suggestions on starting Yoga self practice?

Do it yourself very carefully. Dummy that I am, I managed to partially tear a bicep--been months & still not 100%. Totally my fault, I tried to force a stretch & it would never have happened with an instructor.

Here are some videos about breathing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd94Gh4lKOA&list=PLhiNtEBsgk1SYY72OgPH1THLzRMZaGTyX&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxbdx-SeOOo&index=1&list=PLhiNtEBsgk1SYY72OgPH1THLzRMZaGTyX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvdiMjSgItg

Check out Yoga With Adriene on Youtube, she is awesome.

kshama2001 wrote: »

As a certified yoga teacher, I'm not comfortable recommending you do poses intense enough to make you shake outside the guidance of a teacher. Yoga can both help and hurt.

I recommend Rodney Yee's AM Stretch for beginners who can't get to a teacher.

This is so gentle it won't have significant calorie-burning properties, but can help with this:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-willpower/201007/how-yoga-can-help-end-binge-eating

...According to Juliano, yoga gives people the skills to stay with what they are feeling, rather than turning to food to escape. People who are obese or suffering from eating disorders have a tendency to dissociate from their bodies -- to choose not to feel what they are feeling when they are angry, anxious, or sad. Often, they turn to food to numb themselves. "There's this sense that I have to feel better right now, " Juliano says. "There is a complete intolerance of what is happening right now." This need to escape unpleasant feelings triggers a binge.

When you eat to escape what you are feeling, you lose touch with the experience of eating, as well. This is one reason binges can spiral out of control. "You have no understanding that you are full, way past full, into uncomfortable, because you're so out of it," Juliano explains. "You have no connection to what you're eating. You're eating a pint of ice cream and can't even taste it. Or you go to make yourself some toast and before you know it, half the loaf is gone."

Mindful yoga directly challenges the habit of dissociating from your body and your present-moment experience. "The whole point of yoga is to stay connected to your body. You learn it through practice, through breathing, and through breathing through the sensations."

This lady knows what she's saying!!!

I second the Rodney Yee dvd advice, and would suggest that even if you cannot regularly go to a class, drop by one from time to time to help focus your self practice. I feel this is important as it's very easy to not realise when a posture is slightly off when doing self practice so having a teacher do light corrections can be very helpful.

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

Check out Yoga With Adriene on Youtube, she is awesome.

I second this, Adriene is amazing

drpmrvel wrote: »

@kshama2001 : I appreciate your time and effort making a detailed reply which I find it much helpful. you hit the nail on the head in the lines "You have no connection to what you're eating. You're eating a pint of ice cream and can't even taste it. Or you go to make yourself some toast and before you know it, half the loaf is gone." Until months before I was the example for this line. Now I gained a maximum control on what I eat and at the same time my mind is not insane searching for food, as I did earlier.

Let me buy the book you have suggested. I hope I can learn it on my own with wide research and thoughtful learning curve. Is it possible that I can master the basics of this art on my own or you still strongly recommend for a teacher?. I have to look for the options so as to make me available on the weekends at the yoga training school. I become very sick without seeing my daughter. She is with her grandma 200 kms away from my work place. My wife is also working (we both work in a same organisation and managing the same vertical). we become so energetic every friday only because we are going to spend another 2 days with our daughter. Our situation is not feasible to keep her with us since we both are in compulsion to work to combat the financial aspect and none of our relatives are available to stay with us and take care of her. I hope everybody can understand how painful it is to miss the time with our cute little angel. Thank you again for your time!.

I was thinking of you yesterday morning as I did yoga. An interesting book on how yoga can help or hurt is The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards. This was available at my library. Do read the review by Timothy McCall, MD, Yoga Journal's Medical Editor.

In the book, we see how teachers can inadvertently hurt their students. I was lucky to start yoga with a teacher who was trained in the Iyengar tradition, and was all about props and proper alignment. This was at lunchtime at a liberal arts college, and she knew we people with desk jobs needed to warm up. In fact, since I became a certified teacher, I seldom took classes from other teachers because they often do not warm up my back as much as I'd like. (I had back problems for decades.)

I have two main takeaways from the book:

1. Don't do Shoulder Stand without a blanket under the shoulders to protect the neck http://www.yogajournal.com/article/beginners/salamba-sarvangasana/ (I never get completely vertical when off the wall like she does in the picture.)
2. (Probably not discussed explicitly in the book but my own summary.) Practice ahimsa with my own body during my yoga practice.

I am comfortable giving my blessing to people learning yoga on their own if they are able to listen to their body and be kind to it during their practice.

http://www.yogajournal.com/article/teach/teaching-the-yamas-in-asana-class/

Ahimsa

Ahimsa traditionally meant “do not kill or hurt people.” This can be extrapolated to mean that we should not be violent in feelings, thoughts, words, or actions. At root, ahimsa means maintaining compassion towards yourself and others. It means being kind and treating all things with care.

In class, we often see students being violent toward themselves—pushing when they should be pulling back, fighting when they need to surrender, forcing their bodies to do things they are not yet ready to do. When we see this kind of behavior, it is an opportune time to bring up the topic of ahimsa and explain that to be violent to the body means we are no longer listening to it. Violence and awareness cannot coexist. When we are forcing, we are not feeling. Conversely, when we are feeling, we cannot be forcing. One of the main purposes of yoga is to cultivate feeling and awareness in the body, and violence only achieves the opposite result.