Trying something new or something for the first time? Headed to the hills? Playing sports? You might want to bring your inner peace along with you in whatever you do… Yoga is not just a workout!
If you don’t currently have a yoga practice, there is no time like the present to start, if you already do have one you may like a restorative practice once in a while. Yoga can help calm nerves, get you centered, and work though some tough sore spots. If you aren’t getting the results you’d like in your sport or by working out in the gym your body may have plateaued. Try incorporating yoga to take your body to the next level.
I know many people are just into yoga for the workout, but yoga does a lot more for you than just any old plain exercise can, yoga will complement anything you are doing especially if you are trying a new sport or doing one that you don’t practice all the time.
A solid yoga practice will help even out the body’s imbalances by streamlining muscles and removing pain that may incur from daily life or forms of exercising. New activities especially require use of muscles that aren’t activated all the time, even the most experienced athlete or very active person is likely to be more dominant on one side or in one direction.
Yoga will incrementally help to open, elongate, strengthen and stabilize the body over time, you don’t need to be flexible or strong or even in shape. There is no starting or end point; yoga is a completely personal practice and every person has a different body, muscular and bone structure with different capacities and capabilities.
Start out with an easy restorative practice and work your way from there. It really doesn’t matter what the person next to you is doing, just figure out how to move your body easily in and out of the poses with correct alignment. Get into your own zone, being tense and muscling through poses will completely defeat you. Yoga is all about breathing and being childlike, as long as you are breathing it doesn’t matter if you fall, or aren’t bending all the way. Just keep a sense of humor about your practice and pretty soon the most daunting poses will seem natural.
I’d like to put flexibility in perspective – you really don’t see anyone new in a gym pick up the heaviest weights to prove their strength or running a 5 mile if they’ve never tried. Please clear your mind of what you can’t do and start openly with what you can. Lack of flexibility is a reason to start yoga – not hold off until you are even more crooked, rigid and sore or worse too late.
