I am a Yoga dabbler but my husband is a serious yoga practitioner and it's a integral part of his spiritual path. Yoga is something I intend to make a bigger part of my life.
Highly recommended, for physical health, calmness of mind and emotions, and spiritual as well.
I would suggest a class to get started at first. Once you learn a few postures, you can practice them. It's more important to practice a few postures faithfully, than to take on too much and get overwhelmed.
My advice is to not try the really advanced postures any time soon, but work up to them gradually and be patient with yourself.
People often mistakenly think that yoga is about contorting your body into a pretzel, despite not being flexible enough to do that posture. Forcing a posture is never good and misses the point of Yoga practice, which is to just work on finding where your body's limits are, and then gently push out those limits, broadening those boundaries.
It is much more important to do a posture the best you can, even if it is far, far from the perfect goal, and just BREATHE into the muscles as you gently stretch. This way, you are benefiting, from where you are at. It's not important to look like the yoga models. What is important is that you expand your own boundaries of what YOUR body can do!
The physical postures are important spiritually, because as they stretch the muscles, the acupuncture meridians are cleared of blockages, and the chakras are cleared and opened as well.
Along with the physical practice, chanting of AUM is recognized in many spiritual traditions as connecting to the universal heartbeat, so to speak. It is the primordial, divine sound. I don't recall whether Ra ever mentioned the AUM but I know Edgar Cayce did.
As for styles of yoga, personally I don't care for Bikram, even though it is very popular and there may be a Bikram studio near you. The reason I don't like it is that they practice in 105 degree studio, and I couldn't tolerate that without passing out. (I live in Texas and we have 105 degree weather all the time in the summer - it doesn't bother me being outside - but in a small room filled with people, I found it suffocating.)
The idea is that the muscles will stretch more if the body is hot and sweaty. However, this method is very controversial and many practitioners of other styles of yoga consider Bikram to be potentially dangerous, because the student might be more likely to suffer injury at home when they attempt the same pose.
I personally agree with this assessment and would recommend a system of yoga other than Bikram. Bikram is also limited as it deals with only a set number of postures, so the student misses out on many other potential benefits, such as using specific postures for addressing certain ailments. There are many excellent books on yoga that address this.
If you don't have an instructor in your area, then next best is to get a yoga video. After you have worked with the video for awhile, then you can get more value out of a book, to expand your practice. But I wouldn't start with a book. I would start with either a live class or a video.
When choosing an instructor, the most important criteria is that they have the philosophy of gently guiding the student to the student's own limits, rather than forcing the student into a pose. I would avoid any instructor that just rushes thru the poses and expects the student to follow along! Good yoga instructors understand that a new student needs time to work thru blockages, and will allow the student to hold the pose and breathe into the muscles. So s-l-o-w, gentle practice is recommended, rather than a rushed sequence of poses.
There is plenty of time later, to get into aerobic styles of yoga like Ashtanga. That is more advanced and I wouldn't recommend starting with that.
Have fun! Many wonderful benefits await you!
Highly recommended, for physical health, calmness of mind and emotions, and spiritual as well.
I would suggest a class to get started at first. Once you learn a few postures, you can practice them. It's more important to practice a few postures faithfully, than to take on too much and get overwhelmed.
My advice is to not try the really advanced postures any time soon, but work up to them gradually and be patient with yourself.
People often mistakenly think that yoga is about contorting your body into a pretzel, despite not being flexible enough to do that posture. Forcing a posture is never good and misses the point of Yoga practice, which is to just work on finding where your body's limits are, and then gently push out those limits, broadening those boundaries.
It is much more important to do a posture the best you can, even if it is far, far from the perfect goal, and just BREATHE into the muscles as you gently stretch. This way, you are benefiting, from where you are at. It's not important to look like the yoga models. What is important is that you expand your own boundaries of what YOUR body can do!
The physical postures are important spiritually, because as they stretch the muscles, the acupuncture meridians are cleared of blockages, and the chakras are cleared and opened as well.
Along with the physical practice, chanting of AUM is recognized in many spiritual traditions as connecting to the universal heartbeat, so to speak. It is the primordial, divine sound. I don't recall whether Ra ever mentioned the AUM but I know Edgar Cayce did.
As for styles of yoga, personally I don't care for Bikram, even though it is very popular and there may be a Bikram studio near you. The reason I don't like it is that they practice in 105 degree studio, and I couldn't tolerate that without passing out. (I live in Texas and we have 105 degree weather all the time in the summer - it doesn't bother me being outside - but in a small room filled with people, I found it suffocating.)
The idea is that the muscles will stretch more if the body is hot and sweaty. However, this method is very controversial and many practitioners of other styles of yoga consider Bikram to be potentially dangerous, because the student might be more likely to suffer injury at home when they attempt the same pose.
I personally agree with this assessment and would recommend a system of yoga other than Bikram. Bikram is also limited as it deals with only a set number of postures, so the student misses out on many other potential benefits, such as using specific postures for addressing certain ailments. There are many excellent books on yoga that address this.
If you don't have an instructor in your area, then next best is to get a yoga video. After you have worked with the video for awhile, then you can get more value out of a book, to expand your practice. But I wouldn't start with a book. I would start with either a live class or a video.
When choosing an instructor, the most important criteria is that they have the philosophy of gently guiding the student to the student's own limits, rather than forcing the student into a pose. I would avoid any instructor that just rushes thru the poses and expects the student to follow along! Good yoga instructors understand that a new student needs time to work thru blockages, and will allow the student to hold the pose and breathe into the muscles. So s-l-o-w, gentle practice is recommended, rather than a rushed sequence of poses.
There is plenty of time later, to get into aerobic styles of yoga like Ashtanga. That is more advanced and I wouldn't recommend starting with that.
Have fun! Many wonderful benefits await you!
![[+]](https://www.bring4th.org/forums/images/collapse_collapsed.png)