Getting Started in Yoga

During the past five decades, the practice of yoga has become part of the lives of millions of people interested in a more holistic approach to living. Yoga’s appeal is easy to understand. It provides strategies for restoring and maintaining good health while integrating psychological and spiritual training as well. However, if you are just beginning, it might be worth spending a few minutes thinking about your goals and expectations. Yoga is more than a passing fad and your encounter with it will be richer for the effort.

Begin by listing some of the reasons for your interest in yoga. Do you have health concerns? Feel fatigued? Need to stretch? Are you managing a weight problem? Coping with a serious illness? Overloaded by stress? Do you find some aspect of yoga intriguing? Hope to meet others with similar interests? Need a better approach to life?

Your goals reflect your starting point. You can use them to evaluate whether a prospective class is a good fit for you; to open a dialogue with your teacher; or as a theme for continuing your study with a variety of teachers. For example, feelings of fatigue may respond well to increasingly more challenging postures, to a more balanced lifestyle, to deeper states of realization or to all three.

Most likely, your beginning yoga class will be a gateway. It will help you discover new things about yourself, but it will also open doors, some mundane, and others that you have not yet dreamed of. At my first class, I was asked to remove my shoes at the entryway, symbolizing leaving the discord of daily affairs outside. Now, nearly thirty years later, the habit is so ingrained and relaxing, that in addition to removing shoes at home, my wife and I even remove our shoes inside the doorway to hotel rooms!

The essence of yoga is practice, practice in a variety of forms. Asking your teacher about his or her instructors is a good way to learn about the style of training you will receive. However, in the beginning, be open to a variety of approaches and try them out until you find the right match for you. If your heart naturally responds to a teaching style and you develop respect for a teacher, then a relationship will grow because you will find yourself practicing regularly.

One expectation that becomes troublesome to many students is the idea that your teachers can help you without a complementary effort on your own behalf. In the end, that expectation leads to disappointment and often a good deal of confusion for both teacher and student.

A story illustrating the importance of practice is often passed along in classes. It tells of a student who was sent for milk by his teacher. Unfortunately, the student had never seen a cow, so the teacher was forced to explain about the size of the animal, its distinctive shape, and the silky white liquid called “milk.” The student stumbled on a statue of a cow with a bucket of whitewash sitting nearby. He thought the statue to be a good likeness, and in his eagerness, took a full mouthful of the paint. It was so disgusting that he ran all the way back to his teacher to complain. His teacher’s response: “Did you milk the cow yourself?”

Yoga has caught on in the West and is simultaneously being revived in the East. There are good reasons for this, reasons that have endured for more than forty centuries. Among them is the realization that yoga is ultimately a way of self-knowledge, a mirror to reflect the brightest and purest part of yourself. The practices of asana, pranayama, and relaxation are a powerful step toward the recovery of inner balance and clarity. Meditation practices offer a different kind of training, emphasizing patient, quiet stillness. One who can offer light on these practices, a good teacher at any level is a great friend.