I’m sure you’ve seen all the memes and ads touting yoga’s many benefits for us both physically and emotionally. These studies show that yoga can help alleviate low back pain, increase strength, mobility and flexibility, help us sleep better, and help tame anxiety among many other benefits.
You’ve read all of the info and now you’re ready to get all these great benefits for yourself.
You’ve also seen all the ads for yoga classes and dismissed them because you’ve never done yoga and can’t fathom the idea of walking into a class where you’re sure everyone else knows what they’re doing. And you see people doing poses that you are sure would send you to the ER!
You’re thinking to yourself - I’d really love to experience this magical thing they call Yoga, but how would I even have the slightest idea of what to do when I’ve never done this before? You know there are “instructors” in every class, but how can they help me - a newbie - while everyone else is already experienced and movin’ and groovin’?
Good question. For the most part, people join the class and follow the instructions the best they can. Newbies tend to hover in the back so no-one can see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. In a slower class, it is possible to follow the verbal directions given by the instructor and look at the instructor as they “model” the poses.
But if this all seems like too much, we have a few solutions for you.
The first is to try out the beginner class. This is a new offering on Mondays at 5:00.
Who is this for?
It’s for you if you’ve never done yoga and want to know what the poses look like, what they’re called and get a slow breakdown of how to make those shapes with your body.
It’s for you if you’ve tried yoga and want a class that breaks down the poses slowly so you can understand a little more about each pose.
It’s for you if you’re currently practicing and want to learn more about the common poses you see in group classes.
What will we do in this class?
Every four weeks, we’ll rotate through a cycle of poses. Taking our time to show you what a pose looks like, give you time to get your body into the pose, name the pose, talk about the benefits of each pose.
The first week, we’ll go through basic poses that you’re likely to see in class. Some poses we do on our backs, some seated poses, and some standing poses.
The second week, we’ll go through the poses that we do in a Sun Salutation. A Sun Salutation is a common sequence of poses used in many classes, especially in “flow” classes. Of course we’ll show you what a Sun Salutation is and we’ll practice it after practicing each individual pose in the sequence.
The third week, we’ll review some of the poses we learned in week one, and learn a few more common poses.
In the fourth week, we’ll review the poses we learned to warm up the body. We’ll learn and practice some “balance” poses and then we’ll cool down with some poses we learned in the previous week.
During each week we’ll also talk about the various types of classes we offer at Yogacentric and which class or classes might work best for you.
Private Sessions
If this still sounds a little too scary or doesn’t fit your schedule, maybe try a private lesson or a few lessons. In a private session, we can go through poses that will benefit you. We’ll take all the time we need to show you how to get your body into all the yoga poses. We will talk about how they will help you with whatever issues you want to address. And we can do this around your schedule.
I hope this message reaches those of you who have been hesitant to try out yoga. I’m passionate about this practice and hope to create different ways to help people feel comfortable in trying it out.