward with it!

To start off with, though, you might want to make a list of sites, videos, books, and other resources. At least at the beginning, you may also want to pick a particular style and focus on it. Otherwise, you are liable to just stand around doing glorified stretching, or worse, hurt yourself. I think this is a possibility when you don't know how to adjust the pose to meet your own physical condition (this is something a teacher can help you do). Later on, when you have a sense of what is out there, and how to do the poses in a safe way, you can try other styles and be a little more eclectic.

Personally, I'm partial to one style of yoga that I have grown to enjoy. I generally like to avoid eclectic classes. I occasionally participate in ones led by instructors who cobble together their own series of poses taken from different traditions, but most of the time they are kind of like those meals you fix for yourself when you haven't gone to the grocery store in a while -- just a mishmash of stuff that the instructor has at hand in their toolbox. Maybe I just haven't met the right instructor yet

Anyhow, as you can see, I could probably go on and on about this! I'd like to hear more about what you had in mind and what others think about the idea.

[sshih 18]

Hi GrumpyMonkey,

Thank you for your insights and for introducing me to Yoga journal! To start, I wanted to use the notebook to aggregate a list of resources - sites, videos, books, etc. as you said- as vauable reference points for different poses and workouts. For example, I know that traditional Bikram yoga has a very structured routine made up of a few poses. A PDF file or instructional video for the workout would be a great thing for me to have and look back on.

From there, I was hoping to start a more personalized workout plan for myself based on what my body needs (i.e. I have lower back problems and could definitely use a stronger core). There's actually a yoga instructor on campus who offers free weekly yoga classes and is open to drawing up short, personalized workouts for students! I'll be attending this Thursday's class, so his recommendations will definitely go into my Evernote

Some workouts I'd like to design are a 15-minute morning workout for busy days, a longer 1-hour one for the weekends perhaps, and then a nighttime breathing exercise before bed.

Are there any other websites or books that you, or anyone else, would recommend? I'd be particularly interested in understanding the specific benefits that certain asanas provide. Thanks for all your help!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi GrumpyMonkey,

Thank you for your insights and for introducing me to Yoga journal! To start, I wanted to use the notebook to aggregate a list of resources - sites, videos, books, etc. as you said- as vauable reference points for different poses and workouts. For example, I know that traditional Bikram yoga has a very structured routine made up of a few poses. A PDF file or instructional video for the workout would be a great thing for me to have and look back on.

From there, I was hoping to start a more personalized workout plan for myself based on what my body needs (i.e. I have lower back problems and could definitely use a stronger core). There's actually a yoga instructor on campus who offers free weekly yoga classes and is open to drawing up short, personalized workouts for students! I'll be attending this Thursday's class, so his recommendations will definitely go into my Evernote

Some workouts I'd like to design are a 15-minute morning workout for busy days, a longer 1-hour one for the weekends perhaps, and then a nighttime breathing exercise before bed.

Are there any other websites or books that you, or anyone else, would recommend? I'd be particularly interested in understanding the specific benefits that certain asanas provide. Thanks for all your help!

I'm glad I could help. I like your idea of starting with a note containing useful resources. I'm an Amazon reviewer (http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/amazon.html) and I have short list of stuff for yoga on my profile page (http://www.amazon.com/Do-Yoga-at-Home/lm/R88OQZZU5RS6R/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full). I think I must have posted the list two or three years ago, but I still think that is where I would start (for Ashtanga and Iyengar styles). I am not very familiar with Bikram yoga resources, though.

I'll look around on the Internet for stuff, clip it, organize it, and share it as soon as I can

[JCM 7]

My sanity has depended on yoga these past few weeks, and so I've started a notebook specifically for the art and science of it. I recently bought an excellent book by students of BKS Iyengar, aptly titled "Yoga: The Iyengar Way", and the strategies for assuming poses are excellent. My goal for the Evernote notebook was not to copy/ paste the book, but to rework it so I could attain a better flow in my routines. For example, I used Evernote Food to log a photo series of the poses for the first lesson from the book's index. I like it a lot, for it allows me to study the poses and create transitions in my mind, ultimately enhancing the benefits. In addition to that, I am trying to individually catalogue supplementary data for any pose that I enjoy or do not comprehend as well as I'd like. By simply using the Asana names as tags, I am able to quickly reference poses that are unclear.

Though it is somewhat barren now, I invite you to check it out here: https://www.evernote.com/pub/jmcrae87/yoga

[johanna 0]

Hi sshih--

I know exactly what you are going through with trying to keep all your notes together for a yoga routine--I did the same thing when I started out. I can tell you that all the interesting articles I found in Yoga Journal or other places on the web got clipped or scanned into evernote. Then I took an intensive yoga teacher training--all my handouts, note pages, photos from class, links to check out at a later date, drawings, homework, thoughts, "anything and everything yoga" got dumped into evernote. I had scanned in colored anatomy worksheets, photos of bad posture in the airport, everywhere I went where I saw something that inspired me, I put into evernote. So you are on the right track knowing that yoga is so "encompassing" that keeping notes handy is so helpful!

Having said that, I use evernote to make a list of asanas (with varying degrees of descriptions or drawings) for my private classes, then I can email the note to them after class in case they want to recreate what we worked on. I also use it as a starting point for new students, and have notes like "hip openers" or "feet" that I can pull up, and print out for my session with them. Or create a new note from bits and pieces of previous notes and name it for the student, eg. "Joanie shoulder routine".

Start jotting down what you did in class one day into evernote--just make a quick list of all the poses or stretches. Follow up your note later with a clipping from YogaJournal.com asana index (http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/finder/browse_index) as a reminder what the asana was supposed to look like, and then add other notes as you remember them (turn back foot to 45*, relax your belly, what props were used, etc.) Pretty soon you will start to see a pattern to your notes if you start "brain dumping" (and boy that feels good when you can find things!) Maybe there is a pattern to the classes you are taking, that you can recreate at home now that you have good notes. And having a good teacher who will focus on alignment is very, very important, and those notes that you keep on alignment will help you a lot later on when you want to do yoga at home. And my 3 favorite yoga books that I reference for myself and show students are:

Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit, Donna Farhi

Yoga the Iyengar Way, Silva, Mira & Shyam Mehta

30 Essential Yoga Poses, Judith Lasater

Hope that helps and Namaste!

[Calven 0]

Well Yoga is very good, for health and fitness.Yoga improves, our breathing and metabolism system.You can

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[C6REW 416]

I take it the idea of a 'shared' Notebook on Yoga faded away?

 

Regards

 

Chris

[RickyPaul 0]

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[fiona149 0]

If you're using evernote on a mobile, makes sense to download one of the great yoga apps out there - there are some really slick ones which almost replicate the experience of being in a yoga class - I love yoga.com studio which i found out about here.  when you complete one of the pre loaded programs it synchs with your calendar so you can keep track of what and when (and how much  ) you've practiced.

[Vj Rashmi 0]

If I share my evernote with any one via direct link does it visible to search engines or any other one on internet 

[funfunfun1 2]

I was reading through hoping to finding a few share notebooks that had been created. Was disappointed to find that nothing really came of it. Sure is a neat idea. Maybe since it has been a while some folks may have something to add.

[stephenelarrey 0]

The best way to learn yoga is to get into an institute that gives yoga classes regularly and follow the diet they prefer for us.

 

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[livpoi 0]

In this global culture, we’re beings on the move. Magical vessels propel us through time zones and effortlessly lift us across borders, divides, languages, temperatures, smells and meridians. These same vessels then plop us down in faraway lands and we step out, expecting ourselves to acclimatize in a matter of moments to transformations it took the great ancestors ages to assimilate.

In the last years i`ve been working on this book, to get people starting on this beautiful path of yoga and meditation. 

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[RonaldoAllen 0]

Yoga is perfect exercise for fitness. It is best for every part of body. I think yoga training is very useful for everyone so we should join a gym for getting yoga training because it is best to get yoga training from professional trainers.

[ryan san 0]

Yoga is very effective practice for the good of both your physical and mental health. But is absolutely essential to know how you should practice your yoga and what are the precautions you should take during those yoga sessions. 

 

If you are a beginner with Yoga its better to practice it under the guidance of a professional. You could also get informations about how to start with yoga and what are the yoga poses for the beginners and how you should prepare your body before each yoga sessions and what are the relaxing poses you shold be following after that. Visit this site

 

http://www.yoga-for-beginner.com/

[James Smith 1]

I started doing yoga pretty consistently a few months ago, and I really love it. . Yoga is a good exercise that gives our body a better shape and keep it very healthy. I strongly suggested to you to start your day with Surya Namaskar. I found few popular blog to learn about yoga very well. Here are the list of them.

 

https://yoga.com/

http://www.yogajournal.com

http://www.yogacurious.com

http://www.yogabasics.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga

 

and many more.

 

I hope, this information is very helpful.

 

Thanks

[mohico 0]

I'm a little anxious about it though, as I know that you can do some poses terribly, terribly wrong if you're not experienced enough.

Don't worry about doing something wrong. Start from easy asanas and just don't "push" than everything will be fine. By push i mean don;t try to do position more deep than you can becouse you can hurt your self and slow down your progress.

Here are some tips and plans to do Yoga at home