Perhaps one of the biggest fears is that we’re going to be the focal point for everyone else in the room. For now, rock up as your chocolate-chomping, beer-loving, easily irritable, rigid-bodied self and yoga will love you even more. There are things you can change in your life which might help you nail some of this stuff a bit quicker, but you’ve got time for that. But we need to live those lives in the real world. Here’s the thing – yoga is in this world to help us mortals ultimately live our best possible lives. Yes, we all want to make a good impression on our first date, but we know that the really meaningful stuff only starts to happen when we let our guard down and be honest. If you and your yoga practice are going to have an enriching long-term relationship you need to show up as you are. Worst case scenario, you find a class you’ll never do again. Unless you feel it’s going to be totally out of your realm of what’s achievable for you right now, if you think it could be good for you, just go. You do not need to fall down internet rabbit holes for hours on end to fully understand the exact difference between Vinyasa Flow, Flowing Vinyasa, Super Duper Flowey Vinyasa, and Flowyasa. Read the blurb about them or, even better, contact the teacher for an informal chat. (Relaxation? Increased flexibility? Weight loss? Strength building? Instant enlightenment?). Get clear and realistic about what you need from your practice so you can start to narrow down the type of class you want. Trawling through the bewildering array of yoga classes out there can put you off before you begin. That’s like waiting until you can speak fluent Spanish before you go to Spanish classes: estúpido. But don’t be kidding yourself that you’ll start going to yoga as soon as you can touch your toes/stand on your hands/levitate. Of course, there are some classes which are more suited for beginners and you should probably start with those (but see below for more information about that potential stumbling block). If you can breathe and move (at the same time) you can do yoga. You do not need to already be able to do any fancy yoga poses to go to a yoga class. Got a body? Going to do yoga with it? You have a yoga body. Sound familiar? If you’re considering taking your first step into a yoga class, or perhaps you’ve been practicing at home with only the cat as your coach, let’s keep it simple and go over a few things so that you can stride confidently into that studio/church hall/gym/scout hut… They start with “well I’ve been wanting to try yoga for ages but…” and so begins their own self-limiting story. Their stories are often all too familiar. I am very lucky that now, many years since that first class (I’d like to say I started as a child…but we all know that’s a lie) I get to work with hundreds of yoga newbies every year. Top hitters included impending period a long day at work eaten too much lunch not eaten enough lunch a teeny tiny little pain in my leg/arm/tooth/brain I still needed to buy more kit…I could go on. Of course, those weeks also included convincing myself I couldn’t go this week and it would make much more sense to start next week for such convoluted reasons an EastEnders plot writer would’ve been proud of me. The weeks leading up to me finally going were a whirlwind of paranoia, buying a lot of Lycra and random bits of kit, annihilating my eating patterns because I wanted to be thin for my first class, and reading everything I could about Ashtanga because you never know when there might be a test and, y’ know, I didn’t want to stand out as the newbie.
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