Yoga For Beginners Guide

By Jenny Park Let's cut to the chase. Some teachers are telling their students to lock the knees in certain asanas especially balancing asanas. These yoga teachers have no understanding of biomechanics or anatomy. Talk to any doctor or physical therapist and you will learn there are no rewards for locking joints (hyperextending), but there are definite risks. It doesn't matter, which Guru or master says to lock the knees, roll up your mat and leave the class because you only have one set of knees.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 Some teachers lead great classes, but hardly anyone has heard of them. It is a shame that proper behavior, respect, and ethics do not make great headlines in the newspapers. Just watch the news, and read the newspaper for a week, to confirm what makes "good copy." It will not take long for you to find a dozen, or dozens, of scandals.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 How can teachers lead classes effectively? Behavior toward neighboring Yoga schools, teachers, and their students, should be cordial. Like the old saying goes, "If you do not have anything good to say, do not say anything at all." When we speak of other Yoga instructors, or former teachers, in a hostile manner, what do we teach our students?

By Kimaya Singh With the number of yoga practitioners continuing to rise, more people are experiencing firsthand the benefits of yogic methods. Countless personal stories of yoga training methods reliving stress have given it a solid reputation as an anxiety solution. While this evidence is sufficient for most people, everyone likes to have real data to back up their opinions.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 How important are communication skills? Here is an oxymoron for you: Some of the best Yoga teachers are great listeners. This is a general guideline for students who aspire to teach Yoga some day. Listening skills, in Yoga, start when you take your first class, as you learn by hearing, watching, and doing.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 The dark exists everywhere and so does the light. The dark side of human personality is in all of us. Unfortunately, Yoga teachers, priests, politicians, and police are human too. We are not perfect. Some people try to make business look dirty, but business alone cannot be dirty without unethical behavior.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 Are there reasons why someone should not be a Yoga teacher? Truthfully, there are no reasons why any of us cannot be, or do, what we want, as long as you are not hurting anyone. You should always strive to be the best you can be. However, you may find that many people create obstacles, in front of themselves, to avoid success.

By Shahid Mishra It has long been understood that yogic methodologies have strong medical benefits. This connection is so widely understood by those who practice yogic arts that there has been little interest in finding out just why this is so. A suitable analogy would be like finding a fountain that permanently replenishes the thirst of every one who drinks from it. Additionally, every additional drink from this fountain produces still more benefits. Faced with such a proposition, it can be understood if people choose to drink rather than to investigate.

By Faye Martins Does Yoga decrease blood pressure? At Long Island University, researchers and Yoga teachers are working together to find out. Approximately one out of every three adults in the United States has high blood pressure, a silent killer that puts us at risk for strokes, heart disease, kidney failure, and other illnesses. Although our blood pressure rises as we get older, we can often prevent complications by living healthy lifestyles.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 What is the measurement of a successful Yoga teacher? Should a Yoga teacher take money for classes? How do you define success for a Yoga teacher? Is it your contribution to the common good? Is it by producing successful teachers? Is it by technical prowess? Is it by how many students you have? Or, is it a combination of these factors?

By Faye Martins Does Yoga have a mysterious past? If sages knew its secrets thousands of years ago, why has it taken so long for us to find out about its benefits? Like other forms of shamanic wisdom, Yogic philosophy was handed down orally over thousands of years, staying in the hands of those who protected and preserved its teachings.

By Faye Martins What is heart rate variability (HRV)? How does it relate to our health and our Yoga practice, especially Yoga Nidra? First, let's define a few catch phrases to make this relationship easier to understand. * Heart rate - the number of times the heart beats within a given time, usually a minute.

By Sangeetha Saran Could practicing yoga raise your resistance level and protect you from the flu? It seems as if yoga training is being credited with preventing everything these days. Is there something to the therapeutic application of yoga for flu prevention? Let's look deeper into the subject to see if there is something to the hype.

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed When we think about teaching Yoga classes that facilitate weight loss, we often think of vigorous Power Yoga routines or physically challenging Yoga practices performed in heated studios. These types of kramas or Yoga asana sequences certainly do help to boost students' metabolisms, burn calories and expedite weight loss. However, it is also important to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems of your students through a regular practice of pranayama exercises, in order to facilitate mental well-being and hormonal balance.

By Gopi Rao Sometimes we refer to our instinctive wisdom as "gut feelings." Maybe we don't know why we feel the way we do or how we know the answer to a question. We just do. Some of us chalk it up to instinct or a sixth sense while others discount the phenomenon altogether. Could there be a scientific explanation? The answer may be the vagus nerve, a physical link to the mind-body connection.

By Faye Martins Everybody struggles with stress these days. For many of us, Yoga is the perfect remedy, but what makes it so effective? Stress operates in a cycle. To prevent it from escalating, we need to recognize our triggers and reactions in their early stages. Doing so requires self-awareness and skill. Yoga increases our awareness, but it helps us to control our physical and emotional reactions.

By Kimaya Singh There are certainly no guarantees in life for perfect health, but practicing the yoga lifestyle can truly make a difference. When it comes to cancer prevention, there are preferred foods, meditation, breathing techniques (pranayama), and postures (asanas) that do wonderful things inside us that support and strengthen the immune system and major organs. Yogic practices allow the student to discover a healthy relationship between the mind and body. That connection focuses on concentration and living in the moment.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 Not all of the styles mentioned in this series will be popular with every teacher, but the objective is to provide you with a variety of options. Some of them will be extremely physical and some will be less taxing on the body. Power Yoga: Many things come to mind when we hear these, but the roots of this style are usually related to Ashtanga Yoga. This is not always the case, but more often, than not, Power Yoga is a physical offshoot of Ashtanga.

By Kathryn Boland A summer or two ago I was browsing a local newspaper and saw an advertisement for a $5 sunset yoga class on the beach. Everything in that description appealed to me, so I penciled it right into my calendar. When I arrived at the small local beach for the class, however, there was nary a yoga mat in site. I asked a few beach-goers if they knew anything about the class - if it was perhaps farther down the beach, or had changed to another day of the week or time of night. No better idea from anyone.

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed Teaching Yoga to students who are recovering from surgery, living with chronic illness or contending with an injury poses a unique challenge to both the teacher and the students. A challenge can also be viewed as an opportunity to sink more deeply into the Yogic teachings that underlie asana practice. One of the primary contemplative practices of Yoga is the awareness and implementation of ahimsa or non-violence into every level of one's life, including all of the various aspects of Yoga.