The First Months of Your Yoga Practice

Practical Guide: Your First Month of Practice

1. Just show up.

2. Don't worry about memorizing anything.  Your aim is to show up every day. The rest will come automatically. No one in the class cares if you know what you are doing. The teacher doesn't expect you to know anything.  Just show up. (And remember to take off your shoes.)

3. Each morning you will wake up and some days you will feel good and some days you'll feel bad and the thing is to get past the ups and downs of the mind and just show up anyway.  This isn't the kind of thing where you think to yourself "oh, I feel nice today I think I will go to yoga".  Nope.  The yoga bit is showing up regardless of how you feel because feelings are always changing. Philosophically, this is the identifying with the unchanging Yoga Sutra thing. Try to get right away that it ain't about the asanas. Just show up.

4. Or maybe think about the asanas as where your body is located in space.  So rather than your body being at home, take it to the shala.

5. Build up your daily practice with the mantra of "slow and steady".  There is no rush.  There is no finish line.

6.  The first month (actually, the first few years) is all about trying to establish a habit.  That is one of the reasons why you start with a small amount of time.  It is much easier to show up for perhaps twenty minutes each day than 90.  This is different than going to a 90 minute yoga class.  This is about a daily practice as part of the rest of your life.  Start small.  A little each day. This is the traditional method for learning and practicing Ashtanga yoga.  We aren't changing a thing because this really does work. 
7. It is ok to know nothing. It is ok to feel uncomfortable. It is ok if your ego gets bruised.  Be willing to learn.  Just be a student.

8. Yoga is not friendship time. Yoga goes beyond that. You can leave all that at the door.  You don't have to say good morning or be in a nice mood.  It really isn't about that. Your teacher isn't supposed to be your friend. Your fellow students are busy learning and practicing just like you are.  Let the space be more.  Let the energy be raised.

9. Just show up.

10. Keep showing up.

Moving beyond the soreness and moving when there is pain.

 Move your body in new ways, build strength, increase your flexibility  and you will be sore.   This is actually a very good thing!

  When you move deeper/more the body will feel “sore” for 24-48hours (while the body is changing); the best remedy for soreness is to move again!  with-in 24-48 hours.   This is how you move beyond soreness. Remember consistency is the key to progress. Practice 4-6 times a week.

 Try enjoying this soreness- it is a clear sign that you are changing, enjoy feeling the muscles, enjoy remembering how your body moves and feels- Enjoy being ALIVE and Vital enough to be able to get sore! See it as a challenge to move (literally) beyond.

• Yoga Asana (any vigorous exercise, sweating) is Stimulus for change. 
• Change happens in the body (it becomes stronger, more flexible) during the 24-48 hours after. (1st decay of old cells and 2nd Growth of new cells)
• If there isn't re-stimulus after 48 hours the body begins to lose that progress  (Decay)

 

To quote Dr. Harry S. Lodge co-author with Chris Crowley of, Younger Next Year and Younger Next Year for Women: "Exercise is healthy stress...When you exercise fairly hard you stress your muscles . You drain them of energy stores and you actually injure them slightly. The stress of exercise is good because it tears you down to build you back up a little stronger....It is a signal to your body that it needs to repair the damage and then some.  It needs to make the muscle just a little stronger. To store just a little more energy for tomorrow. To build a few more tiny blood vessels inside the muscle. To get a little younger."  .... " At rest, only 20 percent of your blood flow moves through your muscles: in a trained athlete, that rises, with exercise, to 80 percent. Picture it: torrents, rivers of blood flooding through your muscles with exercise, picking up the cytokines, the messengers of inflammation and repair, growth and healing, and taking them to every corner of your body....Every joint, every bone, every organ, every tiny part of your magnificent brain gets it's bath of C-6, and then the wonderful, rejuvenating C-10 each time you sweat. That's the right balance, good decay triggering growth."

 I recommend this book for understanding  how one can avoid 70% or more of disease and  70% or more of the negative affects of aging; empowering you to live an active, independent life longer.  It is also motivating and funny. We are likely to live a  much longer life than previous generations. Will it be active and independent until near the end?  or will we become increasingly helpless and dependent on "care" for years or decades of our life?  It doesn't have to be all downhill after 40, 50, 60,70 years old you can create a younger body now, and maintain it to very late in life.  ~Move it or lose it.~

 Pain is another thing all together; we tend to stop moving due to injury/pain. Rest it, stop all exercise. This is a huge mistake, keep moving, exercising all the parts you can (remember you are increasing oxygen and blood flow to the whole body)! Pain is our teacher, so do continue to move, even move the injured parts in the range of motion you are able without pain, move through soreness and to the edge of pain. If you measure the pain from 1- 10, (10 being most severe), continue to move (slowly with the breath and mindful focus) up to the 1-2 range of pain and learn. This is where to check alignment:  are you breathing correctly? is the joint supported with correct, balanced muscle engagement? Are the spine, shoulders and hips in alignment? Do you feel energy spiraling through the limbs and torso?  Move with alignment and energy in mind, noticing what feels better and doing that!   To think and focus of building new strength and flexibility in improved alignment, rather than focus on what isn’t working. This is the mindset for healing. Homeopathy, Arnica, herbs, Epsom salts baths, essential oils, and acupuncture are some options for healing, but for goodness sake keep on moving!

 Of course if the pain is 8-10 range all the time, seek medical attention. Yet keep in mind, more and more people are getting results from yoga, physical therapy and exercise thereby  avoiding surgeries and other procedures that may or may not help. 

My Teacher, James Cardinale, recently when I mentioned shoulder pain (in the 4-7 degree range) had me do handstands. I was very surprised to realize there was no pain in doing handstands! Later, even just thinking of handstands, I aligned my shoulders better throughout the day! I discovered the pain was coming from how I was holding my shoulder while at the computer and reaching to the back seat of the car to lift out stuff! Changing those habits and doing head and handstands are healing - healing more than just that shoulder too!

"The body is a treacherous friend. Give it its due; no more.  Pain and pleasure are transitory; endure all dualities with      calmness, trying at the same time to remove yourself beyond their power. Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor will flee." 

         ~Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri______________