Yoga For Beginners: 5 Tips For Starting Yoga For The First Time

Thinking about trying yoga for the first time?

Fear not. You are full of wonderful ideas, and starting yoga is a big one. That is, beginning a yoga practice is a wonderful idea.

1. Understand the Core of Yoga

Yoga is not about extreme flexibility or contorting your muscles and spine into fancy shapes.

It's about breathing, finding inner strength through meditation, and creating freedom in the body with basic yoga poses.

It's truly that simple.

So don’t worry about losing weight or bending over backwards (those will come soon enough). Instead, understand that yoga is a process and a lifestyle. The physical practice is only one of the eight limbs of yoga.

2. Notice Your Breathing

While a teacher at one yoga class may instruct students in a completely different style of breathing to the yoga studio next door, it's really all the same.

While the breathing exercise itself may seem important, the most important thing to learn is awareness of breath.

Whether you are taking a forceful exhale out the mouth in a Kundalini yoga class or filling your chest with fresh oxygen in a relaxing yoga pose, the connection between awareness and breath is one of the most beneficial aspects of yoga for beginners.

Simply starting to notice your inhale and exhale can yield better sleep, reduced stress, and more present moment awareness.

3. Start with Acceptance

Yoga is more than just a form of exercise. It's a way of existing in the world. A way of being, so to speak. The word yoga itself means "union" in Sanskrit. Union among all aspects of your life.

When you live in a state of union, or yoga, there is no separation between your thoughts and your present state.

That means, no whining and wistful thinking about the way things should or ought to be.

4. Learn Basic Yoga Poses

Once you feel ready for the physical side of your yoga practice, you can start to mindfully experiment with yoga poses for beginners.

There is no need to try to jump into the more complex poses (um, hello inversions) or to try to be as bendy as the person next to you.

5. Join Yoga Burn Challenge

The best way to learn yoga postures safely and effectively is to learn from an experienced yoga instructor.

Zoe Bray-Cotton is an internationally certified personal trainer, yoga instructor and female transformation specialist to over 1 million women around the world.

Zoe is the creator of international best selling fitness systems for women such as Yoga Burn, as well as the Yoga Burn Facebook and Instagram Community.

Click below to join 12 week yoga burn challenge below.