If you had never had any exposure to Ashtanga yoga and you just enrolled yourself for a class at a local studio or a yoga retreat or a beginner’s workshop course, there is a possibility where you might be facing a bit of pre-yoga jitters. The question is how can you tackle this and how can you ensure that your yoga experience is nothing short of great and creates a platform for better understanding going forward. Well, it’s quite simple. Here are five tips that you help you glide through your Ashtanga yoga session and make you enjoy every moment of this experience.
Relax & Take it Easy: This is the first and foremost rule. Do not get unnecessarily worried or stressed about yoga. Just follow instructions and go with the flow. When you enroll for a class or a retreat, remember everyone around you is a pretty much at the same level as you are and more than excelling your peers, your target needs to be to enjoy this yogic experience. So relax completely, and instructors are generally very mindful of individual requirements even in a big class, and they will help you adapt your yogic experience as per the needs and stamina level that you have.
Slow & Steady Wins the Race: Don’t expect to perform like a pro on day one. Remember it is only with practice that you can achieve the balance and expertise of the yoga masters. Give yourself time to adapt your system as best to the requirements as possible. What this will help is not just improve your stamina, but you will also become capable of holding your asanas for that much longer without difficulty or any additional effort. The more effortless your exercise schedule becomes, the greater benefit you will be able to derive from it.
Correct Alignment is Crucial: This is a cardinal mistake that most beginners make. Instead of mastering the techniques correctly, they focus on trying to complete the asanas just like the masters. The disadvantage in doing this is your body is pushed to a state where it has still not reached, and this can even lead to potential injuries. This is exactly why it is very important that you pay close attention to the correct alignment techniques that yoga instructors would teach. These alignment techniques will enable better fruition of the yoga asanas and enable the yoga enthusiast to draw the deeper energies and unleash inner strength through them.
Breathing is Primary: Ashtanga Yoga is in many ways the most advanced formula of reining in your breath and helping unfold untold amount of inner strength and positive power. This is exactly why whether you are in relaxation poses or the midst of difficult asanas, never lose sight of the breathing rhythm. Remember if you can set your breathing right, your expertise in the yogic poses will come through automatically without too much of an effort. Correct breathing will also help you in getting rid of toxins much faster than you imagined.
Watch Your Lifestyle & Diet: Ashtanga Yoga is not just a few exercise routines but an overall life changing experience. Most instructors would give a diet chart in terms of the kind of food that benefits your body the most. It is always advisable to stick to this schedule and reap benefit of this. Your lifestyle too needs altering as most time meditation and pranayama are advised early in the morning. So if you need to wake up early, you would have to avoid late night parties to a certain extent as well.
Yogasana is all about reaching the point where your mind and body meet and become a single entity. It aims to bring forth all the positive forces together and help you channelize your energy constructively. The trick is to just let go with the flow.