Starting a yoga practice

​Spoiler: if you don’t want to change your life, don’t start a yoga practice.

This was going to be a piece summarising some of my FAQs and some top-tips for newbies. Instead, I’m afraid I’ve gone to the heart of things.
​(FAQs are here if that’s what you’re looking for, loads of good info for beginners.)
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​Starting a yoga practice:
It can be exciting, confusing and perhaps, a little daunting.

Images of yoga poses and personal anecdotes about yoga retreats and the latest trends in yoga are all-pervasive. Stunning images featuring, (usually) young, white women in athletic and often gymnast-style poses, in tropical or visually arresting locations take up a lot of space in the world of social media. No doubt, these are aesthetically pleasing but they really aren’t doing the practice of yoga justice, and may be off-putting to many who would benefit from this ancient and life-changing practice, which, if you didn’t know, is so much more than postures.

​Let’s be clear from the outset, yoga is for everybody.
All are welcome here.
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​Starting where you are now is the right place to start. You do not need to look a certain way, shape, size, colour, or sex. As you are now is perfect. You are ready to begin, the fact you are reading this probably means your journey has already begun. How long it will take, well…read on.

​Yoga is more than the postures. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word ‘yuj’, which means ‘to yoke’. (Yoking was a practice used to connect and harness two animals. They would be ‘yoked’ together, typically at their necks, to then be able to perform tasks, such as ploughing a field.) To yoke is to create a union, and this is typically how we hear yoga defined today, a union of ‘the self’ with the ‘true-self’. Ultimately, it’s a piercing of illusion or peeling back of layers, the word ‘yoga’ in and of itself is already a paradox. The true essence of yoga is uniting two things that were never actually separate to begin with. It is just the illusion of separation that we need to remove.
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​What can you expect? 
​(more prosaic details in FAQ)

A good yoga class will include asana (postures), pranayama (breathwork), meditation and time for assimilation. When doing these practices we align breath, body and mind, which is beneficial for many reasons, including making us very present in the ‘now’. You learn these techniques in class and should be guided to build your own home practice.

​Through asana we build strength in the body, promote health and remove tension and energetic blocks. We use the breath here to ensure we aren’t straining and our mind focuses on our breath, balance and openness. This is a type of moving meditation – if your mind wanders, you’ll lose the thread of your breath, or your balance, or go too deep, or not deeply enough, into the pose. Pranayama, along with other benefits, gives our mind a single focus, which again, is a kind of meditation. A specific meditation part of the class may also be offered, which also trains the mind.
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​The Four Ps

Alongside physical and physiological benefits these techniques also help us psychologically as (when practiced correctly) they share the quality of stilling the mind – bringing peace.

Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha​
~Patanjali, Yoga Sutras.​

Yoga is the settling of the mind into silence.
​When the mind has settled, we are established in our essential nature, which is unbounded Consciousness.
Our essential nature is usually overshadowed by the activity of the mind. 
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​As a society this is something we don’t do very often. Our minds are racing, planning, calculating, interpreting, reliving, etc., there’s a lot of internal, as well as external, ‘noise’ – there’s always something vying for our attention. We’ve gotten so used to this we frequently don’t even perceive the issue just the symptoms such as, stress, exhaustion, distraction, anxiety, etc..
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​It’s good and it keeps unfolding for your benefit.
For many beginners the novel experience of this balance, internal stillness or unity – even if only briefly glimpsed on the mat – is what captivates them. Interpreted as a sense of well-being it feels familiar and is often described as ‘home’. Most would say that this is what initially brings them ‘back to the mat’. 

​As you’ve no doubt gathered, yoga goes beyond what happens on the yoga mat or meditation cushion. We start to have those feelings in our everyday life. All areas of life are enhanced, which we could top-line describe as improvements in our relationship with others and ourselves. The benefits keep unfolding and things which do not serve us easily drop away. This is what keeps us going long-term. The steadiness and clarity we experience in practice becomes more discernible in our everyday. As we aren’t monks or renunciates it’s not of much use if the only time we can contact these qualities is when on the yoga mat or meditation cushion. We cultivate these qualities to navigate the world we live in more easily. 

​We should remember:​
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The very root of all the yogic practices is to reach only one goal: enlightenment (freedom).
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​The elements within our practice are our tools for this goal.* (Don’t worry, there’s joy along the way.) If we reach a constant state of stillness and steadiness of mind we can dispense with the tools, for we’ve reached freedom, enlightenment, achieved stability in pure awareness, which is understood by some as Samadhi. 

​​​Until Samadhi, we make like Goldilocks, getting things, “Just right!”, creating the conditions that support a state of homeostasis and that’s why it’s called a practice. Even after decades of personal practice and many years of teaching I still practice. The ‘going-in’ or ‘peeling’ is an on-going thing. The nature of our bodies, mental state and personal circumstances and other external elements is changeable. This is the human experience. What was accessible last month, year, yesterday or this morning may not be now, in this very moment, or perhaps we can go further than before because more is available to us. 

This changeability keeps the practice fresh and constantly invites us to the present moment. (Which serves us well, as the ‘now’ is the only reality. The future is your imagination and the past is impossible to live in. All you’ve got is ‘now’.)

​There are many styles of yoga and I would encourage you to do your research, be open, and give it a try, see which style and teacher you gel with. A good teacher will always be able to give modifications and extensions for poses and be open to your questions. Use your brain, maybe don’t hit an Ashtanga level 2 or hot yoga class if you’ve mainly been ‘yoked’ with your couch during lockdown. There’s no shame in being a beginner, in fact, I still love taking a beginners classes as much as I enjoy teaching them (that’s my jam), it’s an inward journey after all. Find a teacher that supports you in your practice and your ‘going-in’.
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​*Further elements are used as we broaden our practice. Please see the yoga sutra of Patanjali for more information on the ashtanga (eight-limbs), which guide us on how to live a meaningful and purposeful life.