Lately I've been getting a lot of emails asking me to share my tips on how to start a yoga journey. Although we are all different and different things work for all of us, I figured I should share what helped me the most to get me where I am at the moment. When I first started out I was a total newbie and I was so clueless that I couldn't even coprehend what ''Sun Salutations'' were. I didn't have any background in yoga or anything close to that – the closest it get are the stretches I learned throughout my life while I trained dance. I had nobody to teach me or to show me and yoga classes here where I live aren't as popular as in other parts of the world. I am sure if I searched harder, I would find a good yoga class for me, but being very ''I can do it myseld'' oriented I decided to take things in my hands and to self teach myself. Is it the smartest choice? Well, it depends. Are you willing to spend a lot of time doing research on how to properly do a certain asana before you even start doing any kind of yoga activity? Can you count on yourself and your abilities to take care of your body in the best possible way without pushing too hard and without injuring yourself? And are you willing to spend a lot of time being dissapointed until you finally manage to accomplish something? If the answer to all of these is yes, then you can definitely become a self-taught yogi. Do I know everything? Absolutely not! I am still an under construction project and as far as I am concerned I will always be – there is always space to improve, to learn something new and to get a tiny little bit better. So keep that in mind while you are reading this – I will not tell you what exactly you need to do to become the perfect yogi; I am here just sharing what worked best for me and if that can help someone, I am more than happy with that! So the very first thing I did was got into the closest book store and bought two books about yoga – one was all about basics of yoga and the other one was something like a Bible for yoga, showing you all the most important things you need to know when it comes to yoga. I think I spent a good few days just reading and analysing how to do certain things before I even got on my yoga mat. It sounds like a not so fun experience, but the truth is that I was enjoying in reading those books. It was as if I stepped into this completely unknown world and everything I read was new to me. And plus, when you do something, you better do it right, so why not give your 110% if you can? Now, I am not saying you need to go and buy yourself a ton of books – there is a lot of information on the Internet anyways, but I am just a person who prefers books and I like to grab them any time I want to remind myself of certain things. But what I am saying, if you are going into this being self-taught journey, you should definitely do the research first. How you decide to do it, I leave it all up to you, but please do it because it will make such a difference in your practice. The next thing I always always recommend to others when I get asked where to start is to search for Yoga with Adriene on Youtube. Why her? There are so many yoga teachers on Youtube and sometimes it can be very overwhelming to choose what to do and where to start, especially if you are a complete beginner as I was. Whatever videos I tried back then, I would always come back to Adriene. There is something in the simplicity of her videos that just keeps your sparkle alive without you feeling yoga is too hard for you. She always talks about how yoga is all about finding what feels good and not about making it all perfect. Her videos are super informative whether if it's a regular flow video or a video about giving you the basics of a certain asana that a lot of people tend to neglect. One more reason why all beginners might like her is that she has 30 days of yoga videos created especially for total newbies when it comes to yoga. Maybe those series would be the perfect thing from where you could start your yoga journey. Oh, and her voice is pure lullaby and if for nothing, you will adore her just because of that. Lastly, one more thing that helped me unbelievably much, and still helps up to today, are Instagram yoga challenges. Now, if you have no idea what those are, I had no clue they even existed up until half a year ago and when I found out I still didn't quite understand how they worked, but it's pretty simple actually – either it's a week long or a month long it's always about poses that are given to you every day that you need to try to accomplish. But why are these challenges so great? Well, because you will learn so much more than you normally would. First of all, yogis hosting the challenges always give instructions how to get into a particular pose and that way you will make sure you are doing things right. Secondly, most of the times the given poses aren't easy and are more difficult than you are capable of doing at the moment. This will make you search for different variations and that way you will learn so so much more than you would have ever even imagined. Now, you don't need to post all those poses on your Instagram pages as the rules say so (or you definitely can make it a journey!), but I really do suggest you pick at least one challenge a month and stick to it, even if it's only for you, your eyes and your own four walls. So far I have co-host two challenges and from the start us girls wanted to make sure these challenges are as beginner friendly as pro friendly. So we designed them in the way that for each given pose there is a given variation so that way everyone can join in and learn a new thing or two. Our challenges are seasonal and if you are interested in joining us, come back in September when the next challenge will take place. We would like to have you join us in this journey! Lastly and most importantly what you need to know is that it's all about creating yoga that suits you and that makes YOU feel happy. Yoga really shouldn't be anything less than that. It's that simple. Once you love something and enjoy doing it, you won't dread doing it, no matter how discouraging it gets. And it can and it will get discouraging. But keep pushing and you will get where you want to be. These are my suggestions you can try for the beginning of your yoga journey if you find any of them helpful. Please keep in mind I am just sharing my journey with you and if you don't feel good about doing something, then don't do it. Different things work for all of us so keep that one in mind. And don't forget, finding what feels good is the only thing that should matter.
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