Yoga For Beginners Guide

By Faye Martins After receiving your certification, you might be busy. Many interns have teaching positions before they complete their yoga teacher training courses. This means, we should be prepared to field questions when they arise. Do you have a prepared "elevator speech" for people who express an interest in your classes? If you don't have anything prepared, today is your lucky day, because below this paragraph is a prepared handout for prospective students. This is a gift for you.

By Gopi Rao After completing my third yoga teacher training course, one student raised her hand and asked, "Now that you know everything, who has more tension in the hips - men or women?" My answer was, and still is, "I don't know it all, but both genders have a lot of tension and tightness in the hips." Whether we're commuting to work or sitting at our desks, many of us have sedentary lifestyles. When we remain in any one position for too long, our muscles contract, creating imbalances in our musculoskeletal systems. One of the most common of these is in the muscles that move the hips.

By Faye Martins How much impact does yoga have on the recovery of cancer patients? Yoga is an art form that is greatly appreciated for its positive effects on the body. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are each enhanced through the practice of yoga and other holistic methods. Yoga is a calm and relaxing method of strengthening the body and ridding it of toxins, making it an ideal exercise for patients who have long-term or terminal illnesses. Cancer is a disease that is growing rapidly in today's world, but few know the benefits of yoga to cancer patients.

By Gopi Rao Assisting asanas is an art form that requires communication and observation skills. Teaching a Yoga class is a unique experience, and every class is different. The range of students, along with their comfort and ability levels will obviously vary. As Yoga teachers, we learn to make Yogic methodology an accessible activity for people, no matter what his or her fitness levels are. Offering alternatives to certain poses along with assisting with asanas are integral parts of being a mindful teacher. After all, one of the many reasons people enjoy the practice of Yoga is that it offers something for everyone, regardless of age, fitness level, or experience.

By Sangeetha Saran Many people are suffering in today's world. Common ailments like headaches, backaches, digestive problems, high blood pressure and chronic fatigue are becoming so well known that we barely bat an eye when a friend mentions his or her ailment. While sometimes there are valid medical reasons for an ailment, more often than not the problem is due to a dietary choice or lifestyle habit that can be stopped if someone has the desire to do so. Many people turn to medication for the easy fix which might lead to further side effects and health issues. It's easy to get caught in a vicious cycle.

By Bhavan Kumar How should teachers handle precautions for back pain? Each student who has back pain is different, because no two injuries and students are exactly the same. This is something every instructor should have learned in foundational yoga teacher training. Although I have outlined precautions and prevention guidelines below; these would be considered typical. As Paul would often say, "Back pain threshold and the exact cause of it are unique." Below this paragraph is a handout that you can use to educate your students.

By Kimaya Singh Instructors need continuing education resources for every ailment. In this way, your are able to expand on what your learned in your foundational yoga teacher training. Luckily, this blog has many articles on a variety of subjects. Therefore, if you need to learn more, please use the green search box in the upper right hand corner. All you have to do is enter your keywords and submit.

By Faye Martins As a hatha yoga instructor, you might always include hip openers in your classes, and they are needed now, more than ever. The majority of our yoga students spend all day sitting behind a desk and staring at a computer screen. Even those, who don't have an office job, spend a disproportionate amount of time sitting. All of this sitting leads to some very tight hips. What yoga poses are best for restoring hip health? Take a look at these three hip-opening poses below and modify the directions to accommodate your students.

By Sangeetha Saran Prenatal yoga offers a host of benefits for women. Pregnancy is an important time for women to be as healthy as possible as their babies grow and change inside them for nine months. Exercise is an important component of overall health and should not be overlooked during pregnancy. Many women choose yogic exercise because it is a gentle and low-impact way to keep their bodies agile and strong. Meditation and breathing techniques help reduce stress and increase blood flow to the fetus. Women can also learn specific postures and breathing that will benefit them during labor and delivery.

By Kimaya Singh When teaching students with ailments, there should be an encyclopedia that would compile suggested pranayama techniques and asanas for each condition. Can you imagine the size that book would be? Each of us has manuals, notes, texts, and study guides from our yoga teacher training courses, but we need comprehensive medical studies for every ailment. Many yoga instructors still do trial and error methods.

By Jenny Park Many prospective students are pregnant. Some of them read about the benefits of prenatal yoga or they hear about it from their friends. However, students who are pregnant and new to yoga training should have their doctor's approval. Additionally, pregnant students should attend classes taught by an instructor who is a graduate of a prenatal yoga teacher training course.

By Faye Martins Let's say you're a yoga instructor who never gets questions about hip pain. My guess is your students are fairly young and haven't experienced pains and aches that come with age and skeletal health. If you never covered maintenance and prevention for hip health during your 200-hour yoga teacher training course, it's time to dust off your instructor manual and write a new chapter.

By Faye Martins People understand that Yoga training can be beneficial to their overall health, but few of them understand the importance of breathing properly while performing yoga. Each breath we take, whether it is a long and deep breath or a short panting breath, has a physical effect on our bodies. Combine this with the mental and muscular exercises in Hatha Yoga, and the way one breathes while transitioning through or when holding a pose is just as important as the pose itself.

By Bhavan Kumar Many athletes turn to yoga to provide a balance to their usual vigorous and demanding workout routines. Yoga training gives athletes' muscles and ligaments the necessary stretching that they need after intense work. Postures help prevent soreness, strain or injury. Power yoga combines the best of both worlds by giving athletes a more intense, cardio-based workout combined with the stretching and lengthening of muscles. In addition to the physical aspects, physically challenging classes help athletes work on focus and concentration through breathing and meditative practice. Power yoga teachers can pinpoint some key areas of the body to work on to give students a satisfying workout.

By Faye Martins Sometimes, students have joint problems and Yoga instructors find solutions to work around an injury. The point is to take a whole body viewpoint, because Hatha Yoga works on the entire being. Some of the asanas are for specific injuries, prevention, and different stages of recovery. At the same time, modification and the use of props are extremely important.

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed Many students of Yoga come to the practice with a wide array of habits that they wish to change or modify. Habits that dim our internal light may range from not managing our time well to negative thinking patterns. Some practitioners may even struggle with drug or alcohol addiction. Addictions to any substance, person or experience outside of us are often employed to numb physical or emotional pain; learning to regularly use the many tools that Yoga offers can be a very effective way of changing harmful and dimming mental and physical habits.

By Faye Martins Yogic methodology is sometimes referred to as a solution to all problems, but with laws as they are, many yoga instructors are careful not to over promise. Yoga teacher training web sites constantly warn instructors about making unrealistic promises that we can't deliver. What we can morally promise is reduced pain and prevention.

By Faye Martins How much do you really know about the inner workings of your shoulders in yoga training? It's important that anatomy be covered within every teacher training course. If there is so much emphasis on asana in the physical styles, it would be natural for instructors to know exactly how the body works, its limitations and how to modify asanas for people with ailments.

By Sangeetha Saran It is important to remember one of the primary purposes of yoga. Yogic practices tend to reduce suffering - Although the goal is to end all suffering. This is the reason why we still see so many therapeutic yoga teacher trainings to this day.

By Faye Martins Fans of yoga claim that yoga is proven to provide anxiety relief. Given that an estimated 20 percent of Americans now take some sort of pill for a psychological problem, anxiety relief is a major selling point for yoga. However, is there anything more than anecdotal evidence to support this claim? The next time a yoga student asks you this question, here's how you can respond.